#hockey culture

[blusical]

i'm seeing team discourse on the tl. don't make me tap the sign

(Image IDs: Edited versions of the "you are not immune to propaganda meme", featuring an image of Garfield and text that reads "Your favorite NHL team is not immune to hockey culture and neither is mine" on the first one and "Your favorite player is not immune to being problematic and neither is mine" on the second one. End ID)

[annieqattheperipheral]

a facilitator from nhlpa's mental health first aid program First Line

One of the things I do with them, the teams that I work with, it's called The Mask of Masculinities and on the one side of the mask, we put, what does the world see? How does the world see me? And then on the other side, we put, how do you feel? What are you hiding?

And when we do that activity, it's incredibly powerful because not only do you have a bunch of male hockey players playing with glitter and feathers and things like that. But when they read the mask there's this shared story of having to be tough, having to be aggressive, having to be dominant, being the provider.

And on the other side, there's vulnerability, there's mental health, there's suicidal thoughts. Some even use the mask as a way to come out because they're bisexual or gay, but they have to hide it because of the narrative.

Every time I interview with men or with the players, we always ask, is there anything else you would like me to know? Anything else you would like me to say and, unanimously, every time they say, thank you for letting me talk. Thank you for letting me share my story.

Sorry, I'm starting to cry because it's just the pain is just so deep. Sorry. And there's no voice for them.

I think things are getting better. I think now we are having conversations that we never would have had before. You know so there are still entrenched narratives that they need to change because there is such a huge call you know, for people to-- how do I do this differently? How do I do this differently? Because it is a crisis in our sport.

Highly rec the entire vid. Also includes a couple of the 20 nhl players that volunteered for the program, including Joseph Woll and Ryan Strome.

As well as Corey Hirsch, former stanley cup winning NHL goalie who suffered with OCD while playing until he got help. His podcast Blindsided hosted with psychiatrist Dr. Diane Mclntosh is excellent.

[puckpocketed]

i just hate when players do this and people call them “warriors” i know you wanna play in the playoffs to help your team but YOUR FINGERS ARE LITERALLY BROKEN MY GUY THEY COULD NEVER GROW BACK TOGETHER THE RIGHT WAY im crying

my poor cringefail wifes i love them all so much i hope they all take the rest they need

GOD I hope they get rest too :((

breaking soooo much character right now to give my fullest take, and it’s that we can hold multiple ideas in our minds and i don’t think they conflict

playing through injuries is terrible.

They are whole adult human beings and professional athletes who have resources to keep them informed about long term consequences, and they still get to make those choices even if we hate the choices they make. Even if those choices drastically reduce the length of their career. Even if those choices end with long term heath complications.

i might lose some people on this one but i don’t care!! it’s what I believe: being disabled or chronically ill/injured/in pain is not a death sentence. it is not the worst thing in the world. people live full and happy lives whilst also being disabled. can it suck for the person living through it? yes. absolutely. but to me, people are not and never will be defined by how able-bodied they are!!!

All of this is true (to me) and also we can still condemn the circumstances that cause them to make these choices. (culture of not wanting to be seen as soft, the normalisation/valorisation of playing through injury, all the other [gestures wildly] forces at play that set athletes up to make these decisions) Like i’m sorry to get political but choices do not exist in vacuums. sports does not exist separated from hegemonic models of masculinity or capitalism. there are so so so many reasons a player might choose to harm themselves by playing through injury and not all of them are noble or valid, some of them are stupid and informed by bullshit!!! and we should be mad at that bullshit!! because it’s awful!!!!

these are their jobs, and i’m talking in the sense that they are performing labour and i think labour laws and workplace health and safety must apply here too. I think we have to start talking about these things in terms of workers rights, in amongst all of the compassion we have for them as players. there’s the pressure to perform due to contract status and salary bonus milestones; there’s team doctors having direct conflicts of interest, a monetary and cultural incentive to look the other way when clearing people to play; there’s the plain fact of the best possible safety equipment (cages/bowls, neck guards, cut resistant protective gear) not being mandatory; the blatant denial of CTE coming from the league itself. there’s a lot. and it’s a workers rights issue, not just a moral one. someone will play through xyz because of the culture, because of the pressure, and they will die from it.

EVEN STILL. there is beauty and narrative resonance and something compelling about it all, and I don’t want to deny that. as someone looking from the outside in, sports captures people’s hearts because of these narratives. sacrifice and teamwork and triumph — we have an appetite for these things. I am never going to sit here and deny that I feel compelled by it (which is simultaneous to the anger, the fear, the deep deep well of “i’m sorry you have feel you have to do this”) This appetite I/we as a society have for pain — unpacking it and addressing it is a whole other conversation and I am not qualified to have it. I’m just going to acknowledge it exists because I think pretending it doesn’t would be dishonest of me.

we are allowed to feel fucked up about all of this. call it parasocial, call it entitled, call it inappropriate, i don’t know!! we are people and knowing other people are in pain tends to fuck us up — and as much as I try to keep a healthy distance from these celebrities, as much as I remind myself they’re strangers, I care when they’re hurt because I’m human.

anyway. YES OUR POOR CRINGEFAIL WIVES 😭🤲

[offsidenewsco]

"Unlike in other sports with captains, in hockey, the letter C represents captaincy and is sewn right over a player’s heart on the left side of their jersey. It’s fitting."

As Clayton Keller earns his first goal as #UtahHC's captain tonight, read our op-ed about captaincy here.

[thighlerseguin]

why Pride Night matters

[jiminy-crickets]

Hockyblr Book Club Month 1 August 2024!

This month we over at hockyblr book club are reading..... (drumroll pease!)

Beartown by fredrik Backman, and Game Misconduct by Evan F. Moore, and Jashvina Shah, read both, read one (🙋‍♀️ me) or lurk while we loose our minds!

join using the link up at the tip top of this post and come join us <3

Edit: AAACK, I forgot to mention that I found copies of each book, and you can find them in the discord!

[st-louis]

john branch, boy on ice: the life and death of derek boogaard. reprint, w. w. norton and company, 2015.

[shanewright]

The rest of the hockey scoopsters, as they continue to break details of free-agent contacts, have either settled for passing along the league's official statements, or ignoring the story completely. It's darkly funny to me that these insiders, who pride themselves on knowing all the teams listed on Jacob Trouba's no-trade clause, have given us so little information on this story, despite being plugged in with people who might actually be able to provide it. I know Elliotte Friedman has Joel Quenneville's agent on speed dial.

But that's not what "insiders" do. They get heated at signings, battling to break the news before each other, but in the face of real stories and the chance to push the league for accountability, they go quiet. I know all the reasons for this—they want to maintain relationships, and it's easier and more profitable to be a scoopster than an investigative reporter—I'm not naïve. But I'm also not naïve for thinking it shouldn't be like this.

[dvar-trek]

cats broadcast so indignant about how the rasslin' penalties shook out. come onnnnn your honor like honestlyyyyy we're all being rats here can't we just punch and kiss about itttttt

[jeynearrynofthevale]

There’s something really interesting to me about the role of the “rat” player and the way such a huge part of their job is getting into people’s heads and throwing them off their game. And doing that almost necessitates crossing lines. We talk about the way hockey accepts violence in a way broader society doesn’t but players also say things to each other that would never fly in most settings.

There’s of course the slurs and homophobic language but there’s also specific jabs. Brad Marchand telling Artemi Panarin that everyone in Russia hates him following him speaking against Putin. Matthew Tkachuk calling Stefan Noesen’s wife a whore. Anything to get a rise out of another player.

[blusical]

currently thinking of how abusive some hockey coaches are and how players are supposed to act like that sort of stuff is normal

[annieqattheperipheral]

Woller volunteered to be a part of NHLPA's mental health first aid program First Line

part one:

I think maybe an unfortunate thing about mental health is I find a lot of people don't truly care about it until you go through a personal experience or personal experiences. So when I found out that there is a program to learn more about how to experience things on your own and then also how to communicate better with others it was kind of a no-brainer for me.

I think the program did a great job for me personally in bringing awareness to how important that peer-to-peer conversation is; again, another aspect of mental health, I think. And in hard times, it can be a bit of an isolating thing.

And I think it really opened my eyes to how important it is to be a conversation starter and also to be a leader just on the simplest way of asking someone how they're doing and actually caring about how they're doing and being able to listen well.

(part two)

more on the program

[iwantahockeyhimbo]

i’m sure we are all aware of the tragic death of adam johnson, may he rest in peace. earlier today matt petgrave was arrested on “suspicion of manslaughter” and this presents us with the opportunity to acknowledge the racism that has surrounded this conversation because matt petgrave is black.

we cannot begin discussions on how wonderful hockey is and how it’s expanding in diversity without acknowledging that racism is so prevalent in the culture surrounding it. no one was questioning the intentions of petgrave before they knew he was black but the second people realized he was they were calling him a murderer. alex galchenyuk sat in the back of a cop car and called the officer slurs over and over again, vince dunn said the n-word on a twitch stream a couple of years ago and people brush these things off. hockey cannot be for everyone until the treatment of minorities within the community changes.

[offsidenewsco]

If you want to get to know some PWHL players but have no idea where to start, we’re here to help. Here are a selection of #NHL players and the #PWHL players who best match their vibes.

Read our listicle here.

[thighlerseguin]

I shouldn't be surprised the Stars admin had to limit commenting for the Pride Night post because bigoted mouth breathers can't handle being sidelined for once in their pathetic lives.

[st-louis]

alexis n. peters, hegemonic masculinity and kaufman's triad of violence: elite male athletes' attitudes regarding male/female relationships. ph.d., university of western ontario, 1999.