It was an emotional return home for former BC Lions coach Chris Boyko, who took the stage at the Athletes in Action Grey Cup Breakfast in Winnipeg on Saturday, November 15, with a powerful message of redemption.

Boyko, now a pastor at Sonrise Church in Surrey, B.C., grew up in the North End of Winnipeg, a place he once tried to escape and forget.

But this week, as part of a team of current and former CFL players and Athletes in Action staff ministering in schools, shelters, and prisons ahead of the Grey Cup, he came back to bring something very different: the hope of Jesus.

‘I was trying to run from it all’

Speaking alongside former CFL player DeQuin Evans, Boyko shared his testimony with raw honesty.

“For so long, Winnipeg to me has been a place where I spent most of my life just trying to escape the things that happened here,” he told the crowd. “However, 40 years later, here I am, and it’s a different feeling, a different purpose, a different thing going on.”

Boyko described his upbringing in Winnipeg’s North End as a constant struggle for survival. He spoke of abuse in the home, his father’s absence, and living as a child in a biker clubhouse, an environment filled with chaos and trauma.

“I was in an environment of abuse … like, just the environment was abuse,” he said. “My mom was caught up in addictions, and my dad left us at a very young age.”

As a child, Boyko didn’t have the language for trauma, but he knew something was deeply wrong. “The people that were supposed to protect me were the very people who abused me and hurt me,” he said, describing how the men around him were the biggest source of abuse in all manners.

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Desperate for approval and affirmation, Boyko poured himself into hard work and athletic success.

“I was working hard to prove myself,” he said. “Even in pro football with the BC Lions, even when we won, it didn’t heal or do anything for me on the inside.”

Though he spent seven years playing and later coaching with the BC Lions, Boyko said that no amount of achievement could silence the lie he believed for years: “Chris, you’re worthless. Chris, you’ll never be enough.”

He shared how every time he came back to Winnipeg to play with the Lions, he was filled with unease and felt like running away again. 

Eventually, the unhealed trauma and pain caught up with him. Boyko found himself separated from his wife and daughters, becoming, in his words, “the man I needed to be protected from as a child.”

A voice that changed everything

 

When asked what he would say to his 12-year-old self, Boyko responded with a moment of vulnerability rooted in his faith.

“There are words in the Bible that crush me but also soften my heart,” he said. “‘My son. My daughter. I love you. You don’t have to prove yourself to me. I just love you. I’ve always been here.’”

These words, he said, reflect how God spoke to him in the depths of his brokenness and began the process of healing. He credits Christian teammates and the Lions’ Athletes in Action chaplain, Dave Klassen, with making Jesus known to him.

Returning to Winnipeg this time, Boyko said, was one filled with a sense of Kingdom-purpose. 

“This moment is full circle,” Boyko said. “I wasn’t coming back to run and hide … I was actually coming back for a purpose, with a new identity. I’ve been healed. My marriage has been restored. My life has been restored. And that’s through the love of Jesus Christ.”

Ministering where it matters most

Boyko didn’t just return to Winnipeg to share his story from the stage.

During Grey Cup week, he and other Christian CFL players and alumni visited local schools, prisons, youth centres, and shelters, bringing their message directly to people walking through their own valleys.

One of the most moving moments for Boyko came during a visit to a women’s prison. Looking out into the crowd, he realized many of the women were the same nationality as his mom.

“It looked like I was speaking to my mom,” he shared. “And that broke me.”

Boyko’s courage to revisit the places of his pain and offer love, grace, and truth to others made a deep impression on the co-host of the event and friend, DeQuin Evans.

“Thank you for signing up to do hard stuff,” Evans said. “Loving people in the darkest moments of their lives — that’s what it’s about.”