The Professional Hockey Players Association (PHPA) has taken first-of-its-kind steps toward initiatives investing in not only the best interests of its members on the ice, but by providing them with additional resources off the ice such as the FIRST LINE Mental Health Training program that is available to PHPA members.

“It’s really designed to initiate a shift in how we think, feel and act when it comes to mental health,” Chuck Thuss, the PHPA’s health and wellness specialist facilitating the FIRST LINE program explained. “By increasing our awareness, reducing stigma and other barriers that typically get in the way for care and encouraging mental health conversations.”

Working alongside the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the National Hockey League’s Players Association (NHLPA) created FIRST LINE in 2024, offering the customized program to its members in 2024 led by Dr. Jay Harrison, a Wellness, Transition, and Performance Specialist.

The program has been well-received at the NHL-level, so much so that Harrison estimates roughly 1-in-4 active players have taken the voluntary training program since its inception.

“Rather than just telling an anecdotal story, I wanted to better understand if this was a pattern or relationship that we could see more broadly across the professional North American population, which is something that I was able to demonstrate,” Harrison said, adding, “When we talk about the idea of being involved outside the game as a professional athlete, we actually have great data from the entire body of literature suggests that athletes who are doing more things beyond the game – while still very committed to being athletes  but also are exploring other parts of themselves and contributing to their development in other ways – function better psychologically, and that increased sense of well-being can actually enhance their performance as well.”

Through the collaboration between the NHLPA and Mental Health Commission, and the willingness from Harrison – a PHPA alumnus – to offer his assistance to the PHPA and Thuss, the program was officially rolled out for PHPA members in January of 2025. 

“The PHPA is proud to collaborate with the NHLPA on such an important initiative for our collective membership who encounter many of the same issues and challenges in professional hockey,” Brian Ramsay, PHPA Executive Director, said last year.  “I would like to thank Marty Walsh and his team at the NHLPA, including PHPA Alumnus Jay Harrison, as well as the Mental Health Commission of Canada, for working with us to extend such a thriving program that will empower our Members to combat stigmas surrounding mental health.”

Thuss has been open about his own mental health struggles he endured throughout his playing career and that followed him after his retirement from the game in the 2000s, leading him to what he described as a real dark place and an “eight-year journey” to understand what he was feeling.

“How can I gather a whole bunch of tools to help me live a life that’s very high level, but healthy as well. And when I came out of that (journey) in 2016, I dedicated the rest of my life to doing this work,” Thuss said.

When the FIRST LINE program was created, Thuss reached out to Harrison and the two made a connection, with Harrison and the NHLPA’s willingness to extend this program to the PHPA and Thuss’s dedication and advocacy for mental health paving the way for the program to be rolled out to PHPA members.

“I’ll be forever indebted to Dr Jay Harrison for his friendship, his mentorship and his willingness to work alongside me with the PHPA and everything that we’re doing,” Thuss said, humbled by the opportunity to facilitate this program to PHPA members. “After all that I’ve been through in my personal journey to now be able to turn around and be of service to our membership in this capacity, it’s incredibly humbling, and my heart is full.”