His father Bill and uncle Roger were members of the 1960 United States. Olympic Hockey Team that won the gold medal. Christian was born in Warroad, Minnesota, and grew up playing hockey, gridiron football, and baseball, as well as competing on the track and field team, for Warroad High School.
He later attended the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, where he played for the North Dakota Fighting Sioux hockey team and played in the 1979 national championship, as North Dakota lost the championship game to the University of Minnesota and Christian"s future Olympic teammate, Neal Broten.
Bill and Roger, along with Hal Bakke, were the founders of the Christian Brothers Hockey Company based in Warroad, which until 2009, made hockey sticks. He also played for the United States. national team at the 1981 Canada Cup as well as the 1981 Ice Hockey World Championship tournaments as an National Hockey League rookie. His international career continued in the 1984 Canada Cup, 1989 Ice Hockey World Championship and 1991 Canada Cup tournaments.
Christian"s professional hockey career started one week after the Miracle on Ice when he joined the Winnipeg Jets, who drafted him 40th overall in the 1979 National Hockey League Entry Draft.
Christian set and still holds the record for the fastest goal by a player in his first National Hockey League game, scoring just 7 seconds into his first shift, electrifying the crowd. After a roller-coaster career in Winnipeg, he went on to play in the National Hockey League with the Washington Capitals, Chicago Blackhawks, Boston Bruins and Saint Louis Blues.
Between 1980 and 1993, he scored 340 goals and 433 assists in 1,009 National Hockey League regular season games.
