Canes help raise awareness about mental health
The Lethbridge Hurricanes teamed up with the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Alberta South Region during Tuesday night’s Western Hockey League game against the Regina Pats to raise awareness about the importance of mental health within the sporting community.
Throughout the game, CMHA manned kiosks in the Enmax Centre for fans to learn more about the mental health resources available in the community from CMHA and Alberta Health Services (AHS) Addiction and Mental Health experts. People were also able to learn more about the importance of having an open dialogue about mental health and suicide prevention.
“Talk Today is a WHL wide program that is run with every team and it started in Ontario with the OHL for a number of years and it has been happening in Western Canada for the last three years. CHMA joined up with the Hurricanes to put on a game to raise awareness for mental health,” said David Gabert, communications lead and project manager of CMHA.
“Last week it was Bell Let’s Talk day and we want to make sure that these conversations aren’t just happening on that day, and not just on Talk Today but that we are also connecting people to resources that are available in the community.”
At the game, CMHA helped raise funds for the Youth Dreams Bursary which goes towards youth in the community who are struggling or have struggled with mental health issues, but also show leadership skills and overcoming it with awards such as dance classes and other activities they are interested in.
A key piece of the Talk Today program has been to educate the players about mental health and suicide prevention. Every team in the WHL receives specific training on suicide prevention and each team is also linked to a CMHA Mental Health Coach, who helps provide support and mental health resources to individuals in need.
“It has been absolutely amazing, the game night is just one part of the Talk Today program, the other part is also doing some suicide prevention training with the players,” said Gabert. “We are giving them the tools and resources and communication so that we have a healthy culture around sports because we know the Hurricanes are an amazing group of leaders in our community. People look up to them and to have them as allies standing beside us in the world of mental health and suicide prevention is important.”
If you, or someone you know is suffering and needs to seek help, call the Distress Line of Southwestern Alberta at 403-327-7905, or visit
lethbridge.cmha.ca for a list of local resources available.