In its connection to and employment of technology, the NHL has come a long ways. The league’s product never has been more accessible, allowing fans to engage with the game and its players to a much larger degree. Advanced statistics and sports science programs are now, if not mandatory for teams, certainly far more popular and accepted among the mainstream. The traditionally conservative establishment of the sport deserves credit for changing, even if much of it came grudgingly.
But sadly, as the ongoing, worsening-by-the-day saga of Patrick Kane is proving, the world’s best hockey league still needs a lot of improvement in the manner by which it deals with human beings and social issues.
Ever since a cloud of suspicion gathered over Kane in early August, the Chicago Blackhawks and the NHL itself have failed to act properly – that is, to suspend the Hawks superstar with pay pending the outcome of legal investigations into an alleged rape. League and team officials have used the same talking point – some variation on “innocent until proven guilty… and/or “we have to let the process play out… – to rationalize keeping Kane on the ice in the midst of the abominable accusations against him.
And this is, in the words of the great writer Charles Pierce, all my bollocks. Nobody is arguing Kane should be thrown in jail without a proper legal defence. Nobody is demanding he be named, shamed and burned in effigy as a symbol of all that is wrong with rape culture or athlete exceptionalism.
However, what a growing number of people are calling for is an equal voice for and respect of marginalized and underrepresented groups in the hockey community. In Kane’s case – and in Slava Voynov’s case; and in Mike Ribeiro’s case – the underrepresented are women. And if you’ve been paying any amount of attention to social media reactions to Kane’s predicament, you know the overwhelming majority of women have made it abundantly clear they see his green-lit playing status as a terrible affront in regard to an issue most men never are affected by.
Granted, the NHL did suspend Voynov, but that was only after charges were laid. But, as USA Today’s Christine Brennan noted, there is precedence in other professional leagues of at least temporarily sidelining a player suspected of wrongdoing until their name is cleared (or not) by authorities. The NFL’s Cleveland Browns suspended offensive line coach Andy Moeller because of a 911 call. NASCAR suspended driver Kurt Busch for the 2015 Daytona 500 based solely on allegations of domestic violence. USA Swimming suspended Olympic icon Michael Phelps for three months after a photo of him smoking from a marijuana pipe in 2009 surfaced.
In none of those instances did the leagues/organizations hide behind the “innocent until proven guilty… shield. They acted because optics are a factor, and a gigantic one at that. They acted because they’ve recognized their employees are public figures who earn enormously disproportionate sums of money thanks to the fans who pay the freight, and part of the tradeoff for that disproportion is they’re held to higher standards of behaviour, as any public figure would be.
Unfortunately, the NHL has yet to learn the same lesson, preferring instead to circle the wagons around Kane. In choosing that course, the league did him and itself no favors. Indeed, had Kane been suspended with pay from the beginning of this predicament, the latest revelations about the investigation against him – accusations the rape kit involved in the alleged victim’s charges were dumped upon her mother’s doorstep – wouldn’t have done nearly as much damage to his name. Because he’s been allowed to participate in training camp, the most recent developments only add to the sense he’s not being held to account in any meaningful fashion. Sure, there still would’ve been a wave of anger over the latest news, but if he were already sitting out (and sitting out while still collecting his gigantic paycheck), Kane would’ve at the very least been in the same limbo as his accuser, pending the outcome of the investigation.
That would be fair to both parties. The current situation is not.
Now, this isn’t to suggest people who currently work for the NHL and its franchises don’t have the capability to act with empathy, improve their efforts on socially important issues, and reach out to underrepresented groups. The league’s work with You Can Play has been admirable, to say the least. And last year, I spoke to an NHL team president who asked me to contact him personally if and when I saw any problems that were affecting his organization. He didn’t guarantee he’d act in a way that satisfied me, but he did show genuine concern and the willingness to at least recognize potential problem areas. That’s important, and appreciated.
What isn’t appreciated, what won’t be validated with the passing of time, is the NHL’s determination to use the legal process as a bulwark against a rising tide of anger and disgust from a significant portion of its fan base that has had enough of being shunted aside while the big moneymaking machine rolls along.
Optics matter. Women matter – and yes, that goes even for women who haven’t risen in a courtroom like Clarence Darrow and put to rest each and every doubt about accusations that come at no small cost to their daily lives.
And a truly modern, fully compassionate NHL must come to terms with the fact no player is bigger than the game – and the game isn’t bigger than the people who invest their emotions and disposable income in it.