{"id":646471,"date":"2026-10-31T02:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T02:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/646471\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T02:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T02:20:16","slug":"mental-health-creating-a-locker-room-for-those-without-a-team-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/646471\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental health: Creating a \u2018locker room\u2019 for those without a team \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minutes into their game Tuesday evening, Utah Mammoth tough guy Liam O\u2019Brien<\/a> engaged in a fist fight with Michael McCarron of the Minnesota Wild.<\/p>\n

It was only O\u2019Brien\u2019s fourth shift of the season, and McCarron is 5 inches taller than him \u2014 but \u201cSpicy Tuna\u201d has a job to do and he showed no fear when the time came. He absorbed a few punches and threw a few of his own, firing up the home crowd at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n

While few do it on as big a stage as O\u2019Brien, millions of men approach their daily work with the same type of courage. Whether they spend their days fighting in the NHL, operating heavy machinery at a job site or typing at a computer, not many would say they have it easy.<\/p>\n

Despite being no stranger to challenges, talking about internal struggles is often the hardest thing for those same men to do.<\/p>\n

The Anxiety & Depression Association of America reports that nearly 1 in 10<\/a> men experience depression or anxiety, and less than half of them receive treatment for it. Additionally, men are four times more likely than women to die by suicide, the association says.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien was open about his approach to mental health in a conversation with the Deseret News hours before Tuesday\u2019s game began.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the job that we do can sometimes weigh on the mental even more so than the physical,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously, they\u2019re intertwined, but it\u2019s important to take care of yourself first.\u201d<\/p>\n

How does he get through it?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s special about being a part of a team, is you have other guys kind of going through the same grind you\u2019re going through, or maybe have gone through what you\u2019ve gone through,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cSo, you have people that you can lean on, whether it\u2019s from an injury or from maybe a family situation, people that you can lean on and talk to and go to for advice, and trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacKenzie Weegar, a teammate of O\u2019Brien, has had similar experiences with teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to have people surrounding you that can help you out through those tough times or if you\u2019re feeling a little down or alone,\u201d he said. \u201cI know for myself, I\u2019ve had mental health work done. (Even if) it\u2019s just talking to somebody, that helps out.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien and Weegar are fortunate that in their line of work, they have a built-in support group: 22 teammates, plus a staff of coaches, medical experts, mental performance guides and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe locker room is really just a place where guys from all kinds of different backgrounds can come and connect and feel safe, and sort of unite in a common goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Austin Facer, SLC Puck<\/p>\n

Utah resident Joe Tuia\u2019ana recognizes that not everyone has that type of support.<\/p>\n

In January 2022, Tuia\u2019ana and his three daughters were driving to the youngest daughter\u2019s basketball game when they saw a man climb over the guardrail on an overpass. Tuia\u2019ana swung the car around, directed one of his daughters to call the police, and sprang into action.<\/p>\n

\u201cI immediately felt an overwhelming weight of anxiety, this panic overwhelming me,\u201d Tuia\u2019ana recalled in an interview with the Deseret News<\/a>. \u201cAnd so, I thought, \u2018I\u2019m just going to open my arms out to him like I want to give him a hug.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Well aware that his 6-foot-3, 315-pound frame was intimidating, Tuia\u2019ana approached the man with four words on repeat: \u201cI love you, bro. I love you, bro.\u201d<\/p>\n

That section of the story had a happy ending. The man, whom Tuia\u2019ana came to know as Aron, lived. But that doesn\u2019t mean there wasn\u2019t an uphill battle afterward.<\/p>\n

Hoping to help his new friend further, Tuia\u2019ana began researching support programs. He realized little existed in the way of long-term suicide prevention resources tailored to men. So, he gathered a group of \u201cbros\u201d and met as a support group.<\/p>\n

They continued meeting week after week. Those bros told other bros, and before long, the group was too big to have just one chapter. Fast-forward to the present day, and the \u201cI Love You Bro Project\u201d holds 15 meetings weekly from Logan to Spanish Fork and many places in between.<\/p>\n

The idea is to build the same type of support group that O\u2019Brien and Weegar talked about \u2014 a \u201clocker room\u201d for those who may not already belong to a \u201cteam.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin Facer, the content creator behind the \u201cSLC Puck!\u201d brand, recognizes both the importance of that support and the need for it to grow.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe locker room is really just a place where guys from all kinds of different backgrounds can come and connect and feel safe, and sort of unite in a common goal,\u201d he said in an interview with the Deseret News. \u201cIt\u2019s really not unlike a support (group) session that the \u2018I Love You Bro Project\u2019 does.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Facer launched \u201cThe Next Shift Project<\/a>\u201d in support of the \u201cI Love You Bro Project.\u201d He\u2019s donating $5 from every piece of merchandise he sells to support Tuia\u2019ana\u2019s initiative.<\/p>\n

After all, what happened on your last shift doesn\u2019t matter nearly as much as what you do with the next one. <\/p>\n

\u201cThinking about the life lessons and the resilience and the toughness and the optimism that comes from playing hockey, thinking about your next shift, putting whatever happened in the previous shift behind you and just focusing on what\u2019s ahead, I think that\u2019s a great life lesson,\u201d Facer said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Austin Facer writes a letter to send to Utah Mammoth captain Clayton Keller during an NHL game against the Los Angeles Kings at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. | Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minutes into their game Tuesday evening, Utah Mammoth tough guy Liam O\u2019Brien engaged in a fist fight with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[134,554,555,111,66564,139,69],"class_list":["post-646471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-new-zealand","tag-news-feed-local","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}