Navy SEALs participate in charity game against Bruins alumni

BRIGHTON, Mass. -- When Jeffrey McGovern deployed to Europe, the member of SEAL Team 2 packed a little something extra: his hockey bag, tucked in amongst his gear and stowed in his barracks room. Hockey had been a constant in his life, since age 6, and it had grown into piece of himself.

It was there, on deployment, when he found a flyer for a local military team on base. He was busy, always, but when he could, he would head over to play for the team, which had games all over Germany and Austria, among other places.

One weekend, he snagged a rental car and headed for Czech Republic, bound for a weekend hockey tournament. He, along with someone from Operational Detachment Alpha in the Army, bunked together in an abandoned restaurant, playing 48 hours of games.

“Any training trip I had to go on, I would bring my gear and if we had the night off or the weekend off, I’d go to a rink and sit in the lobby until I could get in a game,” he said.

Which was where he found himself on a trip to the Baltics. No one spoke English.

“So, this older gentleman walks in, and I’d been there for like three nights, and finally we looked at each other and he’s like, ‘Play?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah,’ and I pretended to take a shot,” McGovern said. “He gave me a date and time.”

It was a juniors-level practice, which McGoven took part in, watching the coach draw up drills on a white board, coming back again for a pickup hour.

McGovern was once again on the ice Saturday night, this time at Warrior Ice Arena, the practice rink of the Boston Bruins where he and the Warrior For Life Fund All-Stars took on a loaded Bruins alumni team in the 2024 Face Off for Heroes Nathan H. Hardy Memorial Game.

The All-Stars were comprised of active-duty and retired Navy SEALs. The Bruins roster contained much of the Stanley Cup-winning 2011 team, including Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, David Krejci, Mark Recchi, Tuukka Rask (as a skater), Dennis Seidenberg, Johnny Boychuk, Shawn Thornton, Andrew Ference, Chris Kelly and others. Tim Thomas coached, with an assist from Brad Marchand, who arrived from the Bruins’ 4-3 overtime win against the Philadelphia Flyers earlier Saturday at TD Garden.

They were assembled, in large part, by the work of former Bruins defenseman Kevan Miller, who is on the board of the Warrior For Life Fund and has long been an advocate for helping those who serve in the military.

“Our goal is to grow this bigger every year,” Miller said, of the game, which benefitted Operation Hat Trick and Fisher House of Boston, in addition to WFLF, all charities that help service members and their families. “The goal for me last year was to get as many guys as I could. Credit to those guys, every phone call I made, it was a yes.”

The Bruins alumni had dinner the night before with the SEALs, an evening that made an impression on both sides.

“I think a lot of people look up to athletes,” Miller said. “As an athlete I think I look up to them, and I can speak for a lot of guys in the room, it’s the same, for what they do for us, our country, our family.”

McGovern had come to hockey early, starting in the sport at 6 years old with a push from his father, who had played himself and who liked the qualities he thought that hockey promoted.

“He called it an ‘aggressive gentleman’ on the ice,” McGovern said. “He wanted to instill those values.”

He played as a kid and in high school. But it didn’t quite become a passion until he was in college at Suffolk University in Boston, playing intramurals. He moved from defense to offense, scoring goals until the love grew.

The moment he still returns to was when he and some buddies came across the iconic Frog Pond on Boston Common, empty enough that they could throw a trash can down and play a 3-on-3 game.

Then, he joined the Navy.

He had grown up listening to his grandfather, a Navy veteran, talk about UDTs -- underwater demolition teams -- and he was fascinated, enthralled. He couldn’t get it out of his head and, so, enlisting was something he had to do.

“I loved every minute of it. That’s where I wanted to be,” McGovern said. “There was nothing that was going to stop me from being there, and I think that’s what they’re looking for. That pipeline of getting into the Navy is very, very arduous, but it’s a purpose. … At the end of the day, you see a bunch of guys who just really want to be there, no matter what. And I did.”

McGovern was with SEAL Team 2, stationed on the east coast, and became an instructor after 10 years in the Navy, before leaving the military. He now works in operations at Ridgeline Defense Training Center in Dalton, New Hampshire.

When stationed in Virigina Beach, he joined a men’s league hockey team, the Bone Frogs, with the Bone Frog long a symbol of the Navy SEALs. It fostered connection with other SEALs and an escape from the demands of his job. The roster stretched to 50 people, with six or seven usually showing up to games because of deployments and training schedules.

“It helps you learn to be a teammate,” McGovern said, of hockey. “Especially in hockey, there’s unwritten rules. You’re on a team and you defend your goalie, you defend your players, and you learn how to play on a team. It really, really correlates to being in the Teams. When you get on a SEAL Team, that team aspect is huge.”

Through hockey, and the Warrior For Life Fund, McGovern has played against former NHL players, has started a game with Ray Bourque, passing the puck to him off the face-off at Madison Square Garden in a fundraiser between Bruins and New York Rangers alumni.

The sport has been a lifeline for him.

“For me, it’s therapy, physically and mentally,” he said. “Every time I got hurt -- I ended up hurting both my knees in Teams and my shoulder -- and what I did was I’m on crutches and I ride the bike, and the first thing I did was try to get on the ice.

“For me, it’s always been, get out there and it actually heals yourself up a bit, mentally and physically. It’s therapeutic.”

It saves lives, as Miller said.

“Hockey is directly saving lives for these guys,” he said. “It just means a lot. To be a part of that is really, really special.”

McGovern referenced an Instagram post by Warrior For Life, a first-person perspective of a player walking on the ice with a background filled with noise, phone calls, conversations. The moment he hit the ice, it went silent.

“I was like, oh my god, that’s exactly it,” McGovern said. “The moment I hit the ice, everything is silent, I forget what is going on and just play the game.”

It’s why he still plays. It’s why, when he sees guys that he served with who are struggling, who need a hand, he urges them to play hockey, to be on a team again, to be active. As he put it, he is “constantly pushing guys into the rink.”

“It’s always been a stress reliever for me,” McGovern said. “Especially after the game, I get in the car and I’m unbelievably de-stressed. I’m really relaxed on my drive home. Everywhere I’ve gone I’ve always sniffed out a game, sniffed out a rink. Especially in the Teams -- you’re traveling, you’re busy, you’re nonstop -- it’s a high pace and there’s a lot of risk involved.

“Any time I saw a rink available, on a day off I’d go play. It was like a reset. I still use it like that today.”