Stanley Cup Champion’s Faith Outweighs Hockey Trophies: ‘They Can’t Give Me Joy’

Published: June 17, 2026

By Mallory Mattingly

Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin checked another item off his bucket list over the weekend when his team won the Stanley Cup Championship.

The Hurricanes beat the Las Vegas Golden Knights 3-0 on Sunday night, per ESPN.

After the game, Slavin was asked what it’s like to have an Olympic gold medal and now a Stanley Cup.

“It’s been amazing. I mean, I look at it big picture, and just the perspective that I have on life, the medal, the cup, it’s rewarding,” the defenseman said, per Christhlete.

However, those trophies don’t satisfy Slavin — only Christ can do that.

“I mean, you put in a lot of hard work, and I mean, you dream about it as a kid, but for me, they can’t give me joy at the end of the day, because I can’t take them with me when I die,” he continued. “And so I lay them at the feet of Jesus, give Him all the glory, and just I’m thankful and grateful to be able to worship Him through the game of hockey on a world stage and on the biggest stage in the Stanley Cup.”

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Slavin cares way more about his teammates faith in God over winning games.

“As soon as he came back to camp, he came to church with us, and then on the plane rides, we started talking,” Slavin said on the “Sports Spectrum” podcast as he recalled of talking with his teammate Jalen Chatfield about faith. “We start just talking about the gospel. He has some of the funniest questions, though, when it comes to the gospel. A lot of, if you think about it, like second and third issues that aren’t like primary gospel conversations. He wants to know about the dinosaurs and all that kind of stuff. So, those are a lot of the questions about it before.”

“There was one dinner we had on the road, and we were at a steakhouse talking about all this stuff,” the athlete continued. “And we used the analogy when the food came. I was just like, ‘Alright, this big plate, this steak right here, this is the gospel. This is what Jesus did. This is who Jesus was. This is Him dying on the cross for our sins. And this is the only way to salvation. All these other side plates — the asparagus, the mashed potatoes — all that stuff is just secondary, and it doesn’t affect what the steak is.’”

A few months later, Chatfield was saved during a chapel meeting and then baptized by Slavin and the team chaplain.

Slavin views his career’s biggest athletic milestones as temporary treasures, finding his true fulfillment in sharing his faith and witnessing the spiritual transformation of his teammates.

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