Robert Slavin recalls his son’s first-ever hockey game at Memorial Park’s Sertich Ice Center in Colorado Springs like it was yesterday. 

“Jaccob was playing his first game and I was assistant coach of the team, and we got him out on the ice and the music was blaring so loud, Jaccob got on the ice and he froze,” Robert said. “The game’s starting and he’s standing there and he would not move, nothing. It’s like he was in shock.”

Robert said he carried his then 3-year-old son off the ice that day. 

Twenty-nine years later, Jaccob, now a defenseman for the Stanley Cup Champion Carolina Hurricanes, recalls looking up into the stands at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas last week in the aftermath of his team’s 3-0 win over the Golden Knights in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final.  

“After the Cup (win), I looked up there and he was clapping, he was holding my son on his shoulders and just having a blast,” Jaccob said of his father. “It’s one of those things where he’s been my biggest supporter the whole way ,and I’m just so thankful for the way he’s supported me through it all.”  

It’s been a remarkable season for Jaccob, who has spent his entire 11-year NHL career in Carolina. Not only did he help the Hurricanes capture their first Stanley Cup since 2006, he was also a member of Team USA which, in February, won a gold medal in the Olympics for the first time since 1980.  

The Denver-born, Erie-raised blueliner is just the second American in history to claim a gold medal and a Stanley Cup in the same year. 

But like father, like son, their reactions to the feat were similar. 

“For all five of our kids that played hockey, the thing I’m most proud of, not the gold medal or the Stanley Cup it’s just all the kids have a platform for Christ,” Slavin said. “They all live for Him and whatever God blesses them with, God blesses them with and they’ve all been blessed.”

“From a personal standpoint, though, just the opportunity to glorify God on a world stage with the Olympics and being able to show the world and shine the light for Christ through the game of hockey to the world was something I’m just so grateful for,” Jaccob said. 

Behind Jaccob’s historic accomplishment is the story of a strong family that gets together for dinner every week and laid a foundation for success on and off the ice. 

There are many images that enter Jaccob’s mind when talking about his father. One is an is a man who lived his faith. Every morning, Jaccob saw his dad reading his Bible at the kitchen table before going to work where Jaccob noticed him demonstrate his values through generosity. He said his dad still works hard to this day as the owner of Divine Coaches auto body shop in Commerce City. 

Jaccob also said his dad is an athlete and a competitor who won several men’s league championships, including three on the day his sister was born. 

While Slavin enjoyed baseball and basketball, his children took a liking to ice hockey, thanks to his oldest son, Justin, being exposed to the sport via “The Mighty Ducks” movie. The younger siblings followed suit, including Jaccob’s sister Jordan. 

All five children had the full support of their parents. 

“My dad, my mom, the sacrifices that they made for me and for honestly, all four of my siblings. They had five kids play travel hockey one year,” Jaccob said. “How they managed to do it is crazy and they sacrificed a lot to put us through that.” 

Jaccob played baseball as well until his freshman year of high school. Despite making the varsity team as a pitcher, he decided to pursue a career on the ice.

While there’s still a playful argument between father and son about whether Jaccob is a better baseball player or hockey player, his parents had back his throughout his journey on the ice. 

Jaccob went on to play collegiately at Colorado College where, among other accomplishments, he captured National Collegiate Hockey Conference rookie of the year and all-conference team honors in 2014, and helped CC topple rival Denver that same year. 

He is the fifth former Tiger to win a Stanley Cup and the first to win a gold medal. 

Slavin and his wife, Wendi, were in the stands for every home game. 

“Nothing was worse than going to CC on I-25 headed south that time when all the construction was going on,” Slavin joked.

“They have a great fan base for CC,” Wendi said. “There was a group of ladies that each had a player, and one lady had Jaccob and she documented his whole career. All the newspaper articles, just anything that ever happened with Jaccob, she’d put in a memory book for us. This book was huge, and it took a lot of work and it was so special that she did that.”

After two years in college, Jaccob moved on to Carolina, where he’s become a standout defenseman and an assistant captain. 

Slavin and Wendi maintained their support throughout the years, making several cross-country trips to games, including painful Eastern Conference Finals losses for the Hurricanes last season and in the 2022-2023 season. 

They were also in attendance in Boston last year when Team USA fell to Canada in the finals of the 4 Nations Face-Off.

Entering this year, dad made a simple request to his son. 

“We told him early in the year, we wanted a double,” he said.  “We wanted a gold medal and a Stanley Cup and he said, ‘We’re going to get it done this year’ and I said, ‘OK, that’s what I wanted to hear.” 

Like Dad had done so many times for him, Jaccob made good on his promise to his first assistant hockey coach who serves as an example of how he’ll raise his son and daughter. 

“The purpose of me being a hockey player is to glorify the Lord, the purpose of me being a father is to glorify the Lord,” Jaccob said. “I want to be obedient to that calling of being a good dad and raising my son in the things that are most important. Yeah, If my son loves hockey and wants to be a hockey player, I want to help him pursue those dreams as well but making sure my son lives with humility, lives with character, lives with courage. At the end of the day, making sure my son and daughter obviously … them both having a personal relationship with Jesus.“