Among themselves, American hockey players modestly call him the « programme ». As if using its full name – “Addiction and Behavioral Health Program” – already made them suspect of weakness. Unless the elliptical formula allows them to avoid the slightest breach of the strict rules of confidentiality that the National Hockey League (NHL) imposes on the subject.
Developed more than twenty-five years before the subject gained public space, by one of the most powerful North American sports federations, this assistance program intended for hockey players suffering from addiction problems or of depression is nevertheless a pioneering initiative in the sports world.
As early as 1996, the leaders of the NHL and those of the National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) undertook, in a document the details of which have remained confidential, to provide players with a “program of education, counselling, treatment in hospital or outpatient setting and medical follow-up”. At the time, it was above all the problems of drug addiction – alcohol consumption, taking anxiolytics or opiates, which were widespread in this very physical and even brutal sport, causing in particular many concussions – which worried the League.
Break the omerta
Two medical luminaries, a psychologist from Toronto (Canada), Brian Shaw, and an American psychiatrist from Los Angeles, David Lewis, former head of the mental health department of the United States Air Force Academy, have been appointed in charge of this program. They are still in place.
The Players Association, which co-finances the structure with the League, distills information in dribs and drabs: impossible to know, for example, how many hockey players have benefited from such assistance. She just consents to explain “that a telephone line open 24 hours a day is available to players seeking help and that a network of professional advisers is available in each city of the League”.
Finally, says Jonathan Weatherdon, in charge of communications for the NHLPA, “Players are put in touch with professionals specializing in the specific area in which they seek help. If a player has issues with mental health, sleep, gambling, alcohol, etc., the program provides free access to appropriate care”.
This tailor-made assistance is silent, at least as long as the player concerned is not obliged to be absent from his team. But, recently, by publicly acknowledging having had recourse to this program, some superstars dare to break the omerta, assuming the risk of undermining the values of virility long maintained in the world of hockey.
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