Tag Archives: NHL

Confession: My Experience As a Racist (a hockey story)

29 Saturday Oct 2011

Posted by in Comedy, Sports

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From a young age, Canadians are conditioned to revile racists.  We look back on American slavery and wonder how life was really like that.  We bemoan contemporary racism and wonder if the world will ever become truly egalitarian. I’m a pretty decent guy, but I know from personal experience that one aspect of my Canadian upbringing instilled in me a burning hatred for an identifiable group of people and wished nothing for them but the wrath of hell. I’m talking about the Ottawa Senators and their fans.

Ten years ago, if you had asked me if all Sens fans had horns and hoofed feet, I’d have said “no”, but I’d have given them no other benefit of the doubt.  I couldn’t be sure Sens fans even existed: I had never seen one in real life, and even on TV their arena was filled with Leaf fans loudly booing whenever alfredsson (that gutless puke) touched the puck. I had no reason on earth to believe somebody actually liked that team, yet I hated that theoretical person all the same. When the Senators signed a player, I hated him overnight.  This went on unchecked for years, as my friends were just as racist.

My first encounter with an actual flesh-and-blood Senator fan happened in 2003, while my hate was at a late stage of maturation.  Though I didn’t expect a Sens fan to behave with civility or dignity (these concepts utterly foreign to the organization) I behaved well and the meeting didn’t end in carnage, though it started off rocky.  I moved into my dorm during first year university, and immediately put up my Leafs’ flag when in walked my neighbour.

“Nice to meet you. Hey, why are you putting up that piece of shit?”

“Where are you from…neighbour?”

“Ottawa.”

Just like that. He didn’t seem to be suffering any certifiable mental condition detectable at first glance, so I looked again. Still nothing.  Maybe something was wrong in his frontal lobes, but he looked like a normal human being.

Over the year, I developed a friendship with this curious species fuelled by intense rivalry and beer.  To be sure, however amiable, a part of me hated a part of him.  We shared laughs and violent shouting matches in equal measure.  But like mushrooms after a rainstorm, more Sens fans appeared. It took a year among their kind to realise that, in actual fact, Senator fans are people.  For years, I dehumanized their fans and their players (sometimes fairly), but the sample of fans I met turned out to be good Canadian boys who simply had the severe misfortune of growing up in Ottawa.  I had to admit: my neighbour, and others of his race, were decent.

The roster still comprised soulless guttersnipes, but I was racially more sensitive and newly convinced my hatred wasn’t blinding. I had reversed my all encompassing hate and learned to give a fair appraisal of the team. “Volchenkov can block a shot.”  Wholly unbiased now, my opinion was fair, balanced and commendable.  I had reformed and was tremendously capable of praise when it was warranted…it just wasn’t.  That year, following another epic post season Senator collapse, the Leafs eliminated the hated rival for the fourth time. 4/4. Those who remember the game see Lalime clearly in their mind’s eye. Ahh, glory days!

Meeting Senator fans has enabled me to gain perspective on a disturbing time in my personal history, but my racism was of a variety that I suspect all Canadian hockey fans have to some degree.  Still, I look back on these years of unbridled hate with regret. I am grateful for the contact I had with good people who gave me a chance to reform.  Now I can view them as dignified human beings, and they have made me a better person for it.  That said, I do have some final observations:

Chris Neil is a cheapshot artist who seriously looks inbred.

On five occasions, Jason Spezza has contaminated out heroic National team by failing to win gold even once.

Despite just yesterday writing a lengthy argument for unequivocal free speech, I’m afraid of what I’ll put into print if I candidly write about daniella alfredsson [sic]. I have not cooled one bit after his vicious hit from behind on Tucker from game 5, 2002. He should still be suspended without pay.

Belak and the Role of Fighting in the NHL

03 Saturday Sep 2011

Posted by in Statements

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There has been a horrible series of deaths involving NHL enforcers, those “hockey players” who fight for a living.  It’s an unusual role. In most sports, athletes are too preoccupied playing the sport to punch each other in the face. Fights only happen in other sports when fury is aroused, it’s not a normative part of the game.  There’s pressure to change the tone ever since, surprise surprise, new studies show colossal men speeding across the ice to smash people in the head cause lasting brain damage.  The NHL can no longer put off dealing with head shots now that Crosby is out, but this brutal string of enforcer deaths forces the NHL to decide what role fighting will play in years to come.

My love and understanding of the game conflicts with any rational observation: it seems crazy that reffs idly watch grown men punch each other in the face, yet whenever Alfredson (that gutless puke) commits any of his cheap, cowardly acts of petty violence, a two minute penalty doesn’t seem punishment enough (if the reffs even call it). I want Alfredson’s face smashed in.  I’m not alone in this.  Far from it, tons of otherwise humane people love the barbarous aspects of hockey, and can’t imagine hockey otherwise.  And while fans love it, teams need it. It’s like nuclear disarmament: all coaches agree the world would be better off without enforcers, but nobody’s about to voluntarily give up their own first. In politics, military power works better than UN sanctions: policing hockey can be done by players only, not the police.

But three deaths are hard to ignore, even for the NHL.  Exactly what to do is anyone’s guess.  Everyone agrees that it’s a tragedy and we’ll have to assess the game.  Hard to disagree with that.  But how are these deaths related? If there’s a connection, what is it?  In the meantime, all we know is enforcers enter the league aware of their role, and however tough it is, nobody forces them to do it.  There are lots of tough, stressful, even depressing jobs, but must don’t pay millions.

The grief and the tragedy belong to everybody, but let’s not forget that Belak took his own life.  We should lose no time improving our game and making it safer, but people are responsible for their own spiritual well-being, not the NHL.  Thankfully, the NHL will be under even more pressure to find the middle ground between excessive and appropriate violence.

I can’t write about Belak without saying he was one of a few NHL players I actually met. Through a connection, he was playing in a small, informal street hockey game between me and my buddies. He wore plaid pyjamas and a Kewl hockey shirt. Even for me, his lack of concern for his appearance was immense.  More than casual, he looked goofy.  I remember thinking his hands were so big he could black and blue my entire face with one punch.  True to his reputation, he joked/chirped me for having a hairy chest (I was on the skins team). I was shocked! Soon he lived up to his other reputation as I danced around him and scored. But make no mistake about it, he was in the NHL; I noticed the net jumped back at least five feet whenever he took a casual snap shot with a tennis ball.  Like a lot of people, I cheered for him more after meeting him.

R.I.P.