When I’m passionate about something, I tend to talk about it quite a lot. If you’re a friend of mine, you will have encountered me talking about the Hockey Canada trial a million times, often when the conversation ends (or I figure out that you don’t really care) my mood turns sour. That is because this case pissed me the fuck off, and nobody seems to get why.
For context, I have been a hockey fan for a good few years. My favourite team was the Philadelphia Flyers when I first started watching games, and my favourite player was Carter Hart (back when I was unaware of the alleged events of 2018). I was only made aware of these allegations when the Flyers posted a statement saying that Hart would be taking an ‘indefinite leave of absence’ and the comments were full of people telling him to ‘get a good lawyer’. After some extensive digging, I decided that I hated this man. I’m not going to lie, the accusations felt personal. It felt like a stab to the gut, and that’s probably very parasocial, but I’m an obsessive girl at heart, so whatever.
I followed the trial (in which 5 NHL players were accused of sexual assult) very closely, from looking into accusations of jury tampering to reading testimonies. After the acquittal of the players, the NHL put out a statement.
Basically, they said that even if the allegations weren’t criminal, it was still disturbing and that the players accused couldn’t play in the league. Then they changed their minds.
Vegas shortly signed Hart after that. They are now in the Stanley Cup finals.
Whether the accusations were true or not is irrelevant to this post, the thing that struck me was how literally nothing has changed. There are signs up at the glass during games, there is uproar in the comments – women obviously don’t feel safe, let alone welcome in this fan base. Nothing is different. And maybe the NHL don’t want female fans, maybe all they care about is their male audience. But at the end of the day, money is money no matter who’s wallet it’s coming out of, and that’s all they really care about, isn’t it?
The point is that hockey culture is the same damn thing as it has been for decades. From Heated Rivalry and Off Campus ‘puck bunnies’ to E.M. ‘s testimony, this shit is the same thing just in varying intensities. And it’ll probably never change, with the direction the sport is going I wouldn’t be surprised. I talk a bit about the personal impact hockey culture has had on me in another post. Anyway – stick around for more opinions.
