#uhhhh now hes gay not straight anymore sorry folks

[todd-anderson-trash]

cameron has glasses and russell can’t deal with that fact :(

[roseate7]

I was gonna lead off with this about how hockey fandom only just now rising up to protest the Capitals’ long-proposed White House visit after today’s news but uhhhh… I can’t actually see anyone protesting yet lol. Maybe folks were at school and work? Internet outages? Who knows. It’s awfully quiet. As quiet as it has been since the many hits about this visit started coming immediately following the Caps SC win.

Anyway, even if hockey fandom does eventually rise up with equal outrage to the Penguins’ visit I’m sorry to inform you: you’re too late. Your time to begin started a long while ago. I should know because the links I’m about to sprinkle in this post like damning pixie dust are from my long wait for fandom’s political outrage to resurface. 

So let’s just run through the usual old acrobatics to try and excuse the utter lack of equal outrage and protest against the Caps that there was toward the Pens. This is also a handy c+p guide for anyone who sees any variation on these excuses.

“Sid and Ovi: different right? Doesn’t that make Ovi better? Come on, help me out I jumped to him and the Caps because I saw he’s super gay with Backstrom and was promised he’s a champion for the gays because Holtby something something!”

Sidney Crosby’s attendance at the WH is no more or less wrong than Alexander Ovechkin’s. It’s way more complex wrt Ovi’s politics, sure. But no, no different in terms of an adult public figure making the decision to do this visit. Also, folks really need to read up on Ovi before calling him their lesbian uncle or whatever the fuck I am forced to see sometimes. Especially when you consider this unneccessarily awful tweet.

“But what if my Liberal White Boy doesn’t go in the end? That means he’s Totally Better, right?”

Nope!

The fandom line taken with the Pens from day one of them being offered an invite to the WH was that by not taking a directly opposing stance from the start, they were to be rightly condemned. Which was correct, and still was correct when some of the Caps said they were excited about a visit and others tried to deflect the topic. And it was still correct when this photo was taken with a Trump holding the Cup (and video). 

The Caps already missed their chance at not being condemned, just like hockey fandom has already failed at repeating - what are now shown to be entirely performative - political protest. Devante Smith-Pelly is the only Caps player who deserves credit for protesting this visit. There’s one white Caps player to “join” Smith-Pelly: Brett Connolly who, months later, saw what bad PR it would be to visit suddenly announced he wouldn’t attend, is a flop. No one cares. Every player who towed the “it’s a team decision” or “we’re gonna wait and see how we feel” bullshit - which is all of them barring Smith-Pelly - officially lost their chance at making a valid protest. (And let’s not all play dumb about the fact that Smith-Pelly was put up for trade interest this season, and his situation now.)

I don’t give a crap if Holtby or another “gay icon” still bails last minute. He’s already guilty by demurring the point and refusing to take a stance at all. That’s how morality works, just like y’all decided last year with guys who aren’t your gay icons. If Pens fans had to go through the stages of grief in condemning them even before the visit took place, then so does everyone. I don’t give a damn how much your straight white man dances to your favourite liberal tune for praise and adoration. Current NHL initiatives have a long way to go before they effect real change. I’m not a gay who’s here to divert a single fucking second of my community’s hard work and celebration to allies. If they’re real allies then they won’t need the praise anyway.  

And fandom’s choice to fail in addressing or reacting to the many instances of the Caps proving their lack of moral backbone - and their frequent excitement and honour - over this visit, is the definition of performative morality and politics.

“But I want to use black people in other sports to try and further my own wrong opinion like this guy!”

Well, unfortunately you - and he - can’t! Because Trump hasn’t you know, changed? He’s not suddenly pro-kneeling lmao. I know a lot of folks stopped checking in on this topic once the heat of going after the Pens died down, but I’m sorry to inform them that Trump hasn’t suddenly changed or amended his relationship with BLM, anthem protests, or black players who speak out against him. I know that this fact doesn’t help rescue Caps white boys - considering how little some of them they have to do to be considered Liberal Icons, it’s a shock to be denied the chance at praising them - but this avenue of rescue from accountability is as closed now as it was last time!

And um, I’m just gonna hope folks haven’t missed out on the fact that Trump has kind of uhhhh…. quadrupled down on all of his racism, homophobia, and bigotry since those very early days of his in office when the Pens visited it. So yeah, don’t bother with any hand-waving about it being ‘worse’ or ‘better’ to hold audience with him now or then lmao.

“Just because I didn’t protest this year doesn’t change what I said last year!”

Unfortunately, it does. Maybe you were young, maybe your politics were young and uninformed about hockey. Maybe you gave too much trust to fandom and didn’t do your due diligence, or didn’t appropriately withhold your investment and presumed innocence of rich straight cis white men. Who knows why you got it into your head that certain white NHLers wouldn’t align themselves with gross politics in one way or another.

But if you protested the last WH visit and stayed with hockey since then, you don’t have an excuse to keep pretending that there are lovely liberal strongholds anywhere in the NHL. None. Players of color do all their own work, white players get no credit for going along. Franchises doing things that are good PR are just that. This league was never the create-your-own-ideal that - in the almost two decades I’ve watched hockey - it has always tried to present itself as to fans. But the deception never worked on a lot of us, probably in no small part because someone my age started watching hockey before social media went fervently to work in trying to make the league and it’s players seem harmless and friendly in much more effective, albeit just as performative, ways. 

Hockey tumblr know this: there are no cinnamon rolls in men’s hockey.  

Draw an impermeable line between your fandom-ing of men’s hockey and your real life politics and morals as pertain to the reality of men’s hockey. Fandom is here for fun, but fun is not fun which alters when it performative-action-by-dopey-white-guy finds. I talk about what I find interesting about Sidney Crosby. I talk about what I object to about Sidney Crosby. I fandom wank in silly OTT posts about Sidney Crosby but in ways that doesn’t interact with me holding him accountable for his mistakes and flaws in terms of social responsibility and politics. Replace the name of the NHLer and repeat with your own guys.

The latest controversy that revealed a major flaw in fandom of rushing to exonerate a player rather over addressing the real issue of hurt and upset among LGBTQ+ fans is why this article really did need to get brought back up. There is a very real set of blinders worn by men’s hockey fandom and they need to come off. Even if the decision by most is to in general back off of talking about the gross realities, it needs to stay consistent across the league. No amount of social justice gold stars guarantees you a cinnamon roll franchise, or a cinnamon roll fanbase.

Do not bend and warp reality and accountability of adult men based on your own highly rose-tinted ideals of them.

Oh, and for future interest: should a team or players at some point decide to decline an equally offensive political invitation, that’s also not a “win” for your white boys. It’s proof of nothing more than the league and the franchise or players realising that it’s not worth the knock in publicity anymore.

(Needless to say: anyone attempting to exonerate the Capitals in response to this post gets nothing more out of me than a block. I’ve applied the same politics I’ve always had to the Pens and now to the Caps, as I would any team - and always have over a long time being a hockey fan. If you choose to switch up your politics based on largely white teams then that’s your problem, and not one I’m interested in. I’ve seen all the twisting and turning fans can possible do.)

[jack-manpain-zimmermann]

My first year of hockey fandom on tumblr and yikes. Everyone who posted about concussions and CTE and calling out NHL Player Safety is really just gliding on past the fact that this team once again used targeted head shots made by a player with a long history of targeting head shots, in a series against a team whose captain already lives in fear of CTE.... in large part because of said team who once again, targeted his team with concussions.

(please don’t reblog - replies are fine but just know I’ve been into this sport too long to be interested in having my mind swayed in favor of being nicer to male athletes)

And wow. I gave most people the benefit of the doubt that they absolutely knew their perceptions of hockey players as lovely sweethearts is almost entirely fiction crafted by PR and social media, and that duh of course male professional athletes should be viewed as default assholes until fairly unorchestrated proof shows otherwise. That’s just common sense. I didn’t watch hockey games as a 90s teen thinking I wanted to take these guys into my heart and good graces. But I also didn’t want to be that old person in fandom who took fandom stuff too seriously. I’ve never had a team affiliation or preference so I never get touchy about a team or players getting grief from opposing fans. So I didn’t get too in my feelings when I saw people getting gushy about their favorite teams or players either, even if it did seem pretty removed from reality. I figured people knew what they were doing.

But I.... think people actually believe Ovechkin is a sweetheart and that the Caps deserved a win out of this series. That’s ummm. A step away from logic and reality that I can’t inflict upon myself. I had no horse in this or any other playoff race and yeah, the Penguins absolutely have shit to be critical of. But the Caps straight up haven’t cared if they’re shortening someone’s life or not. Again. They support someone laughing at having laid a player out on the ice. They have a history of head shots as a way of removing players from the game. ??????

If someone wants to just fantasize online about an Ovechkin who’s everything the commercials, PR, enormously biased team mates and his very young girlfriend/wife say he is then it’s fine. So long as that fantasy knows to hold off in the face of real life things that you can’t ignore and that people are rightly outraged about.

Especially when these same people claim to be outraged about head shots and goons. 

Real Life Ovechkin is a sexist, egomaniacal pig who I wouldn’t want anywhere near me, my female friends or female relatives. I’ve met Ovechkins, I have friends who’ve dated Ovechkins. He offers nothing in his flimsy public persona to make me assume he’s anything different. No one should be shocked by this. The warning signs are there, folks. That PR veil of cutesy doofuses is paper thin. You lose nothing by admitting that he, like most of these players, is a waste of space not worthy of struggling to find good qualities about. Watch him play all you want but don’t let him into your feelings. He and all these men gain a lot from people perpetuating public images they haven’t earned. You’re playing into that.

Sorry, it’s just genuinely scary. People hating Crosby (so long as they don’t dip into misogyny or homophobia for it) and people hating the Penguins or just not wanting them to keep winning is whatever, that’s a normal part of competitive sports. But for all that I thought I saw a public outpouring on here for ZAR, I’ve seen chillingly little responsibility held over Ovechkin, Trotz or the Caps as an organization that employs guys like Wilson and Ovechkin who deliver high hits that get called ‘playing hard’ or ‘beastmode’ and waved away by the league. And now I guess fans who claim to be against goon behavior.

It’s fine if people wanna pretend cute stuff about hockey players and teams fully knowing it isn’t real. But this sport repeatedly exhibits it’s most repulsive side in the team that won last night. It’s something they and their players are known for. 

Bear in mind that I had to watch Paul Kariya’s brilliant career get broken apart and reduced to nothing but his history of concussions because of the types of guys that the Caps and many other teams are employing. Paul Kariya, who won the Lady Byng multiple times but who stated that he realized he’d have to start playing dirtier just to protect himself. Hell, I remember Gretzky himself (another Byng recipient) still being known as a “whiner” because he used to speak up about bad hits. I remember that he gave up and stopped criticizing the players who targeted him because he was shamed out of it. I can’t believe hockey fans, even supposedly progressive ones, are no farther along than they were then. And that now it’s all because they think grown men are their own sweethearts to protect and defend.

Side note that shit like this makes me think every non-Penguins fan in hockey fandom truly believes that their team wouldn’t have gone to the White House and had the exact same responses about it. Despite so many of their faves having visited a Bush White House and now the Women’s Olympic team going this year. And the resoundingly ambivalent or supportive reactions that 2016 teams had about the Penguins visit, especially from white players. 

Either it’s the league that’s to blame or it’s the teams and players, or it’s everyone. You can’t pick and choose who is more to blame and who has no choice based on the circumstance. 

I’m just. There are genuinely people who look at a Putin buddy and say how “gay” and liberal his team is and mean it, and who don’t realize that his level of physical affection with men is normal in Russia and yikes if it isn’t tone deaf to call it gay and actually think it is. Yes, all Russian players have to toe the pro-Russia line no matter what, but this guy is literally Putin’s friend. He’s not. Cuddly. Or. Sweet. Holtby going to pride parades and saying nice stuff is ... so? That’s nice and all and worth a reblog and folks can gush as if it means more than it does. Lord knows we’re starved for it. But it’s the barest fucking minimum and the dude is a heterosexual. Has zero impact on what his other team members think or do. 

Again, I really was operating under the belief that all the Ovi/Nicky pseudo shippy stuff and the Cuddly Bear Ovi stanning was people posting it but knowing how absurd and unreal it all is. That it’s a bit of fun to have while watching hockey but ultimately knowing that the truth is pretty gross and disappointing. I can kinda see that, even if I don’t get into it myself much. But god, not if people are actually starting to let their reactions to concussions and dirty hits and actual personal political affiliations be swayed by it. 

(And if anyone reads this and does separate their fandom fantasy from reality then just know I’m not addressing this at you anymore than I am myself for occasionally dipping my toe in it. I took part in protesting the Pens WH visit despite reblogging Pens stuff sometimes.)

That’s a terrifying amount of bias based on nothing more than the odd team member going to a pride parade or posting cute stuff with children on their instagram and indulging fans in the fantasy that all their relationships with women are perfect and wonderful. This league is infested with toxic masculinity as it always has been. It’s almost creepier that men who are remorseless thugs on the ice are able to use social media and a prevalent NHL public relations presence to seduce supposedly progressive fans so easily by making the barest minimum effort at presenting a likeable persona.

I think it’s uhhhh time to back away from hockey tumblr now. I’m glad I didn’t get too deep into it.