Spartans Hockey’s Jake Jurgeneit Shares His Vision for Inclusion and Belonging Through the Trinity Rangers

Berk Berkeliev

Defenceman Jake Jurgeneit wears number five for the Spartans men’s hockey team. Now in his third year at Trinity Western University, “Jugs” has become known across Canada West as an effective, hard-hitting, shutdown defenceman. But in the Lower Mainland, he is perhaps even better known as the founder of the Trinity Rangers, a program where young adults with intellectual and physical disabilities can spend time with students and student athletes from TWU.

God and felt like it was a calling from Him to continue what we were doing in Yarmouth, here at Trinity,” he said. Jurgeneit expressed his vision to Spartans Athletic Director, Jeff Gamache, who then introduced him to Young Life Capernaum Canada Director, Kathy Dubbeldam. Young Life Capernaum is a faithbased program that hosts clubs, meetings, and camps for teenagers with disabilities, but Dubbeldam and Jurgeneit found that many of the teens did not have a community to fall into after graduating from Capernaum. This is where Trinity Rangers came into play.

Jurgeneit grew up in a Christian household in Toronto, Ontario, and, like many Canadian boys, began playing hockey at an early age. He also played soccer, ball hockey, and football throughout high school to further develop his athleticism. After graduating high school, Jurgeneit played three seasons of Junior “A” hockey, the most meaningful of which was the 2019/2020 season when he played for the Yarmouth Mariners in the Maritime Junior Hockey League. “In Yarmouth, I was introduced to a program called Icy Knights,” Jurgeneit said, “a Young Adults group that would spend time with the Mariners hockey team on Wednesday nights, playing games, doing arts and crafts, and dancing.” Jurgeneit credits coach Laurie Barron and his son Matthew for introducing him to that community and encouraging him to build relationships with the Icy Knights.

Jurgeneit came to TWU in the Fall of 2020 and felt as though his faith began to flourish again. “I found

Trinity Rangers is a program where individuals aged 15 to 30, who have physical and intellectual disabilities, spend time with TWU students and athletes once or twice a month. “Our heart is to create spaces for young adults with intellectual disabilities and Trinity Western University students and athletes to come together and grow in community with each other,” said Jurgeneit. The very first Trinity Rangers event was a Christmas Party in December of 2021. Since then, they have gone ice skating, bowling, to the movie theatre, to the zoo, and are going go-karting at the end of March. The Rangers are also commonly found supporting their Spartan friends at the hockey rink, soccer pitch, or the basketball and volleyball courts.

“Svea has been my biggest supporter since day one,” said Jurgeneit about his fiancé, Svea Moody, who does much of the behind-the-scenes work to make