When you grow up in northern Minnesota, said Matt Dunn, hockey is a kind of religion.
“I started walking, then I started skating,” said Dunn, who is a technician at Black Hills Energy in Papillon, Nebraska.
He played hockey throughout high school and in adult leagues during the 14 years he was in the military and deployed in Nebraska, first near Omaha’s Offutt Air Force Base, then with the National Guard in Lincoln.
It was hockey, he said, that led him to join the Nebraska Warriors’ hockey league nearly two years ago, but it was the mission that has fueled his ongoing commitment.
The Warriors are part of a national program that brings together able-bodied and disabled veterans, using sports to help them heal. There’s a wide range of what the U.S. Veterans Administration considers disabilities; Nebraska’s program focuses on the ones most people can’t see—post-traumatic stress syndrome, anxiety and trauma. These invisible disabilities are a huge problem, said Dunn, and a major factor in the high rate of suicides—about 22 a day—in the relatively small veteran population.
“Our program is about trying to turn this around and give veterans a positive outlet, that family feeling of being in the military again,” he said. When Dunn joined, the group was maybe a dozen members strong. He came in as the recruiting director and now is marketing director; today, the group numbers nearly 400, and members meet weekly to play not just hockey but other sports, too, including softball and volleyball.
That invisible need is unspoken much of the time. “A lot of vets don’t like to ask for help,” said Dunn. “It’s kind of ingrained in us through the military—you don’t show weakness—and that carries over a lot into civilian life.” The Warriors program is in its own way a kind of treatment, he said, giving veterans a safe place to work out anxieties or leave them behind, or for veterans to find a listening ear when they’re ready. Just recently, for example, Dunn connected with a veteran—someone he didn’t know—who posted on social media that he needed someone to talk to because he was having a hard time.
Dunn was recently nominated for, and then won, the National Hockey League’s Stick Tap for Service contest, which recognizes veterans who have strong ties to service, their community and the game of hockey. “It was humbling; I didn’t think I was doing that much,” he said. More important to Dunn is that through the award, the Warriors program received national attention and the Nebraska program received a gift of $30,000 to help pay for gear and tournament and ice fees.
“I’m proud of how we recruit, employ and retain our nation’s veterans,” said Kevin Jarosz, Black Hills Energy’s vice president of operations in Nebraska. “When we first met Matt, his years of service stood out, as did his passion to continue to make a difference in the lives of other veterans. His commitment to the Nebraska Warriors is inspiring.”
“Once you’re out on the ice, you kind of forget about all the troubles,” Dunn said in a video recognizing his achievement. “A lot of people [in the military] have that anxiety or stress, and [hockey] helps heal that and move them forward to just a better place overall in life.”