Tigers and Raiders fans battle over God’s place in hockey

A holy war is breaking out in the WHL’s Eastern Conference Championship Series between the fans of the Medicine Hat Tigers and the Prince Albert Raiders.

The trigger moment for the rising heat between the two fan bases came at the conclusion of Game 2 of the set played before a sellout crowd of 3,299 spectators at the storied and historic Art Hauser Centre, which was won 5-0 by the Tigers on Saturday night. At that point, the Christian players on the Tigers set out to do their traditional prayer circle.

Before I go on, I want to say I liked how all parties in the Tigers, Raiders and the game officials handled the next part.

After the game ended, Raiders defencemen Linden Burrett and Matyas Man skated to centre ice, and both went down on one knee at the faceoff circle. When the Tigers were done celebrating and sharing congratulations around netminder Jordan Switzer, Tigers captain Bryce Pickford, assistant captain Jonas Woo, centre Shaeffer Gordon-Carroll, right-winger Luke Cozens and left-winger Cam Parr separated from the rest of the Tigers and looked towards centre ice.

Pickford, Woo, Gordon-Carroll and Cozens are the four regulars who always take part in the Tigers prayer circle. To me, it looked like the group of Tigers players asked the Raiders players if they wanted to do a prayer together.

From my view, it looked like Burrett waved them away and told the Tigers players to go do their thing. In sports, the team logo at centre ice or centre field is a big thing, and it seemed like the Raiders players wanted to protect the logo.

After that, Parr departed to the Medicine Hat dressing room. Pickford, Woo, Gordon-Carroll and Cozens players proceeded to do their prayer circle midway between the top of the faceoff circles and the blue-line in the Medicine Hat end of the ice. A huge amount of boos rained down from the crowd at the Art Hauser Centre as the prayer circle took place.

Referees Mike Campbell and Jesse Wood-Schatz and linesmen Sean Dufour and Brent Vandermeulen stood between the group of Tigers players and the two Raiders defenders and made sure everything was orchestrated in a respectful fashion.

Once the Tigers players were done with their prayer, they skated off to their dressing room and Burrett and Man went to their dressing room.

To me, everything was done in a great fashion. The Tigers got their prayer in, and the Raiders defenders kept guard of their logo. There was no harm to anyone, and the players all went their separate ways when it was all done.

I have to admit at first it was weird processing this when it all happened. After watching the video of that moment, it looked to me that the officials were aware about what to do at the end of the game, and they made sure everything was conducted peacefully.

In the bigger picture that includes the world outside the sports world, we are in the era where Donald Trump is serving his second term as President of the United States of America, and the world is more polarized than ever, especially on the right and left wings. While people in sports may disagree with this, to me I have seen the hatred in the geo-political world translate and affect all other aspects of life and sports.

I know the Tigers prayer circles started last season as an idea from Woo. Medicine Hat has a large Evangelical Christian population, and when the Tigers players do their prayer circle at the end of the night, it often brings the loudest cheers of the night in their home rink in Co-op Place.

Just to note so everyone understands, Evangelical Christians see God and Jesus Christ at the top of everything that surpasses the importance of sports logos to their teams. I had to point that out so it is clear to everyone and hopefully leads to an understanding why emotions get high.

The Tigers also did their prayer circle when they played at the CHL championship tournament – the Memorial Cup – in Rimouski, Quebec last season. They also drew heat for that action from what I would call far left-wing social media sites, especially on Instagram. The gist of those posts was that the Christian God has no place in the sport of hockey.

All that heat did was to motivate Tigers fans in Medicine Hat to rally around their team that much more.

I also note the Tigers players only choose to do their prayer circle after they win and not when they lose. This is not the first time I have seen this practiced, and the first time I saw it happen occurred in Prince Albert.

When I lived in Prince Albert from 2001 to 2004, Dale Regel was in his remarkable run as the Prince Albert Hall of Fame volleyball and basketball head coach for the senior boys’ teams at St. Mary High School. On top of being an outstanding coach in regards to all the technical aspects of volleyball and basketball, I saw Regel as this amazing life coach who made just the most heartwarming impacts on his players making them better persons as they headed out into the world.

He would hold prayer circles with his Marauders teams after their wins. There were times players from opposing teams would join in, and often, the student body at St. Mary High School joined in.

I remember the Marauders didn’t do the prayer circle after a loss, and I just chalked it up to them wanting to quietly depart the court and let their opponents have their moment with their supporters. By the way, Regel really did hate to lose as much as anyone did in sports, but he wanted to make sure his guys bowed out with class.

Of course, St. Mary High school is a Catholic high school, so no one ever questioned their prayer circles. Out of all the coaches I encountered in Prince Albert, Regel, who was a vice-principal at St. Mary when I lived in Prince Albert, was one of a kind when it came to raising his players up both on and off the court to more than they can be.

Back to what happened between the Tigers and Raiders on Saturday, it seemed that Tigers prayer circle served into the cliché that life is about 10 per cent of what happens to you and 90 per cent of how you react to it. There has been lots of rage in comments sections on various social media fan pages. Tigers fans were upset people in Prince Albert were taking offence to the prayer circle of the Medicine Hat players.

Raiders fans at least about 60 per cent of them all talked in sports speak saying it was important to protect the logo and were kind of hoping the WHL would step in to address the Tigers prayer circle. There were about 40 per cent that said that God was more important than any sports team’s logo.

I also have to add in one little background fact I found out afterwards. On November 29, 2025 when the Tigers beat the Raiders 3-2 in the regular season at the Hauser, the Medicine Hat players did their prayer circle at centre ice. I do know that in unwritten hockey culture that would be seen as something you don’t do.

I also think it was addressed with the Tigers players. When I worked their 8-2 victory over the Pats in Regina in Game 3 of a first round series in the WHL Playoffs on March 31, the Tigers players that take part in the prayer circle did it at their own blue-line.

I also know one player from the Calgary Hitmen joined the Tigers players as part of the prayer circle earlier this season.

Following the clash between the Tigers and Raiders on Saturday, I thought during the media scrums about asking the coaches and players from both teams about the prayer circle situation. I decided against it, because there was no way for the players and coaches on both sides to come out with a win on those questions.

I have dealt with at least three topics where I know there are two or three folks likely monitoring all my social media feeds on the far left hoping to cancel me. Those topics include the fact I like the Raiders traditional logo with the Arab on skates, I like the Tigers prayer circle, and I stood up for Lethbridge Hurricanes general manager and Raiders alumnus Peter Anholt, who resigned his position with the Hurricanes following two conduct investigations regarding the WHL’s Standards of Conduct.

One of the investigations against Anholt dated back to 2015, when he was first brought in to fix a then ailing community owned team in the Hurricanes. That I could tell was dicey because I got a lot of feedback for that column I did on my Stanks’ Sermon blog all through direct messages.

That is the world we currently live in. You can be cancelled for being genuine. When I addressed those three topics in the past, I always felt like I was walking a tightrope of potentially being canceled like the famed Don Cherry.

If that ever does happen, I will quietly bow out and say I have had a good run at the sports media thing and do activities that optimize my physical and mental health. I love working out and biking, and life doesn’t seem to allow me to do either of those as much as I like.

As far as fan speak goes regarding the Tigers prayer circle, I just caution those folks to be careful. You don’t know who in the bigger polarized right and left wings in the political world are going to take whatever you say and spin it to forward whatever agenda they want to forward.

Also, the Tigers prayer circle isn’t going anywhere. If the players get told to stop, that can be challenged as a violation of the freedom of religion under Canada’s Charter of Rights.

Having lived in Medicine Hat for 10 years, I also suspect if any move is made on this front that you will hear from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, whose riding includes “The Gas City.” She does have a casual interest in the Tigers and follows what they do.

So I ask the fans of both the Tigers and Raiders, “How far do you want this to escalate?”

I suggest the wise move is to follow the example of what the Tigers and Raiders players and the officials set in Game 2 on Saturday.

Darren Steinke is a Saskatoon-based freelance sportswriter and photographer with more than 25 years of experience covering the WHL. He blogs frequently at stankssermon.blogspot.com.