Retired Navy captain incorporates hockey into Warrior for Life Fund, which helps military community
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If Warrior for Life Fund founder Ryan Croley can’t persuade a veteran to come and use the facilities at its Human Performance Center in Virginia or play on one of its hockey teams, he’ll try to entice them with a fresh cup of Joe.
“If I’m trying to talk to somebody and trying to get them to talk to me and I say, ‘Hey, meet me at the office,’ they don’t want to come, Croley said. “We put in a really good coffee bar, and I say, ‘Come over and have coffee.’ If you don’t want to skate, you don’t want to use our gym, you can’t say no on coffee. It kind of works.”
Croley, a retired U.S. Navy captain and Navy SEAL, has employed that good-hearted, by-any-means-necessary approach since he began working to help active-duty military members, veterans, retirees and their families through sport and community as they navigate the challenge of combat deployments and life after service.
It’s why Croley is the winner of the 2025 NHL Stick Tap for Service presented by Navy Federal Credit Union.
The Stick Tap for Service program recognizes the outstanding community service of hockey fans and military members. The program, in its seventh year, received hundreds of nominations from fans this season. The program’s name comes from the hockey tradition of players tapping their sticks onto the ice as a sign of applause and respect.
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Croley wins a trip for two to a 2025 Stanley Cup Final game and a $30,000 donation in his honor to the Warrior for Life Fund.
“I’ve been doing this for 12 years,” he said, “and the most important thing for me is just every now and then [to] just say ‘Thank you’ every now and then, when you make a difference in somebody’s life, you get a personal letter from them back, and that’s what keeps me going. But this is meaningful. This kind of caps all that off for me and says, ‘OK, people are recognizing what we do,’ and it just validates that we’re on the right path.”
The roots of the Warrior for Life Fund go back to Croley’s military service. He was assigned to SEAL teams for 26 years and is living through mental and physical effects of 12 deployments. He began playing hockey to alleviate loneliness and stress while he was stationed at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
“Hockey was one of the therapeutic tools that really helped me cope with life back here in the States,” he told NHL.com in May 2024. “I learned the game late, and I saw the benefits, not just the companionship and camaraderie, but also the benefits from the cognitive health standpoint.
“I saw the results personally, and I just wanted to give others the same opportunity. … A lot of guys are dealing with post-traumatic stress syndrome, a lot of guys are dealing with family situations, isolation. All the bad things, hockey kind of allowed us to open that up.”
The Warrior for Life Fund fields hockey teams that play NHL and Boston Bruins alumni and other teams at events. The fund also has a developmental league and offers sled hockey.
“Ryan has done so much, and he has done this with his leadership by example,” said Jon Lauder, a retired U.S. Marines colonel who is a Warrior for Life ambassador. “He does it not because he wants anything in return. He had a great military career, he’s working in industry. This is his way to really continue to serve.”
© Ryan Croley
Croley’s effort began as the Virginia Beach Hockey Club in 2012. What started out as weekly pickup hockey games, learn-to-play sessions and adaptive hockey opportunities quickly grew, offering not only physical activity but a much-needed emotional outlet for members of the Naval Special Warfare (NSW) community. The nonprofit organization was rebranded as the Warrior for Life Fund in 2019 in partnership with the Boston Bruins Alumni Association.
Croley has helped raise more than $1.8 million in the past 10 years, which enabled the construction of the Human Performance Center in Virginia Beach. The facility has a strength-training gym with adaptive equipment, offers classes and cognitive-skills training, has two bathrooms with roll-in showers that are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and has a high-end coffee machine.
The center also utilizes cutting-edge technology through NHL Sense Arena, a virtual realty hockey simulator that helps enhance an athlete’s reaction time, decision-making and multitasking skills. The NHL commits $15,000 annually to the Human Performance Center to support cognitive-skills training and community engagement for the NSW community.
