Contributing to a Culture of Connection and Care

From Gordon Rink to the Young Men’s Club, Colin O’Leary ’27 is helping to foster spaces where his peers feel supported and heard.

BY IAN ALDRICH

There are team players and then there are team builders. Colin O’Leary ‘27 is absolutely the latter. A defenseman on the SPS boys hockey team, the Massachusetts native finds as much thrill in the careful work of building a strong and positive locker room culture as he does in grinding down an opposing team’s offense.

“Being part of a community is important to me,” says O’Leary, who arrived at SPS as a Fourth Former in the fall of 2024. “It’s one of the main reasons I came to St. Paul’s.”

O’Leary’s impact on the School community has taken a few different forms. In addition to playing hockey, he’s a key member of the lacrosse team and earlier this year was tapped to head the newly revived Young Men’s Club, a social organization that aims to build a strong school culture for male students to support one another and freely discuss topics affecting them in a confidential and judgment-free space.

“We do a lot of things,” O’Leary explains. “From making sure your buddies are doing okay and having hard conversations about life, to showing guys how to tie a tie or what it takes to change the oil in your car. It’s helping other students know they have a support network for whatever it is they are dealing with.”

He’s brought a similar kind of ethos to the hockey program. How a team performs on the ice in many ways is reflective of how it comes together off the ice. This year, SPS put together its most successful season in nearly a decade, and O’Leary says that wasn’t by chance.

“The whole team really bought into the year,” he says. “We have 25 guys on the team and all 25 contributed day in and day out. We’ve been really united. This team is very special.”

Building a healthy team culture is, well, a team effort, and one of the ways O’Leary has contributed is through his introduction of the Shoulder Check Foundation, a peer-to-peer mental-health outreach program that works with hockey teams at all levels, from youth organizations to the pros.

Based in Connecticut, the foundation is the brainchild of Rob Thorsen, whose son Hayden, a standout goalie, took his life in 2022 at 16 years old. In the gritty sport of hockey, where toughness can be prized above anything else, allowing for a safe zone for discussions around mental health issues isn’t always prioritized. To honor his son, Thorsen dedicated himself to building a program that could foster a better wellness culture in the sport.

Teams commit at the start of the season to honoring the foundation’s principles and core motto, which is “kindness is a contact sport.” Clubs showcase their affiliation — and the off-ice environment it’s establishing — with wristbands and stick tape supplied by the foundation. Some hockey programs even host fundraisers for the nonprofit. Committing to Shoulder Check, says O’Leary, means teammates and coaches are really committing to each other.

O’Leary first encountered the program in the summer of 2024 at a hockey camp in New Hampshire. The lead coach sat the group down and talked openly about the struggles many young men face. Then he gave them his number and said that if they ever needed a person to talk to, he’d be there for them.

“It was so powerful,” says O’Leary. “We got called into this room for this ‘shoulder check’ seminar and we all thought it was going to be about teaching us how to body check. But it was this other thing. This other kind of contact: putting your hand on someone’s shoulder and seeing if they’re okay. Just because somebody appears happy on the outside, doesn’t mean something else isn’t going on. Sometimes people need help, they just don’t know how to come out and say it.”

Last spring, O’Leary began talking with SPS deans about bringing the Shoulder Check Foundation to Millville. He introduced it to teammates and head coach, Scott Harff ’09. He also built a relationship with Thorsen and last summer was invited to Connecticut to compete in the skills competition at the foundation’s annual showcase fundraiser game, which features several NHL players.

Back at SPS, O’Leary has made himself a strong foundation ambassador. In late January, he raised close to $350 in T-shirt sales for the foundation at an SPS home game against Milton Academy. Going forward, he hopes not only to host additional events but to embed the foundation’s core message across the SPS athletic department. He’s even discussed speaking in chapel about the group’s mission.

“It’s important we talk about this stuff,” he says. “The more people who can hear this message, the more people will be affected by that message in a positive way.”