Belak's suicide opens up even more questions

Bobby Roy

The Extra Point

Former Nashville Predator, Toronto Maple Leaf and enforcer Wade Belak’s sudden suicide sent chills throughout the NHL community and world this past week, and as the third NHL enforcer to pass away in less than four months, the NHL has got some serious investigating to do.

As does the rest of the sports world and its numerous athletes.

Belak was found dead in his Toronto apartment on Aug. 31, where he allegedly hung himself.

The news circulated around the NHL hours after reports confirmed he was found dead and I’m sure many, including myself, thought, ‘it can’t be suicide, can it?’

For those who watched Belak over the years, he was always seen as the guy who was cracking jokes, smiling, laughing with teammates, standing up for teammates on the ice as his role as enforcer, or getting involved with some crazy sort of skit.

He seemed like he was having the time of his life and why wouldn’t someone believe that?

He finished up a 14-year NHL career this past summer where he played for five different NHL teams and was working on getting into the broadcasting business.

For any prospective, young hockey player, is that not a dream come true?

So why would a seemingly happy, accomplished and gregarious Belak commit suicide, never mind hang himself?

It’s tough to ask that question and hope for an answer when you don’t know anything more about the man other than what you see on television, read in the news or hear on the radio.

But a lot of people are asking it and the NHL is going to have to seriously delve into research efforts on how or why this sort of terrible occurrence happened to not only one NHL enforcer, but three in such a short period.

Maybe it’s a bad coincidence since there are no clear patterns of NHL enforcers committing suicide since the league came into effect, or maybe the cause of these actions are much more complex than we think.

It’s more than likely, the answer is the latter.

But I’m not a doctor, a psychiatrist or someone who knew these three players.

Unfortunately, the best I can do is speculate.

On May 13 former Minnesota Wild (and New York Ranger) tough guy, Derek Boogard was found dead after taking an accidental mixture of alcohol and oxycodone.

On Aug. 15 former Vancouver Canuck, Rick Rypien committed suicide.

What the three do have in common was their role on the ice — they were enforcers who, for the most part, took and threw punches for a living.

It’s also been reported, Boogard, Rypien, and now Belak, were all dealing with depression during points in their life as an NHL player.

It’s understandable the pressure of being a professional athlete can get to someone, but they’re living a life many can only dream of and it's hard to think it could ever get to point you would consider killing yourself.

How bad was it that these three decided to end it all?

It doesn’t make sense to me when I think about it on that level, but maybe it was a factor they couldn't control as well as they would have liked to.

No one knows for certain what the human brain is capable of, so maybe there were some chemical unbalances that played a part in the threes' decisions.

The topic of concussions and what the consequences are to the human brain have never been more prevalent today than ever before in hockey and other contact sports.

The diagnosis into the consequences of a concussion to a person is still in its infancy in the world of medicine, so it’s hard to determine how exactly a concussion affects each person mentally and physically.

Watching, listening and reading about professional athletes who have had concussions, the consequences for each are inherently different. Determining what kind of effect and for how long it will have on each person is no doubt one of toughest jobs a doctor has to do.

That couldn’t be truer for Austin Trenum, a young football player who committed suicide out of the blue, days after suffering a concussion. In the article by Metro Edmonton, Trenum was by all accounts, a normal teenager, who didn't have a history of depression and neither did his family.

He had friends, went to school, lived in a great house, had a great family, loved playing sports, was destined to go to university, and lived a seemingly normal life.

It was one Sunday afternoon after suffering a supposed concussion a few days before that he ended it all.

It doesn’t make sense on the surface, but Trenum isn't the first promising athlete to commit suicide. If you search athlete suicides on the web more and more stories like this one pop up.

That's the sad part, because there are so many questions left unanswered for families like the Trenums.

The same goes for Belak's, Rypien's and Boogard's.

So, maybe after taking years of hits and punches to the head, the effects of the abuse on Belak, Rypien and Boogard’s brains had taken their toll enough to play a factor in the decision making to commit the unthinkable.

There are so many factors at play when it comes to determining why a person commits suicide and more times than not, there isn’t one answer.

But there will be plenty of eyes watching the NHL to see how they can create outlets for players who may be in the same boat as these three.

Depression is a tough issue and being tough guys, the three probably put a façade to protect that image.

The NHL is definitely not to blame, because, like everyone else they didn’t know these three players were going to do what they did.

Now it’ll be about making sure players have as many outlets as possible to talk about what's bugging them in their NHL and personal life.

It will also be paramount to continue investigating and researching what concussions and contact to the head does to the mental state of players.

Hopefully Belak’s passing will be able to shed even more light and open even more discussion on problems NHL and professional athletes are dealing with.