First hockey event launched to help veterans with post-traumatic stress

It was a meeting of hockey heroes at the Coon Rapids Ice Center.

“It’s not about how much you give, it’s how you give,” declared Jay Garstecki, the founder of ‘Operation Healing Heroes’ Foundation.

“It’s going to be fun, hopefully not too cold,” smiled Neil Broten, the former Minnesota North Stars player.

At a charity hockey game and free skate, U.S. military veterans, former NHL stars, and Blue Ox Junior League players, hit the ice for a good cause.  

“Oh, I think it’s awesome,” exclaimed Preston Cloutier, a junior league player from Massachusetts. “We’ve got guys from Sweden, one guy from Russia.”

Garstecki started the Illinois non-profit in 2015, taking veterans on fishing trips as a way to battle PTSD.

Moving to Minnesota—he wants to do the same thing for vets through hockey—starting with this event.

“We want to raise awareness for post-traumatic stress for our US military veterans and their families,” Garstecki explains. “We basically have done over a hundred veterans, we paid for treatment of post-traumatic stress in over one-hundred veterans just last year, so it’s real.”

Broten, with a storied hockey career that includes a gold medal from the 1980 Olympics, says the game he loves can make a difference for vets.

“For the military, all that they go through, sacrifice not only themselves, but their families,” he notes. “It kind of takes them away from whatever they’re feeling or whatever they went through, and they can play with some pretty good players and have fun out there, and just enjoy the night.”

Among those hitting the ice is U.S. Army veteran Dan Jarvis.

With more than two decades in the military—and his service dog, Maze, by his side—Jarvis explained how he does peer counseling for other veterans.

“I struggled with post-traumatic stress for quite a long time,” he said. “So events like this, where veterans can actually come together and start getting reconnected with the community, for me it’s a no-brainer.”

Each team playing was a mix of military veterans, NHL stars, and junior league players.

“It should be cool. It should be humbling, I guess,” noted Karl Grafelman, a player from Omaha, Nebraska. “But it will be fun to skate with them, hopefully talk to them a little bit.”

Garstecki says hundreds of people came to see the battle on ice.

He’s planning to make this an annual event at the ice center.

With time on the ice—there’s friendship and healing—for those who’ve given so much.

“They come back and sometimes they don’t have physical wounds,” Garstecki said. “But the mental wounds they have forever, for a lifetime. And if we can make tomorrow better than today, it’s what it’s all about.”