From the time he was barely old enough to lace up his own pair of ice skates, John Vanbiesbrouck wanted to be a hockey goalie like big brother, Frank.

So, in a way , Frank, who never made it into the pro ranks himself, had a hand in making John the all-star net tender for the Florida Panthers, runners- up for the Stanley Cup last year, and contenders again this year.

And it was his older brother's unexpected death four years ago that started Vanbiesbrouck toward a more important but, at the time, an unknown goal; a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

"I felt empty when Frank passed away," John recalls. "I knew I needed guidance, but I didn't know where to turn."

Having been an altar boy in the Catholic Church while growing up in Detroit, Vanbiesbrouck knew ABOUT God. But John did not yet KNOW God and realize that the Lord could be a vital part of his everyday life.

Until that time, the thrill of night after night defending his goal from fast-charging opposing skaters wielding dangerous sticks that slam rock-hard hockey pucks at him at blurring speed was enough to satisfy Vanbiesbrouck.

After all, the 33-year-old Beezer - a nickname that stuck when a junior hockey coach couldn't pronounce Vanbiesbrouck (Van-BEES-bruk) - had been a professional hockey player since he was 18. He was the number one pick in the National Hockey League's expansion draft that got the Panthers started in 1993. Ten years earlier he had been chosen co-most valuable player in the minor Central Hockey League. In 1986 he won the Venzina Trophy for top goaltender. And he was well on the way to his current status as a three-time Eastern Conference All-Star with a save percentage of .922 and a goals-against average of 2.28.

This season, John has been named National Hockey League player of the week, player of the month, and winner of the All-Star goaltender competition for posting a combined 14 saves in the Rapid Fire and Duracell PowerPlay events.

He ranks sixth among active goalies and 19th all-time with 281 NHL victories.

Those knowledgeable about the game credit Vanbiesbrouck as the key to the Panthers' quick success. "I think now they (the Panthers) should be getting the respect they deserve," said Dave Poile, General manager of the Washington Capitals. "It starts in the net with John Vanbiesbrouck."

"He's a leader, a spokesman, a guy people admire," agreed Keith Brown, a recently retired defense man who played two years at Miami but had respected him as an opponent when John was with the New York Rangers and Keith was with the Chicago Black Hawks. "I never met a finer guy than John."

Now a lay minister with the Brethren in West Palm Beach where he also dabbles in real estate, Brown was one of the people whose lives had an influence in nudging Vanbiesbrouck toward the decision to let Christ come into his heart.

Brown's own journey of faith had some parallels. It was the 1986 car accident death of Pelle Lindberg, goaltender for the Philadelphia Flyers, that started the defense man looking. "I was not sure for what." Two years later, in the Bismark Hotel in Chicago, Brown said, "I got on my knees and God showed me how simple it was to be saved."

When he had first heard the plan of salvation five years earlier, Brown said, "It shocked me that I was not going to heaven. I thought I was a good person." But he finally realized "my sin was the reason Christ had to die and that I needed to know Him in a personal way. He is a good God who desires all to come to Him.

It was Brown, who together with Roger Neilson, the first coach of the Panthers and now an assistant at St. Louis, and John Christiano, then video coordinator for the Florida team and now an assistant with the North Carolina farm team, started the chapel program for the Panthers. They called on Steve DeBardelaben, of Athletes in Action, to be chaplain. It is a choice endorsed and continued by present coach Doug MacLean.

A former football linebacker at Georgia Tech, DeBardelaben had never played hockey. However, he knew athletes and had ministered over the years to many of the best known college players in various sports as the Campus Crusade for Christ representative at the University of Miami. It was DeBardelaben that God would use to help a Christ-prepared Vanbiesbrouck finally confess Jesus as Savior and crown Him Lord of his life.

The ground work had been laid by many friends but especially by John's wife, Roalinde. A Canadian who grew up in the Anglican Church, Rosalinde had become friends with two other hockey wives , Colleen Gardner, whose husband Mike now is with the Phoenix Coyotes, and Ruth Froese, whose husband Bob, is the other goalie with the New York Rangers when the Vanbiesbroucks were there, is now a youth minister.

The three couples were involved in parenting classes based on video tapes featuring famed Christian psychologist, James Dobson. The classes spurred Rosalinde and John to start studying the Bible. They began to become more attuned to spiritual things.

Then the bottom dropped out. Frank died and John got traded to the Vancouver Canucks and then the Panthers. This transition meant John would be wearing a new uniform but associating with the same players he had been around for years either as teammates or opponents. But for Rosalinde, it meant a new home in different environment with new schools for the three boys, Ian, Benjamin, and Nicholas.

Rosalinde did not have close friends nearby for support and reassurance, she felt lonely. She saw herself without personal identity. She was just John's wife and the mother of his kids.

At the school of St. Paul's Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) in Boca Raton where the boys were enrolled, Rosalinde found teachers, parents, and children that seemed to have it all together. She found women who had the same assurance as her friends, Colleen and Ruth.

When she discovered that faith in Christ was the cornerstone for the serenity in the lives she admired, Rosalinde surrendered her own life to the Lord she had been learning more and more about in the past few years.

She immediately began praying for John. "But he wasn't open when she tried to talk with him," she said. She felt it would take a man to share the gospel with her husband, a gentle father but a tough customer on the ice, where at five-foot-eight and 176 pounds. He was small in the rough and tumble, sometimes violent atmosphere around the net.

Although Vanbiesbrouck said, "I could see a difference in her that impressed me." He acknowledges that it took a man, DeBardelaben, to lead him to his own decision to make Christ the center of his life. "I realized that what I was searching for was for the Lord to be a part of my life. We are on the same team. He is the captain of the team.

"John responded to everything I gave him to read and tapes of the testimonies of prominent men," DeBardelaben explained. One of the most effective tapes with hockey players is the testimony of Paul Henderson, the Canadian who scored the most famous goal in hockey history - the one which enabled the Canadian national team to defeat the Russians in the rubber game of a seven game series in 1972.

For Vanbiesbrouck, being born again "has made a big difference in my life. I'm the same person, but different. It's hard to explain. I feel so much better about myself that it allows me to feel better about others. And I hope they feel inspired by that in me."

The decision for Christ "has affected every category of my life. It has helped my game because I can put the good things and the bad things that happen in perspective. I have an inner peace about every decision, whether it is about the game or some other aspect of my life. I have a new found relationship with everybody, my teammates, my family, my friends, everybody."

In his relationship with his sons, John joins Rosalinde in telling them that "if the most important person in life, Jesus Christ, is behind them, they will be just fine. They know my wife and I are behind them in whatever they do, " even if what they do is hockey. Much to John's delighted surprise, Ian already has expressed interest in becoming a goalie just like his dad.

What excites Beezer as much as anything is that Christianity is an ongoing growth process. It is something which will continue beyond his hockey playing days, hopefully into a career in sports broadcasting.

With a schedule that has him away from home half the season, John is not as active in church as he would like to be. He counts on his personal daily Bible study and prayer time and the team's weekly chapel time after lunch to keep him growing just as the chapel group itself is doing with seven of the 25 team members attending.

If his career were to end tomorrow because of an injury or some other quirk of fate, Vanbiesbrouck said he might question God but never be angry with Him. "I know what the Lord has done for us already," I believe we are put here for a reason and that the Lord is behind it all. Better things are always ahead. And no matter what, I definitely am going to serve the Lord."