Retired NHL goalie Corey Hirsch knows a thing or two about fending off unwanted pucks.
During his decade-plus professional hockey career, Hirsch manned the net for NHL teams like the Vancouver Canucks, the New York Rangers, the Washington Capitals and the Dallas Stars. He also played for Canada’s Olympic ice hockey team and has coached in the NHL with the Toronto Maple Leafs and St. Louis Blues.
These days, instead of guarding the goal, he’s helping people fend off unwanted thoughts as a pillar of support for the obsessive-compulsive disorder community and beyond.
In his 2022 book, The Save of My Life: My Journey Out of the Dark, Hirsch (co-authoring with Sean Patrick Conboy) expands on his groundbreaking 2017 Players Tribune article that detailed the horrors of living with OCD and how he found recovery.
Hirsch shared how OCD hit him hardest while he was in his prime playing professional hockey and how he nearly ended his life amid a career that saw him drink from a Stanley Cup as the Rangers’ third goalie.
Ultimately, Hirsch wrote that he found help through being open about his struggles with a Vancouver Canucks trainer and later the team’s psychologist, who diagnosed him with OCD. Choosing to be vocal about his health led to his diagnosis and treatment. Since then, he’s become a leading advocate for mental health in the NHL world.
With May being Mental Health Awareness Month, For The Win spoke with Hirsch about his journey with OCD, his advocacy work and how he’s seen mental health efforts play out in hockey.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
What have been some of the more encouraging things you've seen with the sports world responding to your story?
What I found out is all those players that I thought would stigmatize me and look down on me. All of my old teammates basically called me and said, “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you. I didn’t know.”
[Recently], a guy played with — I was at an event that I spoke at, and I tell my story, and he was there, and he came up to me, and he hugged me after. He was a former teammate of mine while I was with the Canucks while I was sick, and he apologized to me, but it wasn’t their fault. They just didn’t know, and I didn’t tell anybody. It’s on me. …
We all struggle in some [way], whether it’s our kids, somebody we know, somebody that we love and care about, and that people are tired of being pushed under the carpet and having to hide in shame for mental illness.
What are some the hurdles that NHL players face to get the mental health resources they need?
The teams in the NHL and the leagues do have resources, and they’re excellent. They really are. What it is is the stigma within the team, right?
What’s the coach gonna think of me? Is he going to play me? You know, is he going to, are they going to bury me? Are they going to just push me out of the way because they don’t think that I can handle the pressure… and then you’ve got three guys behind you trying to take your job. It’s the competitiveness of sport. …
[We need to] teach players, if they don’t want to use the teams’ psychologists, psychiatrists, whatever, teach them where to go on their own, right? …
And this starts in like high school, this starts in middle school, of letting people know where to go, what to do, where the resources [are].
Have you seen the hockey world embrace mental health initiatives like Bell Let's Talk campaign more so than other professional sports?
Yeah, I think we have Hockey Talks as well. And that was, unfortunately, I mean, good has come out of tragedy. Rick Rypien, who played for the Canucks, took his own life, and we’ve had other players take their own lives, too. And that happens in every sport in every league. So we have those. We have Hockey Talks. We have Bell Let’s Talk. …
I wouldn’t say that we’re any better than any [other sport]. But yeah, we’ve we’ve had those [charity] nights, and I’d love to see football, baseball, basketball, follow those nights.
And there’s some good stuff that comes out of those leagues, too. I think we’re just a bit ahead of the curve because of the tragedy that happened, and good came out of it.
How would you describe the resilience people who struggle with mental health have?
When I was really struggling and hiding, I still had to make the Vancouver Canucks. Like, I had to make the team. That was probably at my worst, and I made the team. Right? Like, don’t tell me I’m weak. I’ll always say this: Michael Phelps, 23 gold medals, right? Like, it has nothing to do with being weak.
But for whatever reason, it’s been associated with that, like somebody’s gonna crumble. And you know what, in fact, people with mental illness that have been through what they’ve probably been through are stronger than the average person because they’ve been through it.
They’ve seen the hell that it is, and guess what, they’re still here, right? And so in those situations that are stressful, they’ve been there, they’ve seen it, they know how to handle it and be successful through it, right?
Editor’s note: Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps is a leading mental health advocate in sports and has been vocal about his struggles with depression and anxiety.
So what gives you hope in your advocacy work? Are things progressing in the right direction with mental health advocacy?
There [are] two sides to that. What gives me hope is that we’re finally in the place where we can look at it. People can get treatment, and people can go and not have to be ashamed of having mental health issues. What I struggle with is we’re so far behind in giving people the resources they need to get help and the dollar amount attached to getting therapy. It shouldn’t be that way, right? It shouldn’t be at all. …
Just because you have mental health or mental illness doesn’t mean you’re doomed to a life of pain and suffering and not being successful because that’s what I thought. I thought, “I’m screwed,” and it’s turned out to be the opposite.
Look, I played in the NHL. I have an Olympic medal. I’ve been a broadcaster in the NHL. I’m a coach. I coached in the NHL. And now I’ve written a book, and I get out there, and I get to help people, and I’m a speaker. So I’m living proof that it gets better, and that you’re not [destined] to a life of doom and gloom. It might look like that now, but there is help. And if you get the help, man, the sky’s the limit. It really is.
