RALEIGH, N.C. — Fresh off helping Team USA capture its first Olympic men’s hockey gold in 46 years, Jaccob Slavin stepped up to the podium in the Carolina Hurricanes’ media room inside the Lenovo Center with his medal draped around his neck.
Before answering questions from reporters about his Olympic experience on his first day back with his NHL team on Wednesday, Feb. 25, the star defenseman took his medal off and set it down in front of him.
“Keep it on,” a member of the gathered media called out.
“Keep it on?” Slavin repeated before smiling and slipping the medal back around his neck.
After the playful exchange, Slavin’s focus shifted from the medal to what the moment truly meant to him, reflecting the Christian faith that he has spoken about openly throughout his career.
“The whole experience as a whole was awesome,” said Slavin, who attends The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham. “First and foremost, you guys know me, you know where I stand with my faith and my purpose and the game of hockey and being able to have my family there to enjoy it with me, we give all the glory to God. It was such an amazing time, such a wonderful experience being able to glorify Him on a world stage, and to win gold doing it was so much fun.
“Whether we won gold, whether we didn’t, we were still going to praise Him and give Him all the glory.”
Slavin was a key defensive force for Team USA throughout the Olympic tournament in Milan, Italy, helping the Americans go undefeated and capture the nation’s first gold medal in men’s hockey since 1980. Slavin logged significant minutes in each of Team USA’s six Olympic victories and was a key contributor on a stingy defense that did not allow a single power-play goal throughout the tournament.
In the gold medal game against Canada on Sunday, Feb. 22, Slavin played more than 18 minutes, blocked multiple shots and helped keep the game close defensively before Jack Hughes ultimately scored the game-winning goal in overtime to give the United States a 2-1 victory.
The win came 46 years to the day of the United States’ famous “Miracle on Ice” upset of the heavily favored Soviet Union en route to the gold medal in the 1980 Winter Games held in Lake Placid, N.Y. That improbable run to gold was later immortalized on the big screen in the 2004 film “Miracle,” a movie Slavin said he watched as a kid that helped spark Olympic dreams of his own.
“You’re like, ‘That would be so fun to do one day,’” Slavin said. “And so, yeah, I think you could say I dreamed about it, but I didn’t know how much of a reality it could have been until the past couple years.”
The road to realizing that dream, however, has been anything but smooth. After developing into one of the NHL’s top defensemen over the course of his 11-year pro career, Slavin’s current season has been riddled with injuries, raising some questions about whether he would be healthy enough to play in the Olympics.
A lower-body injury sidelined Slavin for roughly the first two months of the season before he returned to the lineup in mid-December. Shortly after his return, Slavin suffered an upper-body injury that sidelined him again. Despite missing significant time due to those injuries, Slavin was named to the U.S. team when the roster was formally announced on Jan. 2. He returned to the Hurricanes’ lineup later that month just prior to the three-week break for the Olympics that began in early February.
“I just look at it with gratitude, all of it together,” Slavin said. “Whether it’s the Games, the experience, the traveling, the food in Italy, all of it. Just gratitude and just happy to be able to experience it, and again, just thankful for God and protecting me while I was over there, but also through this season with the injuries that I had at the beginning of the year. Just trusting in His timing with it all, and getting to a spot where I was healthy enough to go and play.”
During the Olympics, Slavin said his faith gave him perspective and helped him stay grounded amid the pressure of playing in the Games.
“I think for me, it just puts it all in perspective, honestly,” Slavin said. “Going to the Olympics and being able to compete on a world stage, it doesn’t build the nerves for me. Knowing that whether it’s the Olympic gold-medal game or whether it’s an NHL preseason game, my mindset is still the same of I want to glorify God with the abilities He’s given me and play with the confidence that He instills in me, knowing that I’m not playing for the media, I’m not playing for the approval of fans, of coaches, of players, whatever it is. I’m not out there searching for their approval.
“I’m out there to play for Him and glorify Him regardless of performance, and knowing that whatever my performance is, He’s still going to love me. And so, just the perspective of that helps me have confidence, helps me stay even keel and be able to go through whatever circumstance it is with joy, with confidence.”
Slavin’s steady defensive play and poise proved critical throughout the Games, particularly in key moments when Team USA needed to protect leads or kill penalties. But for Slavin, the golden triumph didn’t change what matters most to him.
“Winning the gold medal obviously is such a blessing and such an amazing thing to do, but also with that gives me the same perspective of ‘OK, I can’t take this to the grave to me when I die,’” Slavin said, holding the medal hanging around his neck in his hand. “As much as an honor it is to win this and to be able to do it representing the USA, I know it’s something that’s fleeting. I know that it’s going to pass, but the joy of the Lord is what lasts forever for me, and so I really keep that as my main focus and that as my true identity is being His child, and that’s where my true joy comes from.”
This article originally appeared in the Biblical Recorder.
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