Grenades and Self-Sacrifice

In the mandatory reading summary we had to write for class on hockey violence last week, I noticed a very interesting section on heroism and self-sacrifice. Trothen writes that the idea of the glorification of self-sacrifice in sports is parallel to some Christian atonement theories. Another way we can think of self-sacrifice is the idea of "taking one for the team". In hockey terms, it means sacrificing the well-being of your body to block a shot so that the team has a better chance of winning. There are many examples of this in other sports as well. For example, cycling requires a cycler to give up his chance of winning the race so that he can lead the pack for his team-mate so that the team-mate has a better shot of winning. But can we transfer this idea to our everyday lives? I think so.



"I'll go in and extract the grenade". Is this self-sacrifice? Possibly. Mike "the situation" is sacrificing himself for the benefit of the "team" which in this case in Vinny and Pauly D. I think it's comparable to blocking a shot in hockey. Nobody likes blocking shots, just as nobody likes to "take on the grenade". So the next time you're out at a bar and someone asks you to "wing" for them, just take one for the team, cause it's the Christian thing to do ;)

Benny