ABOUT US
The On-Side Mental Health project is about sharing stories from officials who have struggled with their mental health at some point in their life. We are all a part of the same family and we are all committed to taking care of our teammates. The ultimate goal is to encourage and help remove the stigma from having day-to-day conversations about mental health. As much as officiating is a family, it is often a solitary exercise and it's too easy to hide our problems from the people in the officiating community. Most people are perfectly willing to discuss mental health when a tragedy occurs but as the dust settles, the stigma and fear of judgement or lack of understanding re-asserts itself. We want to help keep the dust from settling.
This site is curated and maintained by Dan Hanoomansingh, an official born and raised in Vancouver, BC. Dan has been officiating since 2005 and is currently a Hockey Canada Level 5 official. He is also a high performance officiating coach with BC Hockey, a high school English and Social Studies teacher, and a husband to an extremely supportive wife. You can find his story on our main page. You can check out some of his other writing here. You can also follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
Our background photos were taken by the talented Danika Kroeker. You can check out her photography on Instagram.