There is no ignoring current events in the United States at the moment. I don’t know how you could avoid it even if you tried. The stick to sports mantra needs to be glued to the bench like an enforcer during the last minute of a game your team is trailing by a goal.
Sports are great and mean a lot to myself, everybody reading this, and beyond. However, I am glad there are no sports right now. I’m not happy about the reason for no sports, but it does allow everybody to focus on inherently serious societal issues at the moment without distraction. I think it is needed.
Racism is a societal issue we have absolutely not solved or come close to solving. It is not a political issue. This isn’t politics. This is a human rights issue which transcends your voting preferences. Nothing about being anti-racist is controversial unless of course…
Racism as it pertains to the sport of hockey is a big problem. Hockey is dominated by white athletes of the middle and upper class. Socio-economics rules the day. It is not diverse at all. I absolutely love the majority of my former teammates and coaches. I cherish my hockey career (if you can call it that) and the relationships I had and still have from it. I also now understand we existed in a bubble. A very small bubble. We were sheltered from different viewpoints and different backgrounds. Many of us understood very little outside of that bubble. This isn’t inherently bad and doesn’t mean people were actively racist, but when hockey is your whole life growing up the bubble can be problematic. It means we have a responsibility to listen and allow ourselves to be educated from those outside of the bubble we found ourselves in.
A great starting point for those in the hockey community would be to listen to Akim Akiu who penned an extremely moving piece about his personal experiences in his hockey career and how the culture impacted him.
I joined the Windsor Spitfires, I had a target on my back. There was this guy on the team — he was the top-prospect, future-NHL-star type that most junior teams in Canada have — and he looked at me, Akim Aliu, and chose to make my life a living hell.
First couple of practices he put Tiger Balm in my jock. Then he took my gear outside and threw it on the roof. And then he began to belittle me in front of my teammates, the coaches, whoever would listen to him. He’d make fun of my clothes, the way I spoke. He was two years older than me and a rising star, and he wielded his power over me like I was nothing — like I was subhuman.
That same kid — the guy who went on to play over 400 NHL games — came up to me a few days after I refused to take part in his horrific ritual and tapped me on the shoulder during a practice. I turned, and he shoved his fiberglass stick through my mouth. I lost seven teeth in half a second. Blood gushing down my chest into my pants. And that was when I knew.
This game, it’s not for me.
It never has been.
And I knew another thing.
I had to fight for my life.
So I dropped my gloves and took part in another Canadian ritual. We fought, and I did my best to show the rest of the kids surrounding us on the ice that day that I wouldn’t give up on the game.
I fought for my right to have a life that I had earned. I’d worked so hard to get on that team. My parents and brother had sacrificed their time, their ambitions, to help me succeed in hockey and get me to the OHL.
And then in my few months in Windsor, I went through hell at the hands of a racist sociopath. His name’s Steve Downie. I don’t really give a crap what he thinks about the way I just described him. I’d say it to his face today. He had nothing but hate in his heart back then. He looked at me and saw a black boy with a weird accent — and didn’t like me because of it. I was attacked because of the color of my skin. I knew it then. And I know it even more now.
Out of everything I felt that day in Windsor — the rage, the crippling pain, the sadness — the worst part was the feeling I had right when the fight ended and I got a look at my teammates, my peers, standing in a circle, watching this go on. It felt … tribal. Or like I was an animal in the circus. I was with all these people who were supposed to be my brothers, right? That’s what hockey is all about. Brotherhood. Togetherness. Teamwork. And they just stood there. I was surrounded by the types of players I had dreamed of playing with, and I had never felt more alone.
It is incredibly powerful to hear these things. If it makes you uncomfortable to read what he wrote, it should. It is terrible. This is happening in an environment which should be fostering self-esteem, personal growth, healthy competition, and physical activity. This is happening in a place where people spend big money to enjoy themselves. Unfortunately and obviously, this extends way beyond sports and is a huge fabric of day to day life for many minorities and specifically the black community.
This brings us to current events and the protests surrounding the very necessary Black Lives Matters movement. For all lives to matter to be true you need the black ones to matter. Right now they objectively don’t. It is why Black Lives need to be in the spotlight. This is why things are boiling over and the country is currently spiraling out of control in many major American cities. Police brutality and police murders against citizens are greatly skewed and victimize the black community. If these things were happening to white people it would go viral in a heartbeat. They aren’t. The majority of people who make up the hockey community have never and will never experience these atrocities themselves. We don’t live these experiences because of skin color. We just don’t.
So what can the hockey community do?
We need those who have large platforms to step up and acknowledge that Black Lives Do Matter. You cannot keep up the charade of #hockeyisforeveryone if you cannot acknowledge blatant racism in the sport of hockey and society at large. Teams and players can use their great social platforms to amplify and educate those who have lived in the hockey culture bubble. People who are not exposed and do not experience these things on a daily basis. Players and teams have the ability to spread the necessary wisdom and knowledge of those being harmed to people who may not otherwise organically see it. Will this magically solve racism? Don’t be an idiot, of course not. We have decades of work to do before that happens. Will it help? Definitely. Hockey fans both young and old look up to players and teams. Seeing them address the issue directly and empathetically has power. There are some really good examples from players from the past few days doing exactly that.
One of the best examples I have seen was from Jonathan Toews. He came with a humbled tone. He spoke from his heart. He spoke from a place of wanting to learn and understand. He spoke as someone who wants to use their platform to help.
This is how it is done. He is a star player who plays in a large American city with a huge black population. His words carry weight in the largely white hockey community. Hearing somebody like him expertly craft a post like this has power. This is a wonderful example of how to use a social platform as a player.
George Floyd’s murder was the tipping point for the nationwide protests we see today and likely into the future. The incident happened in Minneapolis and it is where Blake Wheeler is from.
Again, a great use of a social platform to spread awareness and information.
A few more great examples:
We need the leaders of the hockey community (NHL) to continue to amplify these messages. We as the hockey community need to listen to the voices of those who are suffering. They are pleading with society to listen. They are desperate. They are hurt. They feel alone. They are begging for change. It isn’t good enough to sit idle. There is no neutral here. Either you are anti-racism or pro-racism. There is no middle ground.
The hockey community is a small niche in the bigger picture, but for all lives to matter, all lives need to be on board with the Black Lives Matter movement. The hockey community needs to answer the bell and acknowledge this.
Forget hockey is for everyone. Society isn’t for everyone. We should all be offended by that truth and want to do something about it. A predominately white sports community can and should do its part.
Listen to the black community pleading for help. Pop the bubble and allow yourself to listen and hear what they are saying with all of their being. Learn from what they are saying. Amplify the message with your own personal platform. Actively call out racism instead of being a benign bystander. Be part of the solution.
Thanks for reading!
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»