Connor Hellebuyck and I are standing outside the Jets dressing room.

Winnipeg has just dropped back-to-back games, getting outscored 9-1 by the Avalanche and Islanders in a crucial homestand that was meant to turn the struggling Jets around. The next day, Feb. 28, they’ll lose their fourth straight game. This would not traditionally be Hellebuyck’s favourite time to have an extensive, emotional, one-on-one conversation with a reporter, but today’s topic is too important to him to miss.

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We’re talking about mental health, starting with his children’s book, released in January — and Hellebuyck is dialled in. He’s going to places in his childhood, sharing personal stories and talking about some of the biggest stressors that face an elite NHL athlete. He’s even a bit prophetic: At one point, he asks me to imagine the difference between a player overcoming their struggles when the whole city has their back compared to when they receive sarcastic applause.

Hellebuyck wants to use his platform to be a positive force, helping kids develop mental health skills and awareness that he or I might not have had growing up. That’s why he’s going deep on a difficult day.

His book, co-authored with Steinbach writer Thom Van Dycke, is cleverly constructed. “Bucky Beats the Blues” tells the story of a young buck who must learn how to cope when his dear friend Joe moves away from their hometown. “Is Something Wrong With Weasel?” is about a group of friends realizing that Weasel has the blues and they need an adult to help Weasel out. They’re separate stories which meet in the middle of the same book, with Coach Bucky, now fully grown, ready to provide the adult help that Weasel needs.

The book’s message is about finding adults who can help, even when kids can’t. It begins with resources, including The Kids’ Help Phone. All proceeds from its sale go to Project 11 — True North’s initiative to help students and teachers develop mental health awareness and positive coping skills. There is even a framed No. 11 Rick Rypien jersey on one cover.

Here is Hellebuyck on the importance of mental health, on his own struggles and growth, what it’s like to be vulnerable in such a public setting and how he’s handled some of the most difficult times of his career.

Note: Transcript is edited slightly for clarity.

I’m grateful for the chance to get into this. First off, why was it important for you to release this book?

Once people started talking about mental health, I realized that this is something that I’ve been working on my own life, my own career, for the last 10 years. I just called it a hockey skill but I think it’s more than that and I wanted to use kind of what I’ve been going through over the last 10 years as a head start for anyone just getting into it. I thought it was important for me to start with the youth. When I was younger, I was grateful to learn it when I did — or to start learning it when I did. But I wanted to help the next generation.

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I reflect on my own childhood. I’m older than you are. Growing up, we didn’t talk about it — or if we did, it was in such a general sense. In my high school, somebody passed away so a guidance counsellor went to every room. He said, “If you want to reach out, you can,” And that felt like the extent of the mental health conversation. How does that compare to what you experienced growing up and the difference that you want to create?

I think that was pretty similar. I think it was more, “Tough it out.” Which I agree: toughing it out is a part of mental health. But it’s a portion of it. You’ve got to know when’s the right time to tough it out, when’s the right time to talk and when’s the right time to let some emotions go. You’ve got to know when’s the right time to pull back and when’s the right time to reach out to your neighbours and your friends and to look at your community. I think that’s why it’s so important — because there’s so many skills that go with it.

Growing up, there was a lot of “tough it out” and “figure it out.” Now, I think we’re starting to realize that (it’s important to) talk to someone and then come to that conclusion, whether it’s tough it out or talk to someone. I think getting help, getting outside help, getting wiser help, getting adult help is crucial for the younger generation to not have to do this alone. There’s people who want to help and want to give their advice and help guide you in the right direction. Because sometimes you do make a mistake and that’s OK, too.

In the book, Weasel is not having a good time. The kids, they clearly care — everybody in the book is empathetic for Weasel — but nothing they try works. So I think I see the same message in it: there’s certain situations where you need adults or outside help.

Absolutely. And to even go further, it’s showing the other kids to keep on a lookout, keep on guard and do what you can to help your friends. And not only that, it’s kind of a message to adults as well that this could be around you: You could be the help. I want to say to keep on guard, too, to make sure you have those conversations with your kids and the people that you’re close with. Just to make sure everyone’s in good mental health — or has mental status, I think, is a better word.

One of the things that surprised me. It’s trade deadline season, maybe I’m a little underslept and not quite 100 percent, but I’m pretty close … When I was reading about Bucky’s friend Joe in the book … One of my best friends from childhood died this summer.

I’m sorry to hear that.

I appreciate that. It was a surprise and the more we learn, it wasn’t suicide but depression was related. I’ve spent so much time like Bucky’s character: “I can’t tell my friend this great story that happened.” There was a resonance with me, even as an adult. Bucky’s feelings were my exact feelings. Is there a sense that your book’s message is for the parents who are reading it to kids as well?

Absolutely. I think the suicide rate is way too high, period. And this is for everyone who is willing to listen. This isn’t just a message for the youth. I think it starts with them, to get it potentially out of our society — or to at least help — but it’s for the parents, too, because adults side with each other. Parents can help each other. I mean, everyone’s got a friend that they can think of that might be sad or might have a down week or a down year. Sometimes it’s just being there. You see so many interviews these days where just being there, being present, is so important.

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Like the coach in your book.

Yeah.

One of the things I wonder about is that, when I pursue my mental health … I speak to a therapist once a month. Part of it was mental health is health so I want to explore it, period, and part of it was I was going through some stuff. When I pursue my own mental health, I get to do it privately. I get to make mistakes, say ignorant things, work through my stuff, and be wrong in a place that’s safe. As a professional athlete in the public eye, we almost ask you to be spokespeople for things like this while you’re working on your own life. Is that awkward balance something you think about?

I do, yes. I mean, that’s why we’re professional athletes. That’s part of it — having the lights on us all the time. And that’s always my message to the media. Sometimes, when you guys are writing negative articles, remember our side of it — where we’re trying and we’re working on things. Just have a sense that we’re not just giving up. And I think it’s so important to relay that message. Because I know, when we’re in the locker room with you guys all the time — or even our fans cheering when we get a shot on net — little things like that, that does add up to us. And we handle it very well but imagine, just imagine a team that has the whole city behind their back and the media behind their back and how good they’re gonna feel. And how much easier it is to come out of bad weeks or bad years and to work on themselves, not only as people but as hockey players.

That’s something to think about. I mean, I wrote negatively after (the Jets’ 5-1 loss to Colorado.) This is a slight pivot, but how do you approach knowing that the criticism you get comes from people who don’t understand the nuances of your position nearly as well as you do?

For me, I just tune it out. I know my truths and I know my reality. I just kind of push it aside. And then, I call people if I need to call someone. Joe in the book is actually a personal friend of mine. Anytime I go through a bad week, I just give him a call and see how he’s seeing the game and how he’s seeing my game, and how my mental health is, because he knows right away. He knows how to pump me up and he knows how I’m feeling. We’re really close, he’s in my personal bubble. But yeah, I mean there’s facts, and there’s statistical facts. But they don’t always tell the whole story.

If you could see how much we care and how much we’re trying, I think you could see the other side of it. I mean, I get that negative articles, sometimes they’re just facts. But imagine if you threw in there, this is also what we’re doing well. Then, when someone reads it, they’re like, “OK, I am doing this well. I’m going to improve on this or try to get rid of that.” That’s what I mean by having everyone behind us or having the media behind us. If the fans know we’re trying, they’re going to start cheering at little things that we’re doing well — and that goes a long way.

That’s kind of what the book is still kind of jabbing at a little bit. The kids are seeing Weasel down, they’re saying hey would you like to do this, let’s do this. And he’s still not into it. That’s when they finally had to bring the adult in. That’s where it tells my backstory about fishing and how Joe went away, how I didn’t get to do that anymore, and how I still wanted to do it. So it’s so important to see the positives and to really work on the positives. I mean, the negatives are there. We all see it. That’s how we improve. Failures are there. But how do we take the positives from it?

There’s two fascinating directions to go from there. I want to ask: Is there a childhood version of Joe from your life? Is there a friend that you lost or who went away like Joe in the book?

Not necessarily. I mean, all the characters are true to my life. I didn’t lose Joe. I met him later in my life. But it’s a good storyline: what all of my friends do for me is in there and we made it into a storyline. So like I said, I have my personal bubble and Joe is in that personal bubble. If I were to lose him, I would be devastated. So this would happen if that scenario did happen, if that makes sense.

Yes, totally. You can imagine this scenario. You have the emotional intelligence to explore it even if it’s not how it went down.

Exactly.

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I wanted to ask you: Your book makes space for Weasel to cry. When I was a kid, a professional athlete would not talk about that. Was that particularly important to include or just something that happened in the story?

I think, when you’re looking at the younger generation, you’re still figuring out your emotions. And crying does happen. Randomly, sometimes. As I’m raising my kid, I see it now. You can’t suppress every single emotion. Sometimes you’ve got to let them go. That’s when you realize, I don’t know why I actually felt that way. That’s a building block. That’s part of “tough it out.” But sometimes, it’s like “OK, I’m going to learn how to control and show the right emotion.” So that’s kind of the point there. I don’t know if people pick up on that. But it’s a children’s book, it doesn’t need to work like that. It’s more, “Let’s open this up, let’s learn to talk about it and make sure that the line of communication is strong.”

For me, part of this is talking about the book as a kid’s book and part of it is I get to geek out and “book report” it and be like, “This book says something about Connor Hellebuyck’s values.”

Exactly.

Do you combine sports psych in terms of performance and habits with the therapy side of mental health in your own life?

A little bit. I think that’s why I get along with Flats (Wade Flaherty) so well, our goalie coach. Every now and then I’ll just let it go. I’ll let my emotions go to him and I’ll just be sitting there and I’ll just be devastated after a game or just mind-blown, and I don’t know what to think. I’ll just sit there. It will take me 15 to 20 minutes and he’ll sit down with me and we’ll talk it through. Me and Joe used to go over the good, the bad and the ugly after every single game. And that helped just get that game out. But now at this level, we have so much more added stress. It’s really hard to explain to people but I’ll just let it go and I’ll wipe my mind clean. We’ll just let it all out. Let every emotion I’m feeling out. Then, the next day, we’ll be back to work, and it will be clean. I’ll have a clean brain and I think it’s so important: When you’re building up that stress, just let it all out. Wipe it clean and start fresh. Start new.

I imagine you weren’t born with the ability to flush things out in that way. Can you look back and see milestones in your own growth?

Absolutely. Near the end of my junior year, I went on a bit of a bad stretch and me and Joe went over it. “Don’t overthink things.” That was a big part of my growth right there, learning what reality is in those tough moments.

Then I got to college and I didn’t play for the first month. I wasn’t used to that. I learned how to deal with grinding and practising really hard and really putting the balls to the wall when I could. The rest of that is history. Then I got to the AHL and a similar thing happened — and this time, I was able to do that right away. Hop right into that. That was big growth that I could take from my college days to my pro days: same ideas, same thoughts, same balls-to-the-wall grinding. I knew what to do to make myself succeed and help the team succeed.

Then I got to the NHL. Paul (Maurice) was pretty hard on me as a rookie. He pulled me eight times. That was something I’d never been through. I had to learn how to learn and get better at a very, very stressful level with everyone looking down on me. The media wasn’t very nice to me that year. I learned to tune them out a little bit. I knew the team needed more out of me so I had to learn how to grasp that. There was a big growing moment there … And then the next year, I could have won the Vezina. I think what I learned there was how to deal with all of the stress and deal with all of the negativity around me and use it as a positive.

I want to close with this. Part of my prep for this was reading everything I could find that people have written about you. In Kristina Rutherford’s story at Sportsnet, she talks about how your dad watched you track a bug crawling across the floor and he could tell that you had a truly unique ability to focus on things. I also perceive you to have an emotional intelligence that is also unique. As an adult, I imagine your strengths in these areas are part of what puts you in the Vezina conversation, on the very short list for the best in the world at your job. When you were a kid, did these things that make you so unique ever make life hard for you?

It’s hard to say. When you live, it just feels normal. Looking back, maybe it was a little bit tough, but I don’t recall … I think one of my strengths is my adaptability. I think anytime I ran into a scenario like that, I was quick to adapt. And when I was 18, I watched “The Secret.” And ‘The Secret” is all about a belief system. If you truly believe something is going to happen, you’re just going to … Everything that you look forward to is you are going to do this. So for me, I set out to win the Vezina and the Stanley Cup. That was my main goal set. That I’m going to have one day. Everything that I did to reach that point was about changing the way I behaved. What would that person do? What would that person have gone through and have done to achieve those goals? So all these failures and roadblocks I ran into, I thought, “OK, well how would that person have handled that?” I think that’s where you learn to adapt really quickly. It doesn’t ever knock you down. It just sets you on a new path.

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Is that person theoretical? Like you’re imagining the best version of you? Or is it someone specific like Dominik Hasek? Or, like, your dad?

It really could be either. For me, it was theoretical: myself in that scenario. But you could say, “OK, I’m going to be The Dominator. What would I do to be the next him?” My guy was theoretical.

This was fascinating. Thank you.

Thank you.

(Photo: Michael Mooney / NHLI via Getty Images)

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