Sometimes the strongest training isn’t just for the body — it’s for the soul
This email is going to be a little different today.
We all come from different cultures, different faith backgrounds, and different beliefs. I love that. I think celebrating our differences and talking about them is how we really get to know each other.
So I want to share something personal.
When I was chasing my NHL dream, I didn’t have much faith at all. If I’m honest, I battled constant self-doubt, fear, and negative self-talk. Outwardly I was confident, but deep inside there was a part of me that was scared to death.
I trained harder than anyone. I hit the weights, the driveway, the bag skates, the visualization. If I had any faith, it was in myself. And for a while, it worked. I climbed the ranks — ECHL, AHL, and eventually opening day with the Boston Bruins.
But then came the concussions. The darkness. The spiral into depression. Suddenly my faith in myself was gone, and I didn’t even want to exist anymore.
That’s when I started asking the big questions: What’s the truth? Why am I here? Does God even exist?
Those questions eventually led me to the side of a mountain in Colorado, on the edge of death. And for the first time in my life, I cried out to God. I asked Jesus to save me, forgive me, and show me who I really was.
And He did.
That moment changed everything. I came down that mountain knowing I wasn’t just a hockey player. I was created for a purpose.
Looking back, I wish I could’ve played my career with that perspective. To know that any talent I had was a gift from God — and my job was simply to honor Him with it. NHL or bar league, it wouldn’t matter, because the purpose was the same.
So if you’re reading this and you’re searching — not just for hockey improvement, but for the bigger meaning of life — my encouragement is this: seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened.
Because once you realize you were created on purpose, for a purpose, it changes everything.
And maybe, just maybe, one of those purposes is to be a hockey player.
~Bobby Robins, savage motivator, ex hockey pro