Corey Hirsch

By the time he was twenty-two years old, goaltender Corey Hirsch had realized his childhood dream of playing in the NHL, won an Olympic medal and drunk from the Stanley Cup. While he excelled on the ice, out of the net Hirsch was plagued by persistent dark thoughts and ceaseless anxiety. On days when he could barely get out of bed, he was able to push aside the endless loop of dark thoughts running inside his brain long enough to win a game. But as soon as he got back home, the agonizing cycle started all over again. And it continued, until finally he was able to confide in a team trainer who helped him get the professional treatment he needed.

In this keynote based on his best selling novel, Hirsch shares his journey with obsessive-compulsive disorder and the rocky road to recovery. As Hirsch says, “I am not insane. I am not a bad person. I am not weak. I have an illness, and there is a treatment.”