That thought came to Bormes, author of the new book The Catechism of Hockey, about five years ago while laying in bed awaiting the first of four shoulder surgeries.
“The very first thing that came to my mind was in hockey if you break the rules there are major and minor penalties and when you get one you go to the (penalty) box which is so beautifully Catholic,” said Bormes, noting the slang reference to the penalty box is the “sin bin.” “And when you get a penalty you are making your team play shorthanded and it is really the same when you are not in a state of grace: we make the team, the Catholic Church, play shorthanded. Everything just came from there.”
Born and raised in Minnesota, Bormes grew up a University of Minnesota Golden Gophers fan. Her passion for our national game grew from her father’s love for hockey, although he never made much of a player out of her.
“I’ve always liked hockey,” said Bormes, “(but) I couldn’t be a worse skater.”
Despite this Bormes, who holds a masters in Catholic studies from her home state’s University of St. Thomas, said the beauty of the sport and the passion she shared with her father kept her interested.
And it wasn’t just a love of hockey she borrowed from her father. Bormes also absorbed his keen knack for analogies which provided the second key element needed to write The Catechism of Hockey.
She equates the commissioner and governing bodies to the magisterium, coaches mirroring the disciples and the Stanley Cup representing the eternal crown of glory. Modesty, relics and icons as well as the sacraments are also covered in the text.
Bormes, who’s backed off her career as an educator to focus on the book, combines personal reflections about how the sport embodies the teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as stories from other people which support her ideas.
“I have a chapter on confirmation and it is about a dad and a girl, his daughter, who wanted to be a goalie for years but he wasn’t very interested in girls hockey,” she said. “She begged him for four years to skate and to be a goalie, so finally he rented time ... and put her in the net for an hour. He started out taking slow shots at her but by the end of the hour he was giving her everything he had ... and at the end he thought he had cured her of this desire to be a goalie and he said, ‘Now how do you like hockey?’ and she said ‘I love it.’
“She was confirmed in her choice to be a goalie,” and was able to defend her position just as Catholics should defend their faith following confirmation.
Similar to catechism classes, Bormes noted that parents teach their child in hockey only to the level appropriate to their age.
“I am not going to teach a five year old how to check someone into the boards because ... they don’t even know enough about standing on their skates to worry about checking. In faith we start with this full catechesis ... but at a certain age we say, ‘Oh, I don’t really know what to say because I did that in high school or I did that when I was her age.’ ”
Bormes said this happens because sins are often unconfessed and people continue to carry a burden that ultimately makes many feel hypocritical in telling their children not to do something they feel guilt for. Why this doesn’t occur in hockey goes back to the initial thought that struck Bormes while laying in bed that night five years ago; that the penalty equates to a sin, the box mirrors the confessional booth and the time served represents penance.
“One of the things in sports is that we don’t have unresolved sin,” she said. “In hockey if you have a penalty you go and do your penalty time, you resolve the ‘sin’ right now. But in life we often neglect resolving sin. In faith that terrible thing of unresolved sin keeps us from catechizing our children fully.”
And that’s what Bormes hopes to make readers realize, and correct, in their own lives while getting a few laughs along the way.
“It is just taking those lessons that you’ve already learned in sports into the faith,” she said. “We don’t see what we are saying no to faith. Sometimes we neglect or let off of the catechists in the faith and we see people falling away from the Church.”
The book can be ordered at www.thecatechismofhockey.com.