NHL Off-Topic thread

[l3ulvl]

Quote: Originally Posted by Majingir

You always hear the media guys mentioning it. Probably stemming from the fact that the guys don't have big egos or personalities and you don't hear the amount of stories about guys getting arrested or some sort of trouble with the law like you would in other leagues. Not saying they're perfect, but at least in the media the perception is that hockey guys are "cleaner". Imo, Tennis players are probably the nicest of all the major sports. You can get more lighthearted and fun moments out of them.

Which media guys? Because in USA we hardly cover hockey at all, which is unfortunate, but you can't take lack of coverage and turn it into squeaky coverage based on the negative coverage of the other players from the other sports that get covered regularly

[Majingir]

Maybe not as much focus in the US, although it seems like many of their hockey reporters are former Sportsnet/TSN personalities.

Obviously Don Cherry was one of the biggest names to constantly push the whole "good old Canadian boy" narrative when it comes to hockey, but others up here did similar things about hockey players in general.

[DrJones]

Maj is correct that this narrative has been heavily pushed onto the Canadian public (and internalized by a fair chunk of it) for decades. It combines two of the most prominent features of Canadian culture: hockey, and the need to point out how we're different (ie, better) than others (ie, Americans). Because Canada's identity is so wrapped up in hockey, some of us have to believe that hockey players are noble, tough, selfless, humble, hard-working "warriors" because that's how we like to think of ourselves, and any attempt to reveal hockey culture's seedier aspects is taken as a personal attack by many and thus swept under the rug or dismissed as outliers. This attitude is not as widespread as it once was, but it's still there.

[ImTellinTim]

There’s also a certain aspect of the sport that can’t really be discussed here that makes the way that players “mistakes” such as domestic violence, drug use, and drunk driving are covered a bit different. There’s a bit of “boys will be boys” air about it for that reason.

[l3ulvl]

for what it's worth, the talking head shows on ESPN did cover the Hathaway "spitting issue" for at least 30 seconds per show

[slickdtc]

What’s everyone make of all the stuff coming out regarding verbally and physically abusive coaches?

I feel like we’ve known about coaches being *******s. Mike Keenan being one of the toughest SOB’s ever, stuff like that. Probably did cross lines verbally, but I don’t know if that should constitute a resignation.

The physical abuse is a different matter, but there are levels to it as well. Yanking a players jersey? I can probably let slide. Punching and kicking (kicking?!) guys is pretty overboard. I don’t think these players were getting beat up and not knocking out their coach cold, regardless of the power dynamic there. I don’t think players were getting cold-cocked, but maybe slapped and bonked upside the head. The kicking is weird, probably a literal kick in the *** on the bench.

Physical abuse isn’t right and shouldn’t be excused. The relationship of coach to player makes it so the player is risking their career for speaking up, but it’s hard to retroactively go back and punish coaches for these transgressions. A tough conundrum between accepting consequences for your actions and not particularly being a fan of going back years and years to punish people.

On a related note, I don’t think these players are soft for speaking out about it. They’re just speaking their experiences. Sports and hockey culture isn’t just the games you see on the ice. There’s so much time, energy, money, and everything else put in to it before that product is presented to fans. It’s not all clean. It’s naive to think it always has been, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting it to become a better environment too. Underachieving players can still get ridden for lack of hustle, benched, without resorting to violence.

[Majingir]

It's not just a hockey problem, it's a sports problem.

We've known forever about over aggressive sports parents. But took forever before people started doing things trying to get parents to back off.

About time people doing the same towards coaches too. Don't cross the line as a coach. Be tough on guys, but not abusive.

This isn't a generational thing either. It's the older guys coming out and stating this.

Chelios has been vocal about how much he hates Babcock. Now Franzen came out and started how verbally abusive Babcock was towards him.

Peters fired for his comments, Crawford could be gone too, and Babcock while not fired for anything he said or did,you have to argue that his actions are part of what led to him losing the room and resulted in poor performances.

[kehlis]

Quote: Originally Posted by Majingir

This isn't a generational thing either. It's the older guys coming out and stating this.

Doesn't that, by definition, make it a generational thing?