Pressure to perform too much
Marlies player shares his story of depression at Friday Night Lights event
Richard Clune said the day he played his first game in the NHL with the L.A. Kings, he thought he would finally be happy.
But he wasn’t.
“I was so depressed…. It was the lowest I’d ever felt, and I had no answer why,” he told a crowd on the football field at Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School Friday night.
Clune, who is now nearly a decade clean and sober, shared his story of depression, addiction and recovery as part of Friday Night Lights, an annual fundraiser for the mental health charity Team 55.
Team 55 was created by Dave and Heather Pogue, with the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), following the death by suicide of their son Mitchell in 2013.
Since then it has raised $500,000 for local mental health programs, notably one operated by the CMHA that offers free counselling to people who’ve attempted suicide.
Friday Night Lights offered a full day of high school football, barbecues and raffles (the grand prize was a pair of tickets to see singer Carrie Underwood in Toronto on Oct. 14).
Clune, who is now a forward for the Toronto Marlies, was the keynote speaker at the evening ceremonies at 6 p.m.
Growing up in Toronto, he decided as a child to do whatever it took to get to the NHL.
“When I made that decision, that’s when I think my mental illness set in,” he said.
Clune then described the heavy pressure to perform and the grief of leaving home at age 16 to play for the OHL in Sarnia.
He relieved emotional pain with alcohol, he said — and then later also started using both cannabis and cocaine, while still chasing his NHL dreams.
His depression didn’t lift during that first season with the L.A. Kings, he said. When the season was over, he went on a two-week bender and then returned to the Toronto rehab centre where he’d previously stayed just a few days.
In recovery, his priorities changed: “I never cared about going back to the NHL — I just wanted peace of mind.”
Money raised by the Team 55 event is all going to help support Assertive Outreach Suicide Prevention (AOSP), a crisis service of the CMHA.
Mark Graham, the CEO of the local CMHA, said the program was developed locally three years ago. It offers free counselling to people who’ve survived a suicide attempt after discharge from either Peterborough Regional Health Centre or Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay.
Graham said the program has helped 237 people in three years — none of whom has died by suicide. AOSP costs $250,000 to operate annually, he said, and it receives no government money. It’s entirely funded by Team 55 events, donations and other fundraising.
“But it isn’t sustainable — you can’t run these programs (longterm) on fundraised money,” Graham said.