I’m with you on this and am actually at the point of exasperation rather than anger. Nothing will change when those responsible and accountable in these areas face proper consequences for abject failure. They absolutely shouldn’t need to learn what the right thing was, it was obvious. They just had other priorities.
I have someone close to me that is a victim and saw regularly the damage that can be done. What was actually more damaging was some people down playing the impact, support services failing, no being believed and so on. Listening to rehearsed statements, comments that a most likely heavily influenced by lawyers just annoys me even more. So I’m just avoiding every Bowman story or else I’ll put my hand through another door.
When I watched Beech talk about what happened I had tears running down my face because I understood, as much as a non victim could, the impact.
So yeah, the Oilers are a disgrace, but I’m not angry - just completely apathetic and despondent that ‘they’ still don’t get it. Mind you the NHL doesn’t believe in CTE either.
I am sorry someone close to you was victimized. I hope they have healed and you as well.
Learning of the toxic elements of hockey culture (e.g the Beech incident, the racism Aliu endured from management before being labeled a problem, etc) has me seeing the side of a sport I love and how it can be better.
It's important to me to call out those aspects that (I feel) foster unhealthy cultural norms. And my hope is three-fold. The hope of:
- a dialogue being started where others can reasonably discuss the issues
- eyes getting open and even one new person realizing the importance of the topic.it's not even to call someone inherently wrong or evil - just that they are fortunate enough not to have to worry about it when this is what some people fear every day
- reminding people who have been subjected to trauma revolving around the discussed behaviors that they're not alone and they have friends.
Like, I remember RJ telling stories of racism he endured while playing hockey, even after "we already said hockey is for everyone. There's no racism." or "throwing the banana at Iginla was bad. See? When there's overt racism we defend them."
Taking a moment to call something bad just isn't enough. The whole "yeah, Mitchell Miller tormented a black kid on the spectrum, but should we let this ruin his life" question got asked a lot. As if the life of the bullied means less, and not having immediate access to hockey until after atonement will ruin Miller's life.
We're on a hockey forum, so I get the discussion is hockey-specific. But as this is hockey's future, we also need to talk about where we as fans take hockey going forward.
I recognize a lot of this makes me insufferable. But it's what little difference I feel I can make to the sport I care about.
Everything worked out perfectly for him so far throughout his career. Will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
