Shaun Newman Podcast - #1062 - Ryan Vandervlis

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Ryan Vandervlis is a former junior hockey player, mental health advocate, and founder of the Ignited Minds Foundation. He played for the Lethbridge Hurricanes and Concordia Stingers before a severe 2018 campfire accident left him with life-threatening burns to the front of his body, requiring a medically induced coma and a long recovery. He now works as a child and youth care counsellor for Hull Services in Calgary and founded Ignited Minds Foundation which aims to support young Albertans facing mental illness from trauma. Watch the Cornerstone Forum 26’https://shaunnewmanpodcast.substack.com/Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Expat Moneyexpatmoney.com/worldwar3Get your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500

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We are 39 days away until we leave. Yeah, that's coming fast, man. That is coming fast. And I'm going to keep reminding you, okay? I started it yesterday. I think I started a Monday. Can't remember now. I want you to nominate people from across your community, right?

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Today's guest is a former junior hockey player and founder of a Gnighted Minds Foundation. I'm talking about Ryan Vandervilles. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Ryan Vandervilles. Ryan, thanks for hopping on. Thank you for having me, Sean.

I appreciate it. Now, whereabouts you're in Alberta, correct? Yes. Yeah, I live in Calgary currently. I'm born and raised from in Red Deer. Okay. But I've lived in Calgary now since 2022. So yeah.

Well, walk us through your story. You know, you were suggested to me by one of your board members, and I was like, oh, all right, yeah. Like to me it sounds like something I can, you know, former hockey player myself. So walk me through your story. Yeah, so like I said, I was born and raised in Red Deer. You know, pretty stereotypical upbringing.

I had, I was lucky I had great parents. I had great siblings. My family's close. So on the note of, you know, mental health, which we'll get into later, you know, I had no mental health issues, you know, growing up in my life, which I'm very fortunate for. I played all kinds of sports, you know, growing up, I played basketball, volleyball, badminton, track and field, did that kind of stuff until I was about 14, like grade 9ish, which is when I started to turn my focus to hockey. I wanted to be a hockey player. So I played in Red Deer growing up. And then at the end of my 16-year-old season,

my midget AAA team lost out. We were done like early February. So I was lucky enough to go head down to Lefbridge with the hurricanes and the WHL and finish the year down there with them. I wasn't drafted or anything in the Bantam draft. Instead, I was listed the following year when I played like minor midget 15s.

Even even that in itself, Ryan, I think that's a good thing for kids to hear, right? It wasn't like you were drafted in the Bannum draft and that's it. It's like, no, you just kept playing and you get listed by them and then you get knocked out and you go down to Lethbridge. I mean, that in itself is a, I don't know, an accomplishment, right? Most kids don't get that opportunity. Oh, for sure. And I think, I think especially the way, you know, hockey has trended these last several.

several years with all the academies and the amount of money people are spending and everyone's so worried about where am I getting drafted when I'm 14 years old. It's pretty irrelevant, honestly, like the amount of development you do, you know, let alone from 14 to 16, but 16 to 20 and so on and so forth. So, you know, I think in my, when I was in my draft year in Bantam, I was like five foot seven, 150 pounds. And then by the end of the next season, I was like six to and I was still a string being, you know, probably a buck, 65, buck 70, but you know, I sprout it up and I got lucky going to left bridge. Like that team, there was a lot of turmoil on the team.

They were not a good hockey club. You know, the year before I was there, they had like 12 wins in 72 games. So I think it was easy for them to like call me up and be like, hey, let's see what this kid's got, throw me in the lineup. And so I, that 16-year-old year, I only played, I think, think 19 games, but I learned a lot. And it was eye-opening for me. That's 19 more games that I ever saw in the WHL Big Belas.

I wouldn't say just 19. I mean, like, you think about that. You know, you, it's funny how quickly a kid can change, right? To where they're just like, they're kind of not off the, you know, and I agree with you. You know, you're a 1999. Yeah. Right?

So you're 12 years, I was, I was 86, right? So like, you just think how quickly things in hockey have maybe not, like, it feels like it's changed quickly, but we can both agree. Like today, I think we can agree. Like today, everybody at like 11 is worried about getting drafted. You're like, what the heck are you talking about? You still got to go play the games. You've got to figure out if you love the game.

And then, and then, you know, like, unless you're Connemick David, which are once in every, what, generation, you know, you got to put in the work. and the work is a lot. And then I was undrafted. And then all of a sudden I sprouted up. I've heard the story lots. And all of a sudden, some scout or some team sees him and goes, who the heck is that kid?

And how did we miss him? Wow. Last year he was 5, 7. That was over 6 feet. It's like those types of changes can just overnight push you in a different direction. 19 games. I mean, like as a 16 year old, correct? You said?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, okay. Carry on. Sorry, just to me, I haven't got to talk a lot. Forgive me, folks. I haven't got to talk a lot of hockey on this podcast. So I may interrupt more than I normally would because I think it's, you know,

this is where the podcast started, was talking to hockey players and how they made it to where they made it to. So carry on. Well, unreal, I'll talk hockey with you all day if you want. So, yeah, like I said, I got lucky, you know, getting on a last picture when I was 16 and kind of being able to dip my toe in. And then I ended up playing the next. So that was 2013, 2014.

And then I played the next three seasons down on Left Bridge. So my 17 year, my 18 year and my 19 year. My 19-year-old season, again, I only played 19 games. I ended up having shoulder surgery. It just kept popping out. You know, I did it the first time when I was 18, rehabbed it. you know, popped it out again, popped it out again. It just became a thing where you stick check a guy, shoulders out.

You know, you're sleeping shoulders out. So I needed to get it done. So the thought process was, hey, let's call your season early. It was November. Let's call your season early. Get the surgery. And then you'll have the summer to train. And you can come back for your 20-year-old season, you know, fully healthy

and hopefully advance your career from there. So I had that surgery December, December 2017. And coincidentally, about six months, it's a six-month recovery-ish. And pretty much six months to the day, I ended up getting in a campfire accident with actually two other of my teammates. So we were out in Bears' paw, which is out by, I'm not sure if. if you're familiar with Calgary, it's just west of Calgary, kind of towards Cochran. We were out at my buddy's place there having a fire, and we were leaving the next morning to go on his bachelor party. So we went out there early. We were hanging out and, you know,

trying to get a fire going, couldn't really get it going, you know, ashes on a fire. So one of my buddies just threw a little bit of paint thinner on the fire. Paint thinner is apparently very explosive, kind of a wrong place, wrong time type of situation. So we were, me and my two buddies, we were sitting on a bench. Their names are Jordy and Matt. We were sitting on a bench and the fire exploded onto us. So we all tip back and then, you know, honestly, the most common question I get is, oh, how bad did it hurt? I didn't feel the thing. You're just in total shock. I had burns to about 60% of my body. 50% of them were

full thickness in nature, so I needed skin grafting. And so that was... Sorry, sorry. How much paint thinner? Paint thinner? Is that what you said? Paint thinner, yeah. How much paint thinner did you put on the fire?

To be honest with you, I have no idea. I assume it was just like a capful or a little cupful, you know? I mean, it's funny because I think back to how many times you've seen someone throw gasoline or diesel on a fire. And it goes poof and everyone's like, ooh, you know, and it's kind of cool. And then, you know, you never think of the alternative outcome of that. And I think as a Western Canadian kid and probably the Eastern Canadian kids are the same way, how many times a young man you did something stupid around a campfire?

they're too numerous to list. And so you think we're probably pretty fortunate in not doing something, you know, relatively stupid. And I don't even think what you're talking about, there's going to be a fire professional going, that was stupid. But for most of us, we're like, yeah, I kind of get it, right? Like I think most kids have burned a lot of things in a fire. Oh, for sure.

Yeah, and it's, yeah, like I said, it was kind of a wrong place, wrong time. Like if we were sitting on the bench to the left, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't happen. We're all going, oh, holy shit, that could have been bad, right? That wasn't the case. So, yeah, I kind of, I would say, I guess, took the brunt of the, of the explosion. You know, Jordy had had burns on his chest and his hands got messed up pretty bad. I think he was in the hospital for, he was in there for over two weeks. I think Alfie was in there for just under two weeks.

But like I said, I had like the full thickness. I actually had paint thinner on my skin that was burning. So, you know, I stopped, dropped and rolled, which is what they tell you to do. And that didn't do anything, right? Because it wasn't just like my hoodie that's on fire. If your hoodie's on fire and you stop drop and roll, it'll put it out.

But I actually had chemical on my skin that was burning. So actually my shout out Tyler Wong. Tether Wong tackled me and patted me out with like a hoodie or a blanket or something. And then from there, I mean, the Wongers parents started driving us to the hospital and the firefighters intercepted us on the way, put me in the ambulance or the fire truck and got me to the foothills, which, you know, the foothills in Calgary I learned is I believe it's the number one hospital in Canada, if not maybe Western Canada.

So it was like, I was in all things considered, I was in the best possible place I could have been. You know, I was getting operated on about an hour and a half after I was burned. So like I said, I had full thickness burns on about 50% of my body. So, you know, to, for people that aren't familiar, like they have to bore,

skin from an area of your body that isn't burned. And then they kind of stretch it out and they either sew it or staple it over where you're burned. And then your body either takes it or rejects it, in which case you'd have to re-graft it. I was super lucky. My burns, my grafts took on the first time, all of them, which was phenomenal. I didn't have any infections. Nothing like that, I was sedated for 10 days, like in a medically induced coma type thing. And the way they explained that to me, it was just you're in like too much physical pain to be conscious. So we're just going to keep you sleeping. So for 10 days, I was sedated. I spent a month on the intensive care unit. And then I was transferred to the burn unit for another seven weeks. And so that obviously

derailed my hockey plans. But at the time, my goal was still to be a hockey player. And I think that's a pretty important part of my story, because that led to me really pushing myself and the physical recovery aspect of my injuries. But I totally neglected the mental side of it. You know, everyone tells you, everyone was telling me, you know, you've been through a lot.

You need to talk to someone. You need to talk to someone. I need to talk to someone. And I really didn't feel like that was necessary at the time, which is, you know, I say that out loud and it sounds ridiculous. But I don't know if it sounds ridiculous. Nah, yeah. I guess just from where I come from, you're, you know, you're going to come from the hockey culture. We aren't big on talking everything through, right?

You get an injury. You know, I think your shoulder popping in and out. I played with lots of guys like that. where they just pop it back in and they find a way to muscle through the rest of the game. It's kind of what you're supposed to do. So you get something like this, it's probably viewed as a weakness to talk to somebody, right? And so not to say you shouldn't have,

but just that I don't think it's ridiculous to look back on it and think you're ridiculous at all. It's probably just the culture of a hockey player. Yeah, definitely. I think that that certainly played a role. And, you know, I think, so I had, I had to go talk to someone, a psychologist in the hospital, just as part of like the recovery process. And I ended up having kind of a, I guess a bad experience in the sense of I sat down with a psychologist who's a,

you know, I've touched base with her since then. And like she's amazing at her job and she's great. It was nothing to do with like, I talked to a bad therapist. it was the headspace that I was in. But, you know, I get handed this kind of survey and it's asking me all these questions about, you know, my mood and my appetite and all this other random stuff. And it's like a light card scale, right? So rank one to five, how many times have you felt happy in the last, whatever, 24 hours,

all this stuff. So I fill it out and then I give it back to her and she tallys it up and she says, you know, so Ryan, the results of this, you know, survey say that you're slightly depressed. Do you think that's accurate? And I'm sitting there and I'm like, no shit, I'm a little bit depressed. Like, I just got lit on fire. I can't, you know, I can hardly walk. I'm in a, I'm in the hospital.

I'm supposed to be training, but whatever. So it kind of put a bad taste in my mouth, to be honest. Like I felt like I didn't need to fill out a survey to be told that I was depressed. And so that was that. I went once and I, you know, I checked the box, I suppose. And I forgot about it. When I got discharged, I got discharged. So this was June 15th.

The accident happened. I got discharged August 31st. I did a couple weeks of outpatient therapy where I went back to the foothills every day and then I went back home to Red Deer and I recovered a little bit longer there. And like I said, I still wanted to be a hockey player. My goal was to play my 20-year-old season in Leftberg, finish the year. I think probably to most of the medical professionals and people close to me, knew that that probably wasn't a reality, but, you know, everyone did everything in their power to help me pursue that goal, which, like I said, I,

I made a phenomenal physical recovery, especially in that first year. You know, they kind of said, yeah, you might be in this hospital until Christmas. You know, I was kind of out at the end of August. I ended up going back to Left Bridge kind of mid-October, skated, but the team as much as I could. I should mention the, out of all the injuries that I sustained in the accident, The only one that, you know, hinders me to this day is I had a tracheostomy. And when you get burned, one of the first things they do is pump you full of fluids. That's very dehydrating.

And so you swell up. And so they pump me full of fluids, they swell up. And then they had to intubate me because I couldn't breathe. And when they intubated me because I was all swollen, the intubation tube, scraped my vocal cords. So I have some scar tissue on my vocal cords. And essentially, it's just a constricted airway, right? My vocal cords don't fully close or fully open. And that's also why I'm a little bit raspy. It sounds like I smoke a pack of darts every day, but I don't. And, you know, I couldn't actually make a noise. You know, they took the tracheosomy out in

July and they say oh yeah usually takes about a week for your voice to come back I couldn't make a noise until November that's how bad the scarring was and so you know I would if I tried to yell it would be a whisper it didn't matter how hard I I tried my vocal cords could not touch so I had went to see a laryngologist he went in with a laser and he cut some scar tissue out and it's progressively gotten better since then I have that operation done twice in November, 2018, and then March 2020. And the second one made a much bigger difference. But the first one, you know, I noticed it when I was physically exerting myself.

So you can imagine with the constricted airway, it's hard to do very explosive exercise. I get, you know, I kind of get lightheaded and that kind of thing. because it's just a lack of oxygen reaching my muscles. And even things like if I sat in a lecture hall and tried to project my voice to 200 students, you know, I'd have to speak in very short sentences because you just run out of air. It sounds peculiar, but that's the best way I can kind of describe it. So I went back to Lethbridge. I was training there and it became pretty evident.

And I remember I tried going on a road trip with the team. And, man, I was, my body was still just in shambles. It had been through so much. I needed like, you know, 12 hours of sleep a day. I needed to be eating like 5,000 calories a day. And I was not in physical shape to play in the Western Hockey League. It was heartbreaking for me, to be honest. I'll never forget that conversation I had with our GMP.

to give a quick shout out to Pete he was absolutely phenomenal through everything you know put my family up in a hotel took care of us made sure I had everything from a athletic standpoint that he could give me he gave me and he really believed in my recovery and you know that conversation that we had it would have been before Christmas like he neither of us could even really say it like you know, I can't play. You know, we maybe shed a couple of tears together. And I said, yeah, like this, you know, they offered, hey, you want to stick around and do video.

I'd done that the whole year before because of my shoulder surgery, right? So I wanted to play. And so I said no. I didn't want to stick around Left Bridge. I appreciated the offer. But I thought, hey, how can I actually, you know, facilitate. being able to play again. And so I thought, hey, maybe I'll go back to Red Deer and I'll play, I'll play for the Junior B team there.

I had some buddies playing Junior B. So I got a hold of the coach and I said, hey, like, this is my situation. I would like to play. I think I'm capable of playing at this level and being okay. Would you have me? And they welcomed me. And so I ended up playing Junior B to end my junior career from January to March. And that alone being like the amount that I pushed, push myself on the ice.

And, you know, I'm, I don't think of myself as having a disability, but at that point in time, I was certainly disabled to some capacity. And so I'm out there with my buddies pushing myself to try to keep up with them and that kind of thing. and that made, I made phenomenal strides in my throat recovery, my breathing, and physically as well. You know, I had some interesting kind of barriers to that recovery. Like I was on a heart medication called metropolis, which is common. Like if you have a heart attack, they tend to give you metropolis. It stops your heart rate from going above 140. And so you can imagine trying to like play hockey with your heart rate not going above 140.

It was difficult. My heart would be pounding. You could feel it. If you just gently touch my jersey, you could feel my heartbeat. But the doctor's game of the A-OK. Like, you know, be careful with contact kind of thing. But you can play and like see how it goes. So I played the rest of that year.

finished that out. I ended up committing that next summer to go play U-sport hockey out at Concordia University in Montreal with one of my best friends. And that was where, you know, I said I neglected the mental side of my recovery. When I got to Montreal, that was when it really hit me,

like, hey, like, I'm not okay. You know, I'd been working out hard that summer and I kind of my recovery had plateaued. I wasn't getting any stronger. I wasn't getting any faster. There was some obvious like with the throat and and some of the burns. Like I was just limited in what I could do. So I get out to Montreal and I'm playing U-Sport hockey, which is, it's good hockey, man. Like it's, uh, I think it takes some some heat for the level of hockey, but there's a lot of real good players in that league. And I couldn't keep up. I, I, you know, if I battled for a guy for five to six, six, six.

seconds, I'm out of oxygen. I need to stand up and I'm getting lightheaded and they're taking the puck going the other way. So, you know, I'll give a lot of credit to the coaches out there and the training staff. Like, they worked with me every day with recovery and, you know, what can we do to help you? And unfortunately, there wasn't really much. It was just where my body was at. And that was the first time I ever, you know, really had struggles with. with depression and stuff. I had gotten out there and it honestly hit me about day four, where I realized like, oh boy, like, you know,

I'm away from my support systems. I'm feeling very alone. I'm a pretty social guy. I like meeting new people, and I wanted none of that. I could hardly convince myself to get dressed to go on the ice. I dreaded it. You know, you hear those stories of guys when they know they were done playing,

they hated going to practice, they hated working out. That was me. Like I'd get to the rink, I'd sit in my stall and I'd tell myself like, man, put on your undergear, but come on.

I get it on and say, okay, put on your jock. Like, you know, I'm giving myself a pep talk every time. And then when I'm on the ice, every,

I'm looking up at the clock every minute, trying to see like, how much longer do we have out here? Like, get me out of here, basically. And it, that it really it really came to a head like that kind of November December like I was not in a good place I was struggling with like suicidal ideation something that was just so alien to me right I'd never like I said I never really had mental health struggles growing up I thought I kind of understood

anxiety and depression I did not um other than all of a sudden I'm I'm sitting in Montreal in a duplex with you know, six guys that should be very good friends of mine. And I'm, I'm staying in my room. I'm sleeping like one or two hours a night. I can't eat anything. I was not healthy. And so that's when I started talking to my therapist, Jennifer Wallen, you know, just via the phone. And then I made the decision to stay home. When I came home at Christmas, I didn't go back. I needed to stay at home and focus on getting healthy, right? I was unwell. And so I did that, you know, the, and that was hard. You know, it's, you hear people lots of times say, oh, I was really depressed, I was really anxious. And I think, you know, those words are sometimes overused, but it's lots of

times very hard to actually, if you've never, especially if you've never experienced it, actually visualize, like, what does that look like? And for me, like I said, it was, it was isolation. I didn't want to see anybody. I didn't want to have dinner with my family. I didn't want to eat. I didn't want to work out. I, nothing, right? And so to kind of put it in perspective with with Jen, you know, we set some goals. And my goals were, okay, you know, go to bed by 1 a.m., 1.30 in the morning, be up by 9.9.30 in the morning and go to the, get to the gym before noon at least three times a week. You know, that was my goal. And I failed that goal many, many times. You know, I wasn't capable of doing that. And I worked hard at it.

And obviously, I, you know, as the months went on, I recovered and I was able to accomplish that goal. I was able to build on kind of that momentum. But I think that does kind of a good job of putting in perspective how low I was. You know, I wasn't capable of doing much during those first few months that I was home. And then, yeah, you know, I recovered that, that may was when I had that second throat surgery. And it kind of, you know, I remember waking up from the second one. And my first thought was like, literally like, holy shit, I can breathe again. That's how big of a difference it made.

And so then I thought, hey, maybe I can still play you sport hockey, right? Maybe I can do this. Now, of course, March 2020 is COVID. So I went back out to Montreal to try to play that year and our season was canceled. So I did school at Concordia from my basement in Red Deer, right? And then, you know, finished that year. And then it basically been three years since I played competitive hockey at a high level. And, you know, I, although I think I was maybe capable of playing U-Sport and, you know, not being horrible, I certainly couldn't do it like I used to.

and it was just not a healthy setting for me to be in because it forced me to constantly compare myself to, one, how I was before the accident, and two, to all of my peers that I was watching, thinking, hey, I used to be better than that guy, but now he's skating circles around me, right? And so I made the decision to step away from playing competitive hockey, which that was, you know, besides leaving Montreal,

because I really felt like I quit that first year. To sounding to step away from competitive hockey was, I think, maybe the hardest decision I've had to make. It was really all I knew. I'd always had, you know, 20 other best friends by default that were teammates. And all of a sudden, I'm walking into the University of Calgary Open Studies. I'm 22. I'm in there with a bunch of 18-year-olds.

And I have one, no idea what I want to do for school. school and two, I'm adjusting to like just being a student, right? What am I doing Friday and Saturday? I'm not playing hockey, right? That was really weird. You know, something you'd never think about. Like for the last, you know, for about seven years before that, every Friday, Saturday, I'm at the rink playing a hockey game.

And now it's like, hey, what are we doing this weekend? It's like, I don't know, you know. So, yeah, that was a, that was a tricky adjustment and um you know at it forced me to really take a step back and consider okay obviously everyone knows that that is an athlete of any sort like there's life after whatever sport you're playing um i i had to cross that bridge i guess sooner and in a different way than i anticipated and i think that was kind of what made it so difficult but you know in some senses I think it was a blessing in disguise like it made me really take a step back and

consider hey what do I want to do you know with my life and so I put a lot of thought into it I had kind of had the idea for this foundation and I thought you know through my experience working with with Jen she did so much for me and I really saw how much a finding a therapist you connect with can do for you. So I thought, hey, maybe I want to try to follow in Jen's footsteps and be a psychologist myself. And so that's my goal now. I finish my undergrad. And I've been applying for some master's programs here to get the ball rolling on eventually registering as a psychologist.

For most hockey players, they have a similar moment, albeit not anything remote. close to what you've gone through, which is eventually hockey comes to an end, whether that's at 40 or at 28, 20, you get the point. When you've played high enough level hockey, it becomes who you are every weekend. And then in the summer, you're training for the next season, right? You get through playoffs. Maybe you win. Maybe you don't. You get into the WHL or whatever level you play. There's always the next step. College. And then after college, it's like, am I going to play pro can i play pro am i coming home to play senior etc but eventually you have this moment where you're like i'm not going to be playing in the n-h-l i'm not going to be making my living doing this and i have this

moment and it's um you just talk about this all the time it's it's it's a crisis of of maybe identity of like who am i now and the everybody tells you you can do anything you want you're like oh that's scary i i wanted to be a whole hockey player. Now with you it's it's different obviously Ryan because you know like I think of what you said there like every morning I assume waking up you haven't slept well okay so that's not great to start with you're having difficulty breathing specifically before your your surgery where you notice you so you're like I can't hardly breathe but I can't tell anyone about it because I can hardly use my voice yeah speaking is difficult and then you start having

suicidal ideation, right? You start thinking about, well, maybe, maybe it's just, this is it. Yeah. Like, as a guy who's had those thoughts, it's, I don't know about yourself and certainly you can, you can explain your side of it. It caught me off guard when it first happened because that shouldn't be a thought that ever crosses my mind. What, yeah, 100% you, you hit the nail on the head there.

Like it's a, I, I vividly remember kind of the first time I ever thought, like, hey, maybe I should, you know. And you don't, you kind of check yourself, at least I did. I was like, well, come on. What are we, what are we thinking here? And then it was just a very fast snowball for me where all of a sudden that kind of dominated my, my thought processes. Like I couldn't, yeah, I couldn't. I wasn't able to maintain my focus on anything else other than I was very distressed about, you know, my physical condition and my, like, my kind of thought was how am I supposed to

live my life like this, the rest of my life like this? And I wasn't taking care of myself, right? I wasn't talking to anyone. I was, my diet was horrible. I was sleeping horribly. So all of that compounds too, right? And it just wasn't a healthy lifestyle. And yeah, it got to the point where it's, I almost just had like a,

like a rhythmic kind of drumbeat going in my head at all times. And if I didn't have that going on, it was like the suicidal ideation. So it was a very, a very odd, yeah, like mental kind of phenomenon. I don't really know how else to say that. So, and that, yeah, that lasted for months.

What is the moment? Because you speak very, I hope I'm pronouncing her name right. Your therapist, Jennifer Wallen, correct? Yes, yep. What are the steps that led up to finding her or deciding, like I got to get out of this or maybe somebody else like going hey Ryan how about you talk to this lady like what what happens there because you paint a picture of like things aren't going well right like lots of things and I come back to the the breathing and

the speaking let alone everything else that's going on in life what is it that gets you off the couch or allows you to pick up the phone or is it somebody else walk me through the events that lead you to Jennifer Wallen yeah that's a great question because I really love this story. So when I had gotten back to Red Deer after I was discharged from the foothills, my mom actually, my mom is an occupational therapist and Jen has tons of education and kind of neurological diseases and how your lifestyle and stress kind of impacts that. So they together had run some like arthritis workshops together talking to people how to manage arthritis and inflammation and that kind of thing. So my mom really wanted me like obviously

very worried about her son and really wanted me to go see Jen. She said Jen is a psychologist like please you know go see Jen. So I think it was in October 2018. I went I booked a meeting with Jen and I sat down and, you know, kind of starts the same as any first-time therapy session. Oh, so why are you here today? And I said to Jen, I said, Jen, I don't mean to be like disrespectful, but I'm here today because my mom made me come. And she looked at me and smiled and said, okay, well, look, if you want to leave, you can leave right now.

Like, this is all confidential. Your mom is never going to know how this meeting went. But if you want to stick around and chat hockey, my husband Jesse just got hired by the Red Wings. So if you want to talk hockey, we could talk hockey. So I said, hell yeah, like, let's talk hockey. So I talked to Jen about hockey, nothing else, hockey, for about two and a half hours. And then she said, look, I've got another appointment coming up.

I got to let you go. But here's my contact. If I can do anything for you, please let me know. So, you know, I didn't talk to Jen, I think, for another about. about a year. And this is an important part of my story and an important part of my motivation for starting this foundation was, and I skipped over it kind of on purpose when I was kind of telling the story.

But in April 2019, right after I committed to go play U-Sport hockey, I had a really bad manic episode for about, about like six days where I didn't. sleep, I didn't eat. I felt amazing. I'm not sure if you're familiar with mania, but for anyone that isn't, like you're just basically buzzing on, you're firing on all cylinders. You feel great. You don't need food. You don't need to eat. I didn't, you know, common features of mania are kind of the, you know, thinking your God or talking to God. I didn't have any of those. It was more so, it was almost like I was like, I don't know, a mega entrepreneur that was going to start eight different businesses and be mega successful and set up everyone around me.

And I felt great. And, you know, my buddies that I spent basically that whole week with two of my buddies that were basically just like making sure I didn't do anything too stupid, right? They were keeping an eye on me real quick. but I did some real kind of embarrassing, embarrassing things. One of the things I did, and this was when my best friend, Jeff, that was kind of keeping an eye on me, I got a hold of Brent Sutter,

who is the owner and general manager, the Red Deer Rebels, and I really had no relationship with Brent. The only reason I had his number was because I golfed and him and his brother's golf tournament before. And so I got a hold of Brent. when I'm manic and I have no recollection of this and I say hey Brent I was wondering if me and Jeff could take you for a coffee later this week we have something we want to talk to you about and Jeff had played for Brent for a long time Brent had all the time in the world for Jeff

so he says yeah I'd love to meet up with you guys meet me at Tim Hortons at 9 a.m. on whatever day that day comes and we don't show up because I forget about it and I don't tell Jeff so Jeff gets a random call from Brent and Brent says, hey, Jeff, I'm just curious of, you know, how your buddy Ryan's doing. And Jeff's kind of like, oh, you know, like all things considered, I think he's doing pretty well. And Brent goes, oh, I beg to differ. And Jeff's like, Brent, what are you talking about? And Brent goes, well, where were you two at coffee this morning?

And Jeff's like, Brent, like, cut it out. Like, what are you talking about? And he says, you know, Ryan got a hold of me earlier this week and said that there was something he really wanted to talk to me about with you. So I booked a meeting with you guys this morning at Tim's and neither of you showed up. So I'm just curious, like, how's your buddy Ryan doing? And that was when I think Jeff, I think he was kind of giving me the benefit of the doubt, you know, throughout that week, like, ah, he's not great, but, you know, like he's doing okay.

He's managing. That was when Jeff started to get really worried about me as well. And at this point, you know, my parents are working. about me, my friends are all worried about me, and I'm still, I'm manic, right? I feel great. And I'm like, you guys are being ridiculous. What do you mean? I'm, right? And so, funnily enough, I say, okay, you know what? If you guys are all so worried about me, fine, I'll go see Jen. And if Jen thinks I should go to the hospital, I'll go to the hospital. So just off that, you know, I'd seen Jen about seven months before that and I talked hockey with her for two

and a half hours. Obviously, we'd established that relationship and I trusted her. And then seven months later, when I'm manic, I go see Jen. And of course, Jen says, yeah, you should go to the hospital. And I go to the hospital. I get admitted right away into the mental wellness unit. And I ended up staying there for about 10 days, you know, and talk about kind of an alienating experience, right? Like you're on the mental wellness unit, they won't give you anything that you could potentially hurt yourself with. You know, they give you plastic cutlery. I couldn't have a charging cord in my room. You know, I'm taking, I was taking an antipsychotic medication, mood stabilizer, and an antidepressant medication. And I was there for, yeah, about 10 days.

And yeah, that, like after that was when I really started working with Jen. First, with the manic episode, what set it off? It was a, like, it was a trauma response the way I understand it. And so that was where Jen really educated me on like what trauma actually is. And there was. some other, other, I think, preceding factors too, right? Like the week before I had been at a beer league hockey tournament, you know, drinking my face off. We were smoking weed.

I have a prescription. I no longer take it, but I have ADHD. So I had a prescription for Vivance. And I was taking my Vibance probably not as prescribed, right? So I was abusing substances. and then on top of that I was depressed and I was kind of in denial of that depression and then it's literally like it's crazy like it's it was just like someone like flipped a switch and then I was manic right like I it was bizarre and it's scary to think back like I remember

kind of whenever one was getting really worried about me I remember like looking at myself in the mirror and like not really recognized myself. And that was a scary moment for me because I like everyone's telling me we're worried about you and I'm telling them I'm fine. And then here I am looking at myself being like, you know, maybe they're right because I don't really recognize that guy, which is again, maybe that would make no sense to someone who hasn't experienced that, but that's the best way I can verbalize it. This is is this, forgive me on the timeline. I was trying to draw it down, but I, I, I feel like I want to make sure I have this placed in the right spot.

Is this before you hit your lowest spot or is this? This is before. Before you go out to Montreal. Yes. You've had the manic episode and now you go off to Montreal. And in Montreal is where, you know, you start having the suicidal thoughts. But you've been in, forgive me, this isn't the right word, but I think of like the padded cell, right?

Where you're like, you're not allowed. And so you've already, now you're not even trusting yourself. You're like, how the heck can I trust what's going on in my own brain when I thought I was okay? I go to the lady that I trust off a conversation on hockey. And she's like, you should probably go to the hospital. So now you're sitting in even more isolation. On top of the isolation you create with your teammates and roommates. Yep. And you start having these thoughts. And I mean, you just add it like, okay, I'm following.

Yeah, sorry, I should have mentioned that. No, no, no, no, no. It's a fundamental piece of. No, this is why we go back and forth. This is hopefully why I do what I do is I'm sitting here and I'm going, I don't think your set of circumstances is very, very unique to you. on full stop but I look at my own life and I like some part of your story I'm like oh man I know exactly what you're talking about and if I know what you're talking about that means a lot of people know what you're talking about with their own given circumstances right yeah yeah and I think that's a you know really important part of the whole mental health conversation is you know maybe what like me and you could go through the same thing and it's going to affect us very differently right um and so i'm happy to hear that that some of this is relatable because i do think yeah it's

kind of a you know burns in general kind of niche and mania in general is kind of niche i think a lot of people can relate to the anxiety and depression aspect but even like it's not like you know i don't know what the stats are off the top of my head but it's not like too too many people uh struggle with suicidal ideation and suicidal thoughts and that kind of stuff um So yeah, I mean. But if I may, it's very uncomfortable to talk about, right? Like in my own shoes to say I've had suicidal thoughts before is very uncomfortable. Yeah.

I don't like talking about it. Yeah. And in where I sit today, that's a long time ago. And yet I thought it would never happen to me. If there's one thing I could guarantee, I would never have that thought crossed my mind. Yep. And then it has crossed my mind. So that's one part of it.

The next part is, is like, I don't like talking about it. So, you know, I saw a psychologist for, man, the better part of like two and a half, three years. Nice. And there's an uncomfortability of even talking about that because, you know, sitting as a guy on this side, like, it's not viewed as, and where I said, it's not viewed as weakness at all. because once you understand what you're doing there and what other guys are trying to do, and I've had friends go see psychologists because of things that have happened in their life, I go, oh, it's probably one of the best things you can do, especially if you're dealing with things in your own head and you don't know how to organize them in a way.

It keeps you away from those deep, dark thoughts that are laying there all the time for any one of us to stumble into. You never know what life's going to do today or in the coming days, weeks, months, years, where all of a sudden you can just stumble into it and not know how to find your way out. Yeah. Yeah, it's mental health certainly doesn't discriminate. And yeah, it's unpredictable, man. Like, it's, I completely relate to that.

Like, never thinking that that could be me, right? I... Well, look at your story. You're a 16-year-old playing in the dub, right? Like, I mean, as a Western Canadian boy, isn't that what... Not all kids want, but certainly in Canada, a lot, that would be success, right? You're playing in the dub.

Yeah. And maybe you don't make the NHL, but you know, you play in the dub. Now you get to go play U sports. Yeah. For free, I might add, right, for every year you played. Now with the, you know, the way Division I's going in the States, now you can go to the States. And you can just see the possibilities laid out in front of you. And all that gets taken away from you.

I mean, yeah, there's, like, I can. certainly relate to parts of it. And I bet you the audience can relate to parts of it. Yeah, I hope so. And you know, you mentioned earlier, you mentioned the word identity. And it certainly was like an identity kind of crisis for me, which is kind of funny because I always took pride in in being more than just a hockey player, right? I thought, oh, I'm a nice guy. I care about people. In Leftbridge, I loved. I loved. I loved. to do in like the school visits i remember being in grade five the red deer rebels would come to my school you every classroom would get a rebel and like those guys are heroes in in your eyes

in grade five right even if they never go on like you don't you don't care it's a red deer hell jr jr jr jr b players can be heroes right you know yeah like junior b team and lloyd just one one league went on a provincials vermillion down the road uh took bronze and i watch how my kids view them And I'm like, they think they're, they think they're, they think they're, they think they're, they think they're, they think they're, they can't, um, decipher the different levels. And that's so cool for any kid playing at any level to understand. Kids don't, don't know that you're not playing in the NHL. They see you as a, as something larger than what you, you, you probably believe yourself to be. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And so, yeah, I love doing that stuff, like doing the community engagement stuff and getting a throw on the jersey. Like, I took a lot of pride in doing that. And, you know, my, like, my dad's a teacher. I always thought I'm going to go to school. I'm going to get an education. And so, yeah, I never thought of myself as just a hockey player, genuinely, until I

couldn't play hockey anymore, right? It was such a stark, like, oh, damn, like, I am a hawk, right? I do think of myself as a hockey player. I really had to check myself with that. Yeah, and obviously, like, I think that's. And, you know, given the circumstance, you can imagine, like, it makes sense that that hit me pretty hard. But it was still a, it was still a battle. And honestly, it's still something that I am working through to this day, right?

Like, I, in my heart, like, I'm a hockey player, right? I love the game. I miss playing the game competitively. That's something I miss the most is being on a team. team and competing, competing with your teammates, right? And you find that in other areas of your life, of course. But I don't think, you know, I don't think anything will really replicate that, right? Like, it's, I remember coaches saying, oh, you can only play once, play as long as you can. And you kind of think, oh, yeah, sure, buddy, like, whatever. But they're spot on, right? Like, it's,

well, there's wisdom in that. And where I sit, you know, like, I'm, I turned 40 this and I haven't played now. I mean, on the levels you're talking with dub and everything, I played senior for close to a decade when I came home. Nice. And for me, that was, that's what I had.

And it was competitive. And I loved it. I loved nothing more. You know, you're six foot, what, six foot three? Yeah,

just under. Just under? Well, I'm a five foot seven defenseman. Okay. And I would let you go by me, Ryan, so I could hip check the crap out of it.

And I, if there's one thing I miss, I miss hip checking. Yeah. It is just like, it gave me a lot of happiness in the world. And then, you know, you lose it. I can say from sitting here, I always got told by coaches, play until you can't play anymore. And then coach.

And I don't want to coach anything. I just want to play. Now I got young kids and I get to be on the ice with them. And it's funny, you find that same thing that motivated you to play comes out while you're trying to teach kids. And then certainly when they start to grasp it and you see them grasping it. Right. Your dad would be able to tell you this about teaching, I would assume, because I'm married to a teacher.

And I never understood it, ever. I'm like teaching young kids, man, how do you do that day in and day out? Then one day I came home and I was telling my wife, I'm like, I can't believe it. I was, you know, coaching the boys on the back end, coaching the fence. And they started to pick up a skill I was like, I'm like, I'm seeing the improvement. She's like, why do you think I like teaching? I'm like, I don't know. How do you like teach?

She's like, well, I teach him reading and writing and other things, of course. And you can see the progression day over day. a couple weeks, they've grabbed on the things you never thought they'd be able to grab onto. I'm like, oh, and that's what I find in coaching is you actually get to see the impact your knowledge has on a kid and how they gravitate and can pick up skills and get better and the confidence and instills. And so while I do miss playing, because nothing will ever replicate going in for you, going in and dance in a defenseman and putting a top shelf or whatever your play was. but it's funny you can find similar things i host events now

and i've said lots on stage i never thought i'd find that uh you know the feeling you get before a big game it's nerves but you're into it and then you like you know it's it's almost uncomfortable you kind of like it or maybe you really like it and then you leave it you never get it again you're like man i'm never getting it again i found it i get on stage i was in the stage in calgary in march front of 700 people and I'm sitting backstage. I'm like, oh, here it is again. I thought I'd never find this feeling again. And there it is. And so I think it's almost a lie we tell ourselves that will never find that feeling or that sensation again. It doesn't mean it does it. You don't got to look for

it. You certainly do. Yeah. But it is there. Yeah. No, that's cool to hear. Yeah. And coaching is something I think I'd like to get into at some point. You know, I'd do some summer. I'd do some summer camps and stuff but who did you play senior for if you don't mind me asking my hometown of helmod it's just in a Saskatchewan oh nice nice and so in like the levels are you playing in senior right now i not anymore but i played a couple years and that's actually kind of where i like you were alluding to like kind of re found the love of playing hockey right because there was a while there where i couldn't even look at my look at my skates or anything but i tell you what senior senior for any hockey player out there who's hung him up

Senior was probably the funnest decade of hockey I played for. I assume you can relate to this. You show up to a new team and there's a lot of new guys and you like love it. And as a forward, you get a couple of line mates and you get to play with them for maybe a year, maybe it's six months. And one of them gets traded or gets hurt and now you get a new linemate, etc., etc. I had a defense partner for eight straight years. That's unreal.

Nowhere in my hockey career did I ever get to play with a guy on defense. for longer than a season. I don't remember a single time. So there was never any comfortability where you get to play with somebody and learn their quirks and they learn yours. And all of a sudden you have, you know, like you go back in the Soviet, Soviet days, that team that played together for year after year after year and they all just kind of knew where everyone was. In senior, I got that. And everybody showed up for the love of the game because we weren't getting paid. And you know, you had to show up and go to work the next day and all the things. And of course, we did get to win a year.

And that was unreal. And the thing was is in the room partying after you had 18-year-olds to probably 70-year-olds, 70-year-olds, about partied us all. It was just like, right? My hometown hadn't won a championship in senior for sure. And I think it was 35 years at the time, right? So it was just the love of the game found me again because I know playing competitive of hockey, there's days where you're just like, man, this is a grind. And if you haven't played

competitive sports at that level, that may sound odd because you're like, you're getting to do. I remember calling my older brothers and being like, I don't know, I'm thinking of coming home. And they just laugh at me and be like, what are you talking about? Like you're doing what everybody else wants to do. Everything's fine here. Just keep doing what you're doing. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. And even like, you know, I got some buddies, you know, they're playing pro nowadays and and uh yeah like it's funny like listen to them and they're you know complain i got go to practice and it's like brother i wish i could go to practice you know what i mean and uh i think that's part for the course like for them it's a job right so yeah it gets old when you're

especially if things aren't going well and the coaches harping on you and you're playing for your livelihood at that point like if you're not playing well you're not getting paid all of a sudden you don't have a job anymore and then then what right But yeah, definitely. Or you're Connor McDavid and Leon Dreysidal and you're supposed to win the cup and you're losing game seven. Then you get back and you lose again. And then the next year you have all the injury problems and then they fire the coach and it becomes a job. Not to mention the grind of 82 games and everything else, right?

Yeah. All the lower levels feel the same thing. I mean, in the dub, the most games you played in the season, I just pulled up your hockey TV, 64. before playoffs. Is that, is that fair to say? Yeah. Like 64 games, anyone who's played 64 games in a year, that has a lot. You're just like, there is the day, the dog days of a season where you're like, man, we're a decent team. We're going to make playoffs. Can we just get the playoffs already? Yeah. I can't imagine doing that for 20 straight years in the NHL, 82 games a season.

Like, it'd be fun. Don't get me wrong. But by year 10, you're established NH or maybe it's year four, whatever it is. and you've had a taste of playoffs you're like i just want back there yeah yeah yeah i can't imagine like especially like yeah you pointed out the oilers there like the heartbreak you have at the end of june and then you have about two weeks of you can maybe do nothing and then it's like hey season starts an eight like get you know get back at it it's just so mentally taxing and actually uh one of my teammates um you know i was rookies with in in leftbridge was was Stuart Skinner. And, you know, Stu's like, yeah, like, man, this guy, he's a hilarious guy. He's an absolute goofball.

And I can't, like, he's playing for his hometown team. I mean, man, I'm, I'm turning 28 here pretty quick. In my life, the Oilers, they haven't had a goalie. You know what I mean? Haven't had a goalie. The goalie is always the whipping boy, right? So, Stuie, like, you go to back-to-back Cup finals. He's in his hometown. He's, you know, the amount of pressure he's under. And I give Stewie a lot of credit for how he handled the media and and the pressures of that situation. But, you know, people don't, don't consider like all those different moving parts of being a pro athlete and really playing. And, you know, it's funny.

Like the Oilers, you know, they think, hey, better get rid of Stewie. And then they make a move and then, you know, how that worked out. It's like, I bet you they could take that one back. I think they'd take that one back real quick, right? Well, I think the fans sit and watch the GM or the ownership or whatever you want to talk about

with the Emmington owners and go, what are they doing? Yeah. It's not that we think, or I shouldn't, say we think it's not that i think they thought Stuart skinner was the answer or the problem they're just like if you're going to make a move let's make a move and make us better yeah right and i think everybody you know all of a sudden you bring in

i don't know dobish or however you say his name from montreal right if for some reason that was the trade they pulled off comes in and he's absolute the guy like he's doing for montreal right now yeah there we go yeah that was a smart trade because that is the business when you trade for tristan juries I got nothing against Tristan Jari, but he didn't even start in the playoffs. And then the game he does start. He plays out of his mind.

And he said him in the next game. And you're like, oh, my goodness. Now we're firing the coach. And you just look at the Emmington honors. We just went back to back cup finals. We were the talk of the town. We couldn't get past the Florida Panthers. Now we're out in the first round.

And you can just see the, the vultures circling. And of course, the media cycle is the media cycle here in not only Eminton, land but but can the land right it i mean you could be a toronto maple's fan you can cry old poor me here in emminton but you go to toronto the hockey mecca of the world yeah and like look at what it's going on there right like it's not easy up north here and you can understand why so many guys uh go down south go away from yeah yeah and like on the note of of uh of mental health right like the amount of pressure you put yourself under, like those, no one holds an athlete to a higher standard really than themselves, I think, right? Like, it's their livelihood, right? Like,

it's, they want to, Stu, he wants to get a shut out every single game, right? So who's, who's feeling the worst if he lets in a squeaker? It's Stu, right? And just in general, like, it's the goalie, right? Like, he wants that one back more than anybody. And instead of having some grace for them and whatever. We like to just jump down their throats. I remember, I don't, Ryan, did you ever get paid to play at all? Like even $10? No, no.

So I played Division III in the States and a goal of mine, once I realized I was never making the show, was I just want to get paid. I don't care how much it is. Just give me, I just want to, I just want to say I got paid to play once. So I went to Finland and got paid very, very little. Nice. But even the perception from myself and everyone else that now I'm a paid guy to come in and whatever, that pressure was tangible to me, sitting in a different country and having that pressure put on.

And I'm like, I remember thinking, I'm like, I can't imagine making 10 million in the NHL, which would be awesome, but now having to produce 50 goals and 70 assists or whatever, you know, whatever McDavid got this year. he didn't get faces, but regardless, right? And to have to do that consistently where you're putting up points all the time. And if you're not, they're down your throat, right? And now you think of a guy, you know, a third liner who signs a three point, whatever million dollar contract.

And you better hope the media likes faceoffs and blocking shots because if they don't, they're going to be down your throat as a bad contract, right? And why we can't win. And like, you know, all the beautiful things of, you know, Like as an average person staring at a guy in the NHL going, yeah, you got problems. We got problems, too. I would, some would take their problems, but they, I don't even fully understand the pressure that goes along with signing an NHL contract.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's, yeah, I can't imagine. And yeah, you multiply that playing in a, in a Canadian market. And if you're playing in your hometown. Yeah, man, it'd be a lot. It'd be a lot. So like I said, just to give Stewie a little shout out, I guess. Like, I thought he was an ultimate.

at pro with the Oilers. You know, he took a lot of heat. He always carried himself with professionalism. And I'm not sure if you, do you follow the Oilers? Are you an Oilers fan? I'm an Oilers fan. Yeah, okay. I like the oil, too. But it was last year in playoffs. You know, they're all grill and stew, blah, blah, blah. And one, someone asked him, how are you dealing with all the all the outside noise around around your play and blah, blah, blah. And Stu, he just looked back and he goes, what noise? Right? Like you know he's hearing it. He's probably doing his best not to hear it. But he knows that's the conversation, right? And yeah, I thought that was pretty awesome. Yeah. If we go back to your story, Jennifer Wallen, you're in Montreal. I just want to, before we move to the foundation, because I want to make sure we talk about that for a few minutes so people know what you're working on now. Yep.

What was the moment where you picked up the phone again? Or was it because? because of the, because now I see two interactions. You have the first one where you talk hockey two and a half hours. She goes, listen, we'll just talk hockey. And that sets in your mind like, I can trust this woman. Then when you have the manic, you go, listen, if I'm so crazy, I'll go talk to Jennifer. Jennifer says, you should probably go to the hospital. You go to the hospital.

Now you hit your lowest point. Is it as simple as you just pick up the phone and go, Jennifer, I'm in a bad spot. And I just need to talk to someone? Yeah, I actually, I should actually ask her about those conversations, because I remember like not saying much. And like you, you kind of said, like it's hard to even, like when you're in that place, it's hard to say that. And like, it's hard to, like, in general, as a therapist, she has to do with your diligence and ask, are you having suicidal thoughts? Are you considering suicide? I can hardly even get myself to say yes.

And I'm in Montreal. She's in Red Deer. You know, her capacity to really help is somewhat limited, right? And so I would call, I'm not even sure how many times we spoke on the phone. Like I said, I didn't have too much to say. But it was almost just like knowing like, obviously she's dealt with this type of stuff before. I trusted her. I knew that I could anything I said to her. I knew that she would take what I was saying and be able to help in some capacity. I didn't really exactly know what it was going to be.

But like I said, like being like that distance and the space I was in, it was really just her, I'm kind of speaking for Jan, I guess, at this point, but I feel like it was lots of her, just sitting with me and like feeling that with me like carrying that that depression really like it's tough if you're you know i'm a i'm a youth counselor now and we get we get kids when they're going through it and and saying things like that nothing i can say is going to in the moment is going to really make a difference right it's just about knowing that you're there and being attuned to that emotion and just feeling it with them. And I think that's largely what Jen did in that capacity. And then, you know, the work really got started when I went back to Red Deer at Christmas time.

Would you agree what she was doing and what you're doing as a youth counselor is creating the space to allow the other person to feel comfortable enough just to share what's going on? And by allowing that, because I've been a part of that where somebody creates a space, just by talking about it, you get it out of your brain off your chest and you're like, oh my God. Yeah. You just feel better. And it's a good thing. Yes.

Yes. And I kind of learned the hard way like, you know, the negative implications of bottling up your emotions and not talking about stuff. Right. That essentially led to me having a manic episode, right? Like the psychiatrist I talked to, I, the first guy I saw, you know he said Ryan you're bipolar take this antipsychotic this mood stabilizer

this antidepressant for whatever three months some old reconvened and at that point I'd been I was manic of course I'd never been suicidal so I'm thinking isn't bipolar when you're fluctuating between both and then also

and again a massive shout out to Jen she when I told that she was like what like she was disgusted because you're not supposed to diagnose someone when they're under the influence of substances. And like I said, I was, I was abusing my Vivans. I was abusing alcohol. I was abusing marijuana, like all these things. So she immediately did not agree with that diagnosis. And, um, but then of course, six months later, I become suicidal. And now I'm like, huh? Like, maybe this guy was on to something. Right. And then I'm

really starting to question myself. And, um, you know, I ended up. up seeing a different psychiatrist. I wanted some answers. And that guy approached it so differently. You know, he said, he sat me down. He said, tell me about yourself. Like, what's going on? Why are you here?

Talked for a while. And he said, he said, basically, you know, I think what happened with your mania was that it was a trauma response. I think that he said, you know, when you're so depressed and so low for so long, your body, your brain knows that it's, that's not how it's supposed to be. And if it goes on for so long and with the trauma, you know, the physical and mental trauma that you endured, your brain's going to try to correct it. So it's going to dump your epinephrine, it's going to dump

your dopamine, it's going to dump your serotonin to correct that depression. And boom, now all of a sudden you're manic. So he said, I don't think you're bipolar, but you're definitely more susceptible, like since you've been manic before and you've had some suicidal ideation, you're more susceptible to falling back into those thought processes and, you know, in the future. So I didn't want to take prescription medication. There's a time and a place and I needed them. I needed them.

I'll be very clear about that when I was manic and when I was suicidal. I needed them. But I wanted to address it with my lifestyle. And this guy was fully on board with that. But he said to me, he said something that I will never forget. And I remind myself of often is he said, look, you know, no matter what pill I can prescribe for you, like no pill will do as much for your mental health as getting your heart rate up for 20 to 30 minutes every day. So if you're going to go, if you don't want to take medication, that's fine.

You can, we can work towards that. But then you need to be disciplined in your lifestyle. You need to get good sleep and you need to get your heart rate up and and be physically active. And, you know, I took that to heart and I've taken pride in staying disciplined with that since that time. And I've, yeah, you know, I don't take any medication now. And I'm able to address it just with a disciplined lifestyle. A, you know, anytime I hear a story like this, like appreciate you sharing, right? Like I think it's important for audience members wherever they're at.

Because you just never know, it doesn't have to hit everybody the same. All it needs to hit is one person. And, you know, you can change somebody's life, right? Yeah. And, you know, as you're talking about the drugs, right? Like, you need to go on these medications. When I came back and I first started seeing Dean show it to Dean Petey because I walked in and I just said, put me on whenever you, if you deem me crazy, put me in whatever you want,

I just don't want to be like this anymore. Just like, give me whatever you got. I'll take it. Just like, whatever. And he kind of treacle. He's like, I would we just talk first? I'm like, okay, I'm just telling you if at the end of it you deem me as somebody who needs to be on medication, I'll do whatever I got to do.

Right. And it's funny, after talking to him for two years, I've never gone on medication. and I you know as you're talking I'm like man I should go shake that guy's hand again because it could have gone a different way instead it was Dean who was a goalie back in the day right yeah like junior hockey and uh you know you you you for you got to kind of kind of tip your hat to all these people the the gens of the world the Dean in my world who take a broken man and allow them to just find their way again Yep.

To get out of the predicament they put themselves in. Mm-hmm. Because it's really important. And I hope I'm not understating that or overstating that for either one of us. But I know from my end, like Dean was that guy at a certain point in my time where I didn't know up for them down. Yeah. And it sounds like Jennifer was the same for you. 100%.

Yeah. Now, this ignited minds foundation, walk me through this, right? You're searching for things. You meet Jen, or not meet, Jen, you start meeting with Jen. And out of it, I assume, comes this foundation or somewhere along your road. You decide, you know what? I should do something about this. Yeah.

So Jen certainly inspired me in some capacity to do that. And I also had one other experience that put the idea really. in my head. And that was the year after Max, so I got in this in my accident in June 2018, April 2018 was the humble tragedy. And I had a friend on that bus, Grace and Cameron, and he lived and he's doing well. And obviously a truly horrible situation. And when that humble tragedy happened, there was this big hockey charity out of Denver. that it's called Dog Nation. And they do like a big hockey tournament every year.

And they're kind of all over the states now. They've grown a lot, but started in Denver. And they wanted to fly Grayson down and have him, you know, host him for the weekend. They do like a Survivor's game and all this kind of stuff. It's awesome. They, you know, it's the American healthcare system. They just, they raise money. They write checks for people going through hard times.

And so Cam's ended up telling the founder about my story. And all of a sudden I get a call from this guy. And he's like, hey, we want to fly you down here. We want to show you a good weekend, blah, blah, blah, blah. And shout out Marty Richardson, phenomenal man. And so they sponsored my trip to go down there. And I saw this foundation where they had, it was just such a cool, it was such a cool weekend for me.

We had kind of a host family that we stayed with. And then in the tournament in the top division, it's a bunch of local pros put a team in. So on our team, like we got to play with them. It was like Kyle Quincy, Paul Statsney, Jan Mitchell, I believe was he was an old avalanche. I apologize if I'm getting that first name wrong. And then, you know, Milan Hayduke's kicking around all weekend.

Troy Terry's there, all these guys. And, you know, I went through something pretty hard. There's so many people that have gone. there's so many worse things than I did. And there was a lot of them at that weekend. And I thought, how cool would it be to try to recreate this back home? And so kind of got the idea there. And then obviously I said they write checks for people to help with medical expenses.

In my situation, you know, I was very, it was a blessing and a curse that we were all hockey players because it got a ton of media attention. Jordy actually at the time he got burned had a contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins. So this story blows up. And because of that, I had so many resources available to me to help me overcome my accident. And I still feel like I just scraped by getting through it. Right? There was a big go fund me raised.

Jen has never let me pay her to go for her services. She says, no, like I, as a psychologist, I'm supposed to, to do pro bono work. This is my pro bono work. I'm doing this because I want to help you. I had people writing me letters, other burn survivors, you know, a guy from Spain, people like all over the place, writing me letters saying, hey man, I heard about your story. This is what happened to me. Many of them were burned much worse than me and had much worse lifelong injury than me and said, the one guy said I used to think daily that I wish I could undo this but you know now I'm married and I have two beautiful kids and if I could go back to that day and and not go to where I was burnt

I would still go and I wouldn't change a thing right so this I'm getting these letters like six months out and I'm thinking wow like that's pretty powerful um and there's so many like I said there's so many people that go through much worse things than I did that have none of those resources. No one puts together a go fund me for them. They don't have a therapist willing to work with them for free. They don't have access to all these other inspiring individuals that have been through horrible things. And so that's my goal with with Ignited Minds. And when I had the idea, the first two people I went to were one, my buddy Tanner, who's a lawyer. And I said, hey, do you think that you and your firm would do this pro bono? So we went and asked,

around and they would. So BLG and Calgary did that for us. Phenomenal. And then I went to Jen and I said, would you be willing to work on this with me and be like the vice chair of this idea? She loved the idea. She said, yeah. And so it started to kind of snowball from there. And so, you know, we kind of have the three kind of pillars of our foundation, our education, health, and community. So for me, I feel like a big part of me recovering from the mania and the depression was the education piece. Like, you're not a whack job.

This is a trauma response, right? You don't need to take antipsychotics for the rest of your life. You need to have a disciplined lifestyle, right? These kind of things that I had Jen's help and some other help along the way. access to those resources to give me that education. So we want to try to educate our audience about mental health and what does it look like. And that's a big reason why I take pride in being vulnerable with my story because, like I said, I'd seen what it, I've seen the outcome when you bottle it up and don't talk about it.

And it's no good. And yeah, it's not the most comfortable thing to talk about, but the people that were vulnerable with me in my recovery and shared their stories with me made such a big difference in my recovery. And so that's kind of the education piece. I want to help share people's stories and help educate people about even what type of therapies are out there. If you've been through this, maybe this is a good therapy, you know, that kind of thing. Community. Like I saw the power of the hockey community when I went through my thing, right? Like go find me people. write me letters.

Everyone around the Western League was so accommodating, you know, the Junior B team back home, working with me, let me come play with them, that kind of thing. And then, you know, health in general. And when I think of health and mental health, I think therapy, those two kind of things kind of go hand in hand in some capacity. they always say, you know, take care of your head first. If your head's not working, nothing else is going to work, blah, blah, blah. But then, you know, they're going to charge you $250 an hour to go see a therapist.

And maybe you'll go once and you don't get anything out of it. So you say, hey, I'm going to try someone else. Then you spend another $250, get nothing out of it. And then you say, okay, now I'm $500 in the hole. I've gotten nothing out of this screw therapy. I'm done, right? And I kind of had an experience like that in Leftbridge. I went to a guy that some of the guys that were in the campfire with me that night

went to and had great experiences. I went to him, you know, talked to him for an hour. I'm on the hour. He said, okay, our time's up. Here's her invoice, $250. Let me know if you want to come back. And I thought, like, I'm never going back to this guy again. Right?

Like, basically he just, it was basically that, like, it was like, to like basically an interview, which I understand you have to understand, like get to know who you're working with, but I wasn't really ready to start the therapy. And so it's bad timing and it's nothing against that therapist. But I thought $250 for that. I got literally nothing out of that. Like screw that. I'm saving my money. Right. And so our big goal at Ignited Minds is to launch our therapy subsidization program. We're hoping for the new year, like January. 2027 and it would be essentially you have to be 25 years or younger and you have to have some type of traumatic experience within the last three years so like kind of acute trauma and then you're

able to apply to our foundation and you could get we based it off of the college of Alberta psychologist like short-term therapy model so six sessions at their designated rate which is 250 so if you applied to us and you got a full disbursement or grant or whatever you want subsidy, you would get $1,500 to spend on therapy. Now, we would never give it directly to the client the way it'll work. And we're kind of working on drafting up all the policies and formalizing that end of it. But you have to go to like a certified counselor of some capacity, whether that's a registered psychologist or a certified Canadian counselor or, you know, the therapist has to be certified

by some governing board. And then you can go to that therapy service, try it out, and then they will invoice us and we'll pay for it for you. And then it alleviates that burden of worrying about how much it's going to cost. You're worrying about if you have benefits or not. or you're just a young guy with no money exactly you're a young guy or gal for that matter yeah exactly and like i said like it's a i i owe gen thousands of dollars you know what i mean i and i there's a lot of people out there that i think would go to therapy and and could benefit

from therapy but they can't afford it and i think that that's it's just not um I don't want to say like it's not right, but I do believe everyone should have the access to that type of mental health support. And so that's my big goal with the foundation. If you're listening to this, right, listening to this conversation, where would you direct the audience?

If they wanted to donate or do you guys put on events, like, you know, tell me the story of the hockey tournament. I'm like, Ryan, are you putting on a hockey tournament? hockey tournament because that would be super cool if you did. But regardless, where would you point everybody to? Yeah. So for donations, if you go to our website, you can donate right on there and link to it. It's just ignitedminds foundation.com. This summer actually, until the end of

August, we got accepted with the, are you familiar with like the champions tour, the PGA champions tour? It's like the 50 plus guys. So they do an event in Calgary every year at the end of August, the Rogers Charity Classic, and they raised money for youth charities. So we got accepted as a participating charity with them. So it's presented by Altilink, I believe. They'll match 50% of all of our donations that we get from March through to the end of August. Again, that can be found on our website. If you go to our events and it's the Burdies for Kids initiative, it'll redirect you to the Rogers Charity Classic website. You have to, to select ignited minds they'll give you a tax receipts and then they'll match 50% of whatever

you donate so if people are thinking of donating and thinking of donating before the end of August I would encourage people to go that way instead of using just the donate link on our website do it through the parties for kids the money will go further and speaking of You know, with the event and stuff, we, next summer, we're planning to do a golf tournament. And I think the summer after that, tentatively, we've planned for a hockey tournament. So, you know, I'm excited about that. I think, you know, it's a, with the hockey tournament, there's kind of a lot of overhead from what I've been told, from people that know what they're doing with this kind of thing. Right?

You've got to rent the rink. You got to get deposits in, all this kind of stuff. So I wanted to do a hockey tournament year one. And it's like, yeah, it's probably not feasible. Golf is certainly a little bit easier. And so I think what we're going to do, you know, with this therapy subsidization program for the new year, we're going to launch it. You'd have to be in Leffbridge or Leffbridge County, Red Deer or Red Deer County, almost as a pilot to work out the kinks. Of course, I'm from Red Deer.

I played hockey in Lefbridge and both those towns really rallied around me when I got in the accident. So we're thinking golf tournament in Lefbridge, hockey tournament in Red Deer. It's kind of the plan. And then, you know, I want to, the education piece, I'd like to do some type of mental health, like symposium or seminar or conference, you know, get some speakers in. maybe I could talk and give people access to, you know, young, you know, our demographic, again, it's 25 and younger. Like, that's a tough time in a lot of people's lives, right?

There's lots of pressures and you're supposed to have it all figured out, but no one really does. And some people do, and that makes it harder for the people that don't and all this kind of stuff. And then if you throw in any sort of trauma or mental illness into the mix, it just makes it that much harder. And, you know, I think for me, like I'm still, like I said, I'm still figuring some stuff on and I'm still learning, but I can certainly tell you what you probably shouldn't do. And so as much as I can tell you, hey, maybe do this, I can certainly tell you, people could certainly

learn from the mistakes that I made if they're navigating their own mental health stuff. And so I'd like to work our way towards hosting something like that as well, where we can get, you know, college kids or high school kids, get a couple interesting, cool keynote speakers, give them the opportunity to learn like, hey, what actually is trauma, what actually is anxiety, what is depression, how does that manifest itself in your life? And of course, it probably looks different for everyone, but you know, you hear the word anxiety, depression, trauma, like just thrown around, right? And I think that kind of does a disservice to people that try. truly really struggle with those things.

And so, yeah, I think, like for me, I think a massive part of my recovery was that education piece. Like your body, like one of my favorite quotes, and I learned this from Jen, is trauma's not what happened to you. It's what happens inside of you because of what happened to you. And that's from Dr. Gabor Matea. He's a doctor in trauma and he's a guy. He survived the Holocaust.

And like this guy knows what he's talking about when it comes to trauma. And it's it's physiological, right? It's the way your nervous system has remembered an event. And it's the way your brain registers an event. And you talk fight or flight or you talk panic attacks or you PTSD. It was something that I struggled with. You know, it's physiological. And so, yeah, I think that, you know, with the board that we have,

Genesis is phenomenal. Jen, we have another psychologist on the board. There's eight of us and they're all phenomenal. And I think that we have the capacity to really, you know, have an impact on the youth in the community. And I'm hoping that we can get there. Yeah, you have a real opportunity to do some good. Yeah. And you get your golf tournament off the off and rolling.

you shoot me a text. I am a awful gopher. Awful. I want to just be very clear. Me and the old water hazard become very good friends. But you get any your events off. You make sure you let me know because we'll make sure to highlight it. On the flip side, you ever get a hockey tournament going? I mean, I'm a sucker. Aren't we all?

Any hockey player, just I'm a sucker for a good hockey tournament, right? I mean, it just, there's something about it. So appreciate you hopping on, Ryan, and sharing your story. And, you know, once again, if people are looking for how they can donate, things like that, ignited minds foundation.com is where you want to go. And just thanks for hopping on and doing this. Yeah, I really appreciate your time and you having me on and let me come shoot it with you for the last hour and a half. So thank you very much.

One final question. Being from Red Dare, are you a flamespan or? an oilers fan. I cheer for the Oilers. Yeah. But I'm a Wings fan. I'm a Wings fan. Oh, you're Detroit. You're Detroit. Well, I tell you what, they got Stevie Y. If you're going to have anybody be your GM. Stevie Y was my, I don't know, curious, you know, being born in 98, you were largely missed the majority of Stevie Y's career. Stevie Y was my favorite hockey player of all time. Full star. That guy was. Hey, I got full faith in the eyes your plan. I got full faith. I'm not panicking. Thanks again, Ryan. Yeah, thank you very much, Sean.