The NHL has a specific kind of culture, one in which being the player that plays through pain is turned into hero-worship, where players don’t always report when they’re having concussion symptoms so that they can keep playing. It’s the sport that touts having the toughest athletes, where a team eliminated from the playoffs has a litany of injuries that come to light that players gritted through in the quest to lift Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Not that hard to see where the hero worship comes from, really.
It’s likely one factor (among many others in hockey culture) as to why players rarely speak out about harder topics, such as mental health, including depression, suicide, and addiction.