Winnipeg Jets star forward Gabriel Vilardi makes his point abundantly clear, repeating himself over the course of multiple interviews. He\u2019s going to talk about mental health and, as such, he is going to talk about his personal struggles with panic attacks, negative self-talk and the ways he\u2019s tried to cope with those challenges since he was a child.<\/p>\n
But this story is not about Gabriel Vilardi. The three-time 20-goal scorer is sharing the details from his life in case he can help somebody else.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone deals with anxiety, right? Just because I was diagnosed, it doesn\u2019t mean that I have it different than other people do \u2026 I hope this can help give people ideas for how to deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those are the ground rules. We\u2019re having this conversation for the greater good, through the lens of Vilardi\u2019s lived experiences, because the first lesson he ever learned about managing anxiety was that it is important to seek help.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy family is from Italy. A very old school area of Italy. For my dad to say he had anxiety growing up, it would have been \u2026 \u2018F off,\u2019 right? I think we\u2019ve grown so much as a society, and especially in hockey, with mental health. It\u2019s not like that anymore. For me, seeing the mistakes my family made \u2014 where maybe they didn\u2019t see help \u2014 I look at that and say, \u2018I have all of these things available to me. I have to do them because they didn\u2019t do them and it\u2019s going to help me.’\u201d<\/p>\n
As a professional hockey player, Vilardi has access to mental health professionals and stress-reducing strategies that his parents\u2019 generation didn\u2019t think about. He\u2019s grateful for that. There have been times he\u2019s wondered what his career would look like without them.<\/p>\n
But this is a story that goes back to his earliest days as a child, long before he celebrated professional success and coped with failure in front of thousands of people, 82 games a year.<\/p>\n
Vilardi\u2019s journey with mental health started when he was a boy growing up in Kingston, Ont. Vilardi had seen anxiety manifest itself in his father, Natale, as well as his grandmother. Even as a child, he\u2019d reflected on the importance of mental health supports. He understood that people could struggle with mental health without a formal diagnosis. Then, when he was 11 or 12 years old, Vilardi started to experience panic attacks at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a period I didn\u2019t go to school for six months,\u201d Vilardi says. \u201cI was scared \u2026 I had this idea I was going to throw up for whatever reason and I\u2019d have panic attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vilardi thought about his dad\u2019s and his grandma\u2019s experiences. He considered the differences between his upbringing as a first-generation child in Canada and the \u201cold school\u201d Reggio Calabria Italian culture that had raised his parents. The idea to seek help came naturally to Vilardi. He\u2019d seen how much harder it is when people choose to battle alone.<\/p>\n
He found a psychologist at Kingston General Hospital and made sure to talk to them at least once per week. When he was drafted by Windsor in the Ontario Hockey League at 15 years old, Vilardi sought out resources through his junior team, then did the same in the NHL, first in Los Angeles and again when traded to Winnipeg in 2023. The habit of speaking to somebody at least once per week is a foundational part of his personal and professional life.<\/p>\n
So what is a panic attack?<\/p>\n
The Mayo Clinic defines a panic attack as a sudden episode of intense fear that triggers severe physical reactions, when there is no real danger or apparent cause. It describes panic attacks as frightening: \u201cWhen panic attacks occur, you might think you\u2019re losing control, having a heart attack or even dying.\u201d Some people experience negative self-talk during a panic attack, wherein their internal monologue bombards them with unhealthy or hurtful thoughts.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what Vilardi experienced for the first time as a child and continues to relate to today.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, negative self-talk is not just panic attacks; it\u2019s something that I deal with a lot. And it drags on. It starts with one play. Then it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh s\u2014, I\u2019ve got to make up for that play.\u2019 Then it drags on to three shifts because you\u2019re still thinking in your head that you\u2019ve got to make up for it. Next thing you know, it\u2019s a period and it\u2019s like, \u2018F\u2014, I\u2019ve only got two periods left.\u2019 I was in my head the whole first period.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are times when Vilardi\u2019s self-talk becomes so critical that he changes how he prepares for an NHL game. As a first-line forward who plays a key role on the team\u2019s top power-play unit, Vilardi knows he\u2019s counted upon to score goals and produce points. This season, when it took him eight games to score his first goal, he found that he had to battle through negative self-talk.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went through a period where I stopped watching my shifts for three or four games because I just got to a point where I was overanalyzing myself,\u201d Vilardi says. \u201cTo the point that no matter what I did, I was fearful to watch my shifts because it felt like there were no positives coming out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Publicly, Vilardi said all of the right things while he was slumping. He talked about helping his team win games in ways that didn\u2019t necessarily involve scoring. He says he understood, rationally, that he was creating a large volume of scoring chances and that those usually lead to goals.<\/p>\n
But anxiety is an enemy of the word \u201crationally.\u201d Self-talk can lie.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in the right spots. I was doing the right things \u2026 (But) when you\u2019re so in your head, you don\u2019t see those things. You just see the negatives. \u2018Why did I get rid of the puck there? If I was playing with confidence, I wouldn\u2019t get rid of that. I\u2019d carry it a little bit more.’\u201d<\/p>\n
So Vilardi reached out to his social support network. For him, that means his brother, Francesco, his mom, Giovanna, and a select group of close friends. He spoke to Dr. Morgan Marcoux, one of three psychiatrists (and five mental health professionals) listed on Winnipeg\u2019s hockey operations staff. He also continued to engage with the day-to-day stress-reducing habits he\u2019s formed over the years.<\/p>\n
When he scored his first goal of the season on Oct. 24, Vilardi\u2019s first response was not joy but relief. He looked skyward, grateful to have finally broken his slump, then raised two fists into the air and jumped into the glass.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should be happy. You should be joyful. You should be whatever emotion you want to call it. Yeah, that one felt more like relief \u2014 which isn\u2019t always a good thing, but sometimes it is a good thing. It\u2019s part of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vilardi has scored 11 more goals in 17 games since that game.<\/p>\n
There are several tools Vilardi uses to look after himself during the rigors of an NHL season.<\/p>\n
One rule he has for himself is that he always tries to do something fun when he gets out of the rink. His teammates tease him (lovingly) for going to the Rec Room as often as he does to indulge in arcade games.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuys always mess with me for that but it\u2019s a mental thing,\u201d Vilardi says. \u201cI go there and I have an hour or an hour and a half where nothing else exists. I just go there, I play, I have fun, and I\u2019m like a kid.\u201d<\/p>\n
At home, Vilardi gets into that same state of mind by building Lego. It\u2019s methodical and slow, demanding just enough of Vilardi\u2019s focus to make everything else in his day irrelevant for an hour while connecting to a joyful piece of his childhood. Building 7,500-piece showstoppers such as the Millennium Falcon from \u201cStar Wars\u201d or smaller projects such as the DeLorean from \u201cBack to the Future\u201d is a healthy distraction. And for Vilardi, who\u2019s hoping to get the Lego Death Star for Christmas, it\u2019s just plain fun.<\/p>\n
The cold plunges aren\u2019t quite so joyful, but he believes in their value.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really enjoy cold therapy because that\u2019s legit \u2014 it\u2019s like fight or flight. Your body is telling you to \u2018Get the F out, get the F out,\u2019 but you\u2019re like, \u2018No, I can do this,’\u201d Vilardi says. \u201cThat correlates directly to situations where you could have high anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also reached out to people in his support network for tools to manage anxiety as it\u2019s building up in the heat of the moment. He knows people who use deep breathing exercises. He meditates. His mom counts backwards from 10, which sounds simple but has been useful in moments that feel overwhelming. His days aren\u2019t perfect, even when he\u2019s scoring goals, but \u2014 to borrow a hockey phrase \u2014 Vilardi stays in the fight.<\/p>\n
One thing he\u2019s particularly grateful for in hockey is that, as long as there\u2019s time on the clock, there\u2019s always another opportunity to turn things around.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get put in situations where I feel like I can succeed \u2026 You make a nice move and it\u2019s like, \u2018What did you just do?\u2019 almost. But it just happened naturally. Then you build confidence off of that.\u201d<\/p>\n