The piece was doing very well up until it slagged the NHL for banning what are essentially pointless exercises in activist themed messaging during warmups and games. This is an unrelated issue to the sexual assault cases and it actually undermines the seriousness of the assaults and lack of investigations/coverups by leadership when we conflate the issue with rainbow tape.
The banning comes from the same approach of bury controversy rather than deal with it in order to maintain the brand. The NHL didn’t ban the special jerseys because they’re “pointless exercises in activist messaging”. They banned them because they were creating controversy for the NHL brand and it was costing them advertising dollars. Scale is different, but ultimately its the same approach to both issues.
The controversy arises because of the fruitless nature of the affair. Players balked at the jerseys and the tape because it literally does nothing to improve the game, it actually has very little to do with hockey at all. The NHL banned the exercise because it was certainly bringing negative attention on their brand, because a bunch of players and fans rightly pointed out the stupidity of the whole affair. The NHL only has so much social capital to spend, wasting it on something that doesn’t even impact hockey was silly.
Does the article address and generalize to "hockey" and "sports" in Canada based on the experiences of the less than 1% who participate at "elite" levels and the less than 1% of that elite, who engage in entirely inappropriate and perhaps illegal behaviour? Stop over-generalizing and improperly damning "hockey" or "sport" culture for the breaches of the very few. Why slander more than 100,000 athletes and all of the parents who sign up their children, based on the misdeeds of less than 100 athletes whose parents do not condone their actions.
At least as a journalist, put things and the entirely offensive and unacceptable behaviour in proper perspective. You don't for example, condemn 'Canadian culture' because a fractionally small percentage of Canadians comit homicides, sexual assaults, b&e, etc.
I think Mr. Stinson overshot the runway when he failed to connect the dots between the rejection of Pride jerseys and suspension of many theme related events before and during games.
When the hockey tape Foo Faw hit the fan, a Winnipeg sports writer commented about how awful it was and got a huge amount of blowback from Jets ticket holders. The common thread was that price of admission is steep and people paid to watch professional hockey and then get the H back home, not to sit for endless minutes every night to “honour” a community organization that has nothing to do with hockey.
In other words, the community relationship building is fine, just don’t make the fans pay for it.
Once the Pride themed events got quashed the league had no choice but to stop all the “cause” nights for fear of being perceived as being against those causes and picking only their favourites. Good on the individuals that stood up for their own beliefs as many took heat because of their views. As individuals we have the luxury of either keeping our beliefs to ourselves or going full-on pulpit if we wish. As professional hockey players you are already a billboard for the brand as a contractual obligation which is fair until it clashes with your rights to your own beliefs. I tend to agree with the Winnipeg blowback as with a lot of things that start out as a worthy cause soon end up at the saturation point so we end up tuning them out anyway.
I'm trying to step back and look at this very emotional issue from a non-emotional viewpoint.
When you create a structure that tells almost anyone that they're brilliant, and not subject to consequences for their actions, those without the maturity or "grounding" support group are likely to fall down this hole. Professional sports is littered with stories along these lines. For owners, college administrators etc, the rules they set out at the beginning of every season are their "get out of jail free" card to discard those kids who fail.
I'm old, but not so old that I've forgotten the invincible feeling of youth. I think that one of the ways to stopping this is spending a lot more time with developing athletes reminding them that their talent doesn't separate them from reality, and that if they cross those lines, if may cost them in sports and in life. Great talent is a wonderful thing to have; it doesn't make you immune to the consequences of your actions. I know nothing about the details of this case but I suspect ignoring the word "Stop", or "no" plays a large part in it. There needs to be a lot more teaching about the realities of life in elite sports, its responsibilities, its consequences as much as teaching about the actual sport itself. But we're asking kids to grow up really fast. I have no solution for how you help those who aren't emotionally equipped to deal with what comes with it.
Would not be popular in some circles, and would not be a perfect solution in that some problems remain, but maybe change the way that NHL teams draft (change preferred pipeline from major-junior to college) and set minimum age to 20. Let kids mature a bit more, and get parents to stop tyring to win the NHL sweepstakes by putting their kids in competitive at age 10....
The idea of a 'hockey culture' at all has always struck me as an over generalization. My colleagues investigate nurse and psychotherapist misconduct. Some horrible stuff goes on our there, and repeatedly so. But do we talk about a toxic nursing or psychotherapy culture? Even when the conduct happens again and again? No - we attribute the behaviour to individual people or at most, individually badly managed workplaces. There are certainly subcultures out there but we seem to eagerly drift into jock stereotypes in an excessive way when it comes to hockey players.
I am no fan of Hockey Canada and the appalling Major Junior Hockey system but I fail to see why they are to blame for what (if the allegations are true) would appear to be a massive failure of the London Police. We see this all the time when a sports figure commits an alleged crime: the team/league are expected to investigate and prosecute the alleged wrong doer. What possible reason is there to expect a team/league to be able to investigate and properly punish alleged criminal acts? That is what the police and Crown Attorneys are for - they are all trained and experts in the area and they still get it wrong often enough. You want to entrust someone who is trained in identifying athletic prowess with this responsibility??!! Absent obstructing the police investigation (which would itself be a criminal offence but one for which I do not believe there is currently any evidence?) it is the London Police and not Hockey Canada who should be in the crosshairs at the moment.
Also, can we hold off on convicting these five players until the trial is over or they plead guilty? If they are guilty they should be locked up and the key thrown away as the allegations are truly despicable. Until then they deserve the presumption of innocence - see Jian Ghomeshi, the Punt God, the Duke lacrosse players, the UVA/Rolling Stone fiasco etc.
Why would it? Precisely. The whole system is fraught with competing interests. And sadly, those of the alleged victim will not likely account for much in the long run. The Beartown fictional series of books by Fredrick Backman tackles these issues magnificently. Well worth reading.
I DO enjoying writing a scathing review. when you like/love a book it makes you sigh in pleasure; it's not as easy to convey why it's meaningful to you
(btw, I adored Backman's Anxious People... no accounting for taste, huh?)
Perhaps enforcing some anti-trust rules would help. Get rid of the draft and it's commoditization of players and move towards the European club system should help.
I’m guessing Scott shopped this piece first to the Toronto Star but they said “Sorry, we already have Bruce Arthur”.
Come on Scott, you wrote a catalogue of some of the transgressions of various players and the NHL as if this behaviour is somehow unique to hockey culture. Save your money next time The Line and direct readers to the TSN or Sportsnet sites where there are lots of articles yearning for a more woke NHL.
Hockey is a large umbrella, and Scott correctly pointed out the realty that 99.9 percent of hockey players play for fun, do not get into trouble and adopt the new ethos of the game. What I thought was interesting was Babcock looking at the phones. I know people working for brands who have their social media swept for issues prior to employment. With the London alleged assaults, a few of the players used their phones and videoed the alleged assault. Could looking at the phone see smoke, leading to fire? who knows. I recognize, like the Courts in the country, that phones are deeply personal, with personal photos , banking and music , to name a few. But Scott is wrong in that Hockey Canada has done nothing. Never again will players be left to their own devices, either on or off the ice. Something that Scott briefly mentioned was the junior hockey situation with young people moving away from their parents and social groups. I would like to see no child under 17 having to live away from home. It is simply not good for their personal development.
The piece was doing very well up until it slagged the NHL for banning what are essentially pointless exercises in activist themed messaging during warmups and games. This is an unrelated issue to the sexual assault cases and it actually undermines the seriousness of the assaults and lack of investigations/coverups by leadership when we conflate the issue with rainbow tape.
The banning comes from the same approach of bury controversy rather than deal with it in order to maintain the brand. The NHL didn’t ban the special jerseys because they’re “pointless exercises in activist messaging”. They banned them because they were creating controversy for the NHL brand and it was costing them advertising dollars. Scale is different, but ultimately its the same approach to both issues.
The controversy arises because of the fruitless nature of the affair. Players balked at the jerseys and the tape because it literally does nothing to improve the game, it actually has very little to do with hockey at all. The NHL banned the exercise because it was certainly bringing negative attention on their brand, because a bunch of players and fans rightly pointed out the stupidity of the whole affair. The NHL only has so much social capital to spend, wasting it on something that doesn’t even impact hockey was silly.
Good article. Can you name three sports organizations around the world that aren’t ruled by money at the expense of the players? It’s ok, I’ll wait.
Does the article address and generalize to "hockey" and "sports" in Canada based on the experiences of the less than 1% who participate at "elite" levels and the less than 1% of that elite, who engage in entirely inappropriate and perhaps illegal behaviour? Stop over-generalizing and improperly damning "hockey" or "sport" culture for the breaches of the very few. Why slander more than 100,000 athletes and all of the parents who sign up their children, based on the misdeeds of less than 100 athletes whose parents do not condone their actions.
At least as a journalist, put things and the entirely offensive and unacceptable behaviour in proper perspective. You don't for example, condemn 'Canadian culture' because a fractionally small percentage of Canadians comit homicides, sexual assaults, b&e, etc.
I think Mr. Stinson overshot the runway when he failed to connect the dots between the rejection of Pride jerseys and suspension of many theme related events before and during games.
When the hockey tape Foo Faw hit the fan, a Winnipeg sports writer commented about how awful it was and got a huge amount of blowback from Jets ticket holders. The common thread was that price of admission is steep and people paid to watch professional hockey and then get the H back home, not to sit for endless minutes every night to “honour” a community organization that has nothing to do with hockey.
In other words, the community relationship building is fine, just don’t make the fans pay for it.
Once the Pride themed events got quashed the league had no choice but to stop all the “cause” nights for fear of being perceived as being against those causes and picking only their favourites. Good on the individuals that stood up for their own beliefs as many took heat because of their views. As individuals we have the luxury of either keeping our beliefs to ourselves or going full-on pulpit if we wish. As professional hockey players you are already a billboard for the brand as a contractual obligation which is fair until it clashes with your rights to your own beliefs. I tend to agree with the Winnipeg blowback as with a lot of things that start out as a worthy cause soon end up at the saturation point so we end up tuning them out anyway.
I'm trying to step back and look at this very emotional issue from a non-emotional viewpoint.
When you create a structure that tells almost anyone that they're brilliant, and not subject to consequences for their actions, those without the maturity or "grounding" support group are likely to fall down this hole. Professional sports is littered with stories along these lines. For owners, college administrators etc, the rules they set out at the beginning of every season are their "get out of jail free" card to discard those kids who fail.
I'm old, but not so old that I've forgotten the invincible feeling of youth. I think that one of the ways to stopping this is spending a lot more time with developing athletes reminding them that their talent doesn't separate them from reality, and that if they cross those lines, if may cost them in sports and in life. Great talent is a wonderful thing to have; it doesn't make you immune to the consequences of your actions. I know nothing about the details of this case but I suspect ignoring the word "Stop", or "no" plays a large part in it. There needs to be a lot more teaching about the realities of life in elite sports, its responsibilities, its consequences as much as teaching about the actual sport itself. But we're asking kids to grow up really fast. I have no solution for how you help those who aren't emotionally equipped to deal with what comes with it.
Would not be popular in some circles, and would not be a perfect solution in that some problems remain, but maybe change the way that NHL teams draft (change preferred pipeline from major-junior to college) and set minimum age to 20. Let kids mature a bit more, and get parents to stop tyring to win the NHL sweepstakes by putting their kids in competitive at age 10....
The idea of a 'hockey culture' at all has always struck me as an over generalization. My colleagues investigate nurse and psychotherapist misconduct. Some horrible stuff goes on our there, and repeatedly so. But do we talk about a toxic nursing or psychotherapy culture? Even when the conduct happens again and again? No - we attribute the behaviour to individual people or at most, individually badly managed workplaces. There are certainly subcultures out there but we seem to eagerly drift into jock stereotypes in an excessive way when it comes to hockey players.
Nailed it
I am no fan of Hockey Canada and the appalling Major Junior Hockey system but I fail to see why they are to blame for what (if the allegations are true) would appear to be a massive failure of the London Police. We see this all the time when a sports figure commits an alleged crime: the team/league are expected to investigate and prosecute the alleged wrong doer. What possible reason is there to expect a team/league to be able to investigate and properly punish alleged criminal acts? That is what the police and Crown Attorneys are for - they are all trained and experts in the area and they still get it wrong often enough. You want to entrust someone who is trained in identifying athletic prowess with this responsibility??!! Absent obstructing the police investigation (which would itself be a criminal offence but one for which I do not believe there is currently any evidence?) it is the London Police and not Hockey Canada who should be in the crosshairs at the moment.
Also, can we hold off on convicting these five players until the trial is over or they plead guilty? If they are guilty they should be locked up and the key thrown away as the allegations are truly despicable. Until then they deserve the presumption of innocence - see Jian Ghomeshi, the Punt God, the Duke lacrosse players, the UVA/Rolling Stone fiasco etc.
Why would it? Precisely. The whole system is fraught with competing interests. And sadly, those of the alleged victim will not likely account for much in the long run. The Beartown fictional series of books by Fredrick Backman tackles these issues magnificently. Well worth reading.
actually... I hated Beartown :(
https://crabbygirl.substack.com/p/bear-town-by-fredrik-backman
Yeah, but you’re crabby, lol.
true :)
I DO enjoying writing a scathing review. when you like/love a book it makes you sigh in pleasure; it's not as easy to convey why it's meaningful to you
(btw, I adored Backman's Anxious People... no accounting for taste, huh?)
Fredrik Backman. Damn autocorrect.
Perhaps enforcing some anti-trust rules would help. Get rid of the draft and it's commoditization of players and move towards the European club system should help.
I’m guessing Scott shopped this piece first to the Toronto Star but they said “Sorry, we already have Bruce Arthur”.
Come on Scott, you wrote a catalogue of some of the transgressions of various players and the NHL as if this behaviour is somehow unique to hockey culture. Save your money next time The Line and direct readers to the TSN or Sportsnet sites where there are lots of articles yearning for a more woke NHL.
I asked him to write this for us.
Hockey is a large umbrella, and Scott correctly pointed out the realty that 99.9 percent of hockey players play for fun, do not get into trouble and adopt the new ethos of the game. What I thought was interesting was Babcock looking at the phones. I know people working for brands who have their social media swept for issues prior to employment. With the London alleged assaults, a few of the players used their phones and videoed the alleged assault. Could looking at the phone see smoke, leading to fire? who knows. I recognize, like the Courts in the country, that phones are deeply personal, with personal photos , banking and music , to name a few. But Scott is wrong in that Hockey Canada has done nothing. Never again will players be left to their own devices, either on or off the ice. Something that Scott briefly mentioned was the junior hockey situation with young people moving away from their parents and social groups. I would like to see no child under 17 having to live away from home. It is simply not good for their personal development.