TAMPA, Fla. — Every assist and goal scored means just a little more to Nick Paul.
The Tampa Bay Lightning forward set new career highs with 26 goals and 48 points this season, and for every one of those points, he’s giving back to the community.
“We visited, we met the people here, we saw what they did,” Paul said. “We say their goals and what they want to do in the future and where the money was going to be going. It’s something where the Crisis Center was the right fit for myself and the Lightning.”
Paul, who joined the Lightning during the 2022 season, began raising mental health awareness after a high school lacrosse teammate took his life by suicide.
“It just shocked me,” Paul said. “It looked like everything was going right, but it wasn’t inside. As soon as I got a voice and a platform, I wanted to do something about it.”
He created “Points By Paul while he was playing for the Ottawa Senators and continued the initiative with the Bolts.
Paul donated $150 for every point he recorded this season and the Lightning Foundation matched Paul’s donation for a total of $14,400 going to the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay.
“You walk around this place and you see how important everyone’s job is here, the volunteers putting their time in here, the people that are running it how amazing they are and everything they do is making this community better, safer, and just a better place,” Paul said.
“It’s so exciting for us to be able to watch the games,” Clara Reynolds, president and CEO of Crisis Center of Tampa Bay, said. “You always love to watch your home team, right? There is something even more incredibly exciting when you know they are on the ice that they have the potential to not just do something for the team but also have a huge impact for our organization.”
The Crisis Center of Tampa Bay provides services to people in crisis, including counseling, a crisis hotline, and care coordination.
“So often people say, ‘I never knew about the Crisis Center until I heard Nick Paul talk about it.’ It has been an incredible opportunity for outreach for us,” Reynolds added. “For a player or a team to actually say, ‘You know what? Mental health is important.’ It is something we all need to be aware of and recognize that mental health impacts all of us.
