Canadian Government Freezing Hockey Canada Funding- (2018 Canada World Jr Team Alleged Sexual Assault) PART 2

[MXD]

Curious, do you honestly think if any one of these players is completely exonerated but was banned from participating in HC events and employment for not participating in this commission (for whatever reason) won't launch a civil suit?

He could if he has time and resources to waste.

 

[Melrose Munch]

I think hockey should be played in high school and the CHL should go too. Along with minor hockey. Don't like that? Find another passion.

Other sports do that.

 

[Myopinionsarewrong]

This is the problem with hysteria, it's easy to whip it up but hard to stop and rationalize decisions and comments.

For all of those wanting to clean house in HC, who do they want to replace the current leadership with then?

Maybe if we all focused on building a better future, instead of calling for everyone's head we might get somewhere positive.

Also lol at this. Give me an example of a organization gone wrong case, where not changing the leadership led to better moral results and culture of doing the right thing.

Even promoting someone into leadership from within the organization usually leads to poor results. The best chance to change an organizations culture to an more ethical one is to change the leadership. 101 in any ethical business course

 

[WarriorofTime]

I think hockey should be played in high school and the CHL should go too. Along with minor hockey. Don't like that? Find another passion.

Other sports do that.

Yeah, I'm gonna re-post what I said in Part 1 about why I think Minor and Junior Hockey is a pretty messed up system, even in the context of the hysteria around youth sports generally.

I think a big issue is just the way Minor and Junior Hockey is set up that makes it very different from other sports.

Minor Hockey at the Bantam and Midget-Minor level is a total circus. (and of course this has a trickle down effect even to Pee Wee), with parents and kids hyper-focused on putting themselves in the best position for their "draft" year (age 15) to get a coveted spot in Major Junior/Junior A/USNDTP/USHL with players bouncing minor clubs to get on the right team that will give them the right amount of ice time to showcase, get invited to camps, etc. with extra powerskating lessons on the side... just an overall hyper-focus on hockey.

The closest parallel I'd say to those age 13-15 hockey years in what you'd see in something like the GTHL in another sport is to the elite AAU circuits (such as the Nike EYBL) for prep basketball. This is also a bit of a circus, as players are all hyper-focused on positioning themselves within their class (similar to Minor Hockey players) and trying to get a coveted college scholarship (or increasingly, other options like G League Ignite are becoming more popular). Even then, I would say there are two crucial difference still - these elite AAU circuits occur at ages 15-17, so you can already push the players ages up a couple years... and an AAU team is never going to be a kid's "primary" team as they will all still play high school basketball where they are still just normal high school students playing with their friends for the joy of representing their school (it can of course still be very serious, but it is not as professional-ized).

So now hockey is the kid's primary focus, making it to Juniors is a big thing in and of itself... and low and behold, they made it. They get drafted into let's say the OHL. There's a draft party or whatever, it's a local news story that you were drafted. So now you become a bit of a minor celebrity. And this is all when you're 15, barely pubescent. So if you aren't super well grounded, if your parents don't do a good job instilling that you're not better than everybody else because you're good at a sport (remember the sport that's consumed you for the last few years to reach this very moment), your ego can grow very big.

And of course, relevant in all of this is, by going to Juniors, you are likely packing up, moving to another city, living away from your family and with a billet family who do not have any parental obligations to you to make sure you grow into a respectable young man. And what I said before about hockey being your whole life? Child's play compared to now, as you are now being asked to play a 68 game schedule with additional practice and dryland time. You are going to take long trips to travel around your league for ordinary league games, and you're even in a differentiated form of schooling catered towards your hockey career. At which point, who knows if you even care about school or have any respect for your teachers or fellow classmates because you're a "hockey player" (who has already forfeited NCAA eligibility if you play Major Junior in Canada) and your goal is to make the NHL, not read some books written by dead authors. One shouldn't overlook the power of a good education in taking kids out of their bubble and exposing them to the happenings of people outside of themselves. I think the focus on obtaining an NCAA scholarship, rather than making it to Major Juniors, is one thing USA Hockey does right. A scholarship is a noble and admirable goal in and of itself in so many ways. It means you get to to college for free and come out with zero debt. It is still a feeder into the NHL so you are not closing any doors but there is a big tangible carrot in and of itself waiting for you while you still remain amateur. Major Junior on the other hand? It's a great feeder for professional hockey. That's it. It is otherwise not super valuable, but the hype and perception built around it creates a distorted viewpoint and worldview for teenage boys.

On the road so often, your "family" becomes your teammates, a group of 17-20 year olds who also grew up in this sort of environment and aren't fully mature and developed themselves. Maybe you get lucky and end up with a great group of veterans, but often times, you're gonna get a bunch of boys that subscribe to groupthink, immature attitudes towards things like drinking and sex and a culture built around hazing because "that's just how it's done" and justified with "we all had to do it".

And all of this happens at age 16. The other big North American sports have nothing like this, as you still remain a normal high school student progressing towards college eligibility (which is a must for most sports), in the vast majority of cases living at home surrounded by family. Hockey is unique in that players truly do enter a "hockey bubble" where it consumes their whole life and everything surrounding them. In basketball for instance, the goal is a college scholarship, so you get that, and then at age 18 or 19 (again older and more mature) you enter as an incoming freshman. Yes, there are some key similarities in that you are now also a local celebrity in your college bubble and many will still be susceptible to growing massive egos and senses of entitlement because they are good at a game. However, you're still also a student at the University surrounded by the remaining incoming freshman class, you live in the dorms, eat at the dining halls, etc. There also continues to be the expectation that you are taking coursework with the goal of progressing towards a degree for as long as you are in school that you can use if you do not play professionally. You also cannot be "traded" (pack your bags 17 year old, you're moving to a new city, to attend a new school and stay with a new billet family), while players may (and increasingly do) freely transfer, they are able to continue to remain at the school if they so choose (4 year guaranteed scholarships are becoming the norm, so long as a player remains academically eligible and is not removed from the team for behavioral reasons). Even then, it is not as professionalized as Junior Hockey.

It's no wonder that without better systems and programs in place that these hockey players get a warped perception of their place within reality and come out of it as 19 and 20 year old shitheads that think the world serves to cater to their needs, after all that is all it has done for the last 7 or so very formative years of their life. Add in the weird hazing culture and "fer da boyz" culture and I guess it's no wonder that gang bangs (consensual or not) because some sort of odd bizarro team-bonding ritual.

The whole system is pretty lousy... all to produce around 30-40 future NHL players per year.

 

[Oscar The Grouch]

This is the problem with hysteria, it's easy to whip it up but hard to stop and rationalize decisions and comments.

For all of those wanting to clean house in HC, who do they want to replace the current leadership with then?

Maybe if we all focused on building a better future, instead of calling for everyone's head we might get somewhere positive.

LoL. Yes, asking for a change in leadership where leadership showed the opposite of leadership in an organization-defining case is HYSTERIA.

 

[topshelf15]

The entire world is sick right now...

 

[Tad Mikowsky]

This is the problem with hysteria, it's easy to whip it up but hard to stop and rationalize decisions and comments.

For all of those wanting to clean house in HC, who do they want to replace the current leadership with then?

Maybe if we all focused on building a better future, instead of calling for everyone's head we might get somewhere positive.

Lol, the horrors of accountability. So much hysteria.

You’re running out of straws to grasp against the “outrage mob”.

Again: you’re more concerned about the cancel culture than an organization that has covered rampant sexual abuse. Let that soak for a bit.

 

[Hobnobs]

Should FIFA suspend Canada?

Depends on the bribes Canada can provide.

Disclaimer: This is a dig at FIFA, not canada for those who dont get the reference.

 

[Melrose Munch]

Yeah, I'm gonna re-post what I said in Part 1 about why I think Minor and Junior Hockey is a pretty messed up system, even in the context of the hysteria around youth sports generally.

I think a big issue is just the way Minor and Junior Hockey is set up that makes it very different from other sports.

Minor Hockey at the Bantam and Midget-Minor level is a total circus. (and of course this has a trickle down effect even to Pee Wee), with parents and kids hyper-focused on putting themselves in the best position for their "draft" year (age 15) to get a coveted spot in Major Junior/Junior A/USNDTP/USHL with players bouncing minor clubs to get on the right team that will give them the right amount of ice time to showcase, get invited to camps, etc. with extra powerskating lessons on the side... just an overall hyper-focus on hockey.

The closest parallel I'd say to those age 13-15 hockey years in what you'd see in something like the GTHL in another sport is to the elite AAU circuits (such as the Nike EYBL) for prep basketball. This is also a bit of a circus, as players are all hyper-focused on positioning themselves within their class (similar to Minor Hockey players) and trying to get a coveted college scholarship (or increasingly, other options like G League Ignite are becoming more popular). Even then, I would say there are two crucial difference still - these elite AAU circuits occur at ages 15-17, so you can already push the players ages up a couple years... and an AAU team is never going to be a kid's "primary" team as they will all still play high school basketball where they are still just normal high school students playing with their friends for the joy of representing their school (it can of course still be very serious, but it is not as professional-ized).

So now hockey is the kid's primary focus, making it to Juniors is a big thing in and of itself... and low and behold, they made it. They get drafted into let's say the OHL. There's a draft party or whatever, it's a local news story that you were drafted. So now you become a bit of a minor celebrity. And this is all when you're 15, barely pubescent. So if you aren't super well grounded, if your parents don't do a good job instilling that you're not better than everybody else because you're good at a sport (remember the sport that's consumed you for the last few years to reach this very moment), your ego can grow very big.

And of course, relevant in all of this is, by going to Juniors, you are likely packing up, moving to another city, living away from your family and with a billet family who do not have any parental obligations to you to make sure you grow into a respectable young man. And what I said before about hockey being your whole life? Child's play compared to now, as you are now being asked to play a 68 game schedule with additional practice and dryland time. You are going to take long trips to travel around your league for ordinary league games, and you're even in a differentiated form of schooling catered towards your hockey career. At which point, who knows if you even care about school or have any respect for your teachers or fellow classmates because you're a "hockey player" (who has already forfeited NCAA eligibility if you play Major Junior in Canada) and your goal is to make the NHL, not read some books written by dead authors. One shouldn't overlook the power of a good education in taking kids out of their bubble and exposing them to the happenings of people outside of themselves. I think the focus on obtaining an NCAA scholarship, rather than making it to Major Juniors, is one thing USA Hockey does right. A scholarship is a noble and admirable goal in and of itself in so many ways. It means you get to to college for free and come out with zero debt. It is still a feeder into the NHL so you are not closing any doors but there is a big tangible carrot in and of itself waiting for you while you still remain amateur. Major Junior on the other hand? It's a great feeder for professional hockey. That's it. It is otherwise not super valuable, but the hype and perception built around it creates a distorted viewpoint and worldview for teenage boys.

On the road so often, your "family" becomes your teammates, a group of 17-20 year olds who also grew up in this sort of environment and aren't fully mature and developed themselves. Maybe you get lucky and end up with a great group of veterans, but often times, you're gonna get a bunch of boys that subscribe to groupthink, immature attitudes towards things like drinking and sex and a culture built around hazing because "that's just how it's done" and justified with "we all had to do it".

And all of this happens at age 16. The other big North American sports have nothing like this, as you still remain a normal high school student progressing towards college eligibility (which is a must for most sports), in the vast majority of cases living at home surrounded by family. Hockey is unique in that players truly do enter a "hockey bubble" where it consumes their whole life and everything surrounding them. In basketball for instance, the goal is a college scholarship, so you get that, and then at age 18 or 19 (again older and more mature) you enter as an incoming freshman. Yes, there are some key similarities in that you are now also a local celebrity in your college bubble and many will still be susceptible to growing massive egos and senses of entitlement because they are good at a game. However, you're still also a student at the University surrounded by the remaining incoming freshman class, you live in the dorms, eat at the dining halls, etc. There also continues to be the expectation that you are taking coursework with the goal of progressing towards a degree for as long as you are in school that you can use if you do not play professionally. You also cannot be "traded" (pack your bags 17 year old, you're moving to a new city, to attend a new school and stay with a new billet family), while players may (and increasingly do) freely transfer, they are able to continue to remain at the school if they so choose (4 year guaranteed scholarships are becoming the norm, so long as a player remains academically eligible and is not removed from the team for behavioral reasons). Even then, it is not as professionalized as Junior Hockey.

It's no wonder that without better systems and programs in place that these hockey players get a warped perception of their place within reality and come out of it as 19 and 20 year old shitheads that think the world serves to cater to their needs, after all that is all it has done for the last 7 or so very formative years of their life. Add in the weird hazing culture and "fer da boyz" culture and I guess it's no wonder that gang bangs (consensual or not) because some sort of odd bizarro team-bonding ritual.

The whole system is pretty lousy... all to produce around 30-40 future NHL players per year.

I totally agree. I think the pushing them to canadian universities as well as US would change things, it would create a more mature player, it would mean not starting at 17, etc.

 

[Djp]

Yeah, I'm gonna re-post what I said in Part 1 about why I think Minor and Junior Hockey is a pretty messed up system, even in the context of the hysteria around youth sports generally.

I think a big issue is just the way Minor and Junior Hockey is set up that makes it very different from other sports.

Minor Hockey at the Bantam and Midget-Minor level is a total circus. (and of course this has a trickle down effect even to Pee Wee), with parents and kids hyper-focused on putting themselves in the best position for their "draft" year (age 15) to get a coveted spot in Major Junior/Junior A/USNDTP/USHL with players bouncing minor clubs to get on the right team that will give them the right amount of ice time to showcase, get invited to camps, etc. with extra powerskating lessons on the side... just an overall hyper-focus on hockey.

The closest parallel I'd say to those age 13-15 hockey years in what you'd see in something like the GTHL in another sport is to the elite AAU circuits (such as the Nike EYBL) for prep basketball. This is also a bit of a circus, as players are all hyper-focused on positioning themselves within their class (similar to Minor Hockey players) and trying to get a coveted college scholarship (or increasingly, other options like G League Ignite are becoming more popular). Even then, I would say there are two crucial difference still - these elite AAU circuits occur at ages 15-17, so you can already push the players ages up a couple years... and an AAU team is never going to be a kid's "primary" team as they will all still play high school basketball where they are still just normal high school students playing with their friends for the joy of representing their school (it can of course still be very serious, but it is not as professional-ized).

So now hockey is the kid's primary focus, making it to Juniors is a big thing in and of itself... and low and behold, they made it. They get drafted into let's say the OHL. There's a draft party or whatever, it's a local news story that you were drafted. So now you become a bit of a minor celebrity. And this is all when you're 15, barely pubescent. So if you aren't super well grounded, if your parents don't do a good job instilling that you're not better than everybody else because you're good at a sport (remember the sport that's consumed you for the last few years to reach this very moment), your ego can grow very big.

And of course, relevant in all of this is, by going to Juniors, you are likely packing up, moving to another city, living away from your family and with a billet family who do not have any parental obligations to you to make sure you grow into a respectable young man. And what I said before about hockey being your whole life? Child's play compared to now, as you are now being asked to play a 68 game schedule with additional practice and dryland time. You are going to take long trips to travel around your league for ordinary league games, and you're even in a differentiated form of schooling catered towards your hockey career. At which point, who knows if you even care about school or have any respect for your teachers or fellow classmates because you're a "hockey player" (who has already forfeited NCAA eligibility if you play Major Junior in Canada) and your goal is to make the NHL, not read some books written by dead authors. One shouldn't overlook the power of a good education in taking kids out of their bubble and exposing them to the happenings of people outside of themselves. I think the focus on obtaining an NCAA scholarship, rather than making it to Major Juniors, is one thing USA Hockey does right. A scholarship is a noble and admirable goal in and of itself in so many ways. It means you get to to college for free and come out with zero debt. It is still a feeder into the NHL so you are not closing any doors but there is a big tangible carrot in and of itself waiting for you while you still remain amateur. Major Junior on the other hand? It's a great feeder for professional hockey. That's it. It is otherwise not super valuable, but the hype and perception built around it creates a distorted viewpoint and worldview for teenage boys.

On the road so often, your "family" becomes your teammates, a group of 17-20 year olds who also grew up in this sort of environment and aren't fully mature and developed themselves. Maybe you get lucky and end up with a great group of veterans, but often times, you're gonna get a bunch of boys that subscribe to groupthink, immature attitudes towards things like drinking and sex and a culture built around hazing because "that's just how it's done" and justified with "we all had to do it".

And all of this happens at age 16. The other big North American sports have nothing like this, as you still remain a normal high school student progressing towards college eligibility (which is a must for most sports), in the vast majority of cases living at home surrounded by family. Hockey is unique in that players truly do enter a "hockey bubble" where it consumes their whole life and everything surrounding them. In basketball for instance, the goal is a college scholarship, so you get that, and then at age 18 or 19 (again older and more mature) you enter as an incoming freshman. Yes, there are some key similarities in that you are now also a local celebrity in your college bubble and many will still be susceptible to growing massive egos and senses of entitlement because they are good at a game. However, you're still also a student at the University surrounded by the remaining incoming freshman class, you live in the dorms, eat at the dining halls, etc. There also continues to be the expectation that you are taking coursework with the goal of progressing towards a degree for as long as you are in school that you can use if you do not play professionally. You also cannot be "traded" (pack your bags 17 year old, you're moving to a new city, to attend a new school and stay with a new billet family), while players may (and increasingly do) freely transfer, they are able to continue to remain at the school if they so choose (4 year guaranteed scholarships are becoming the norm, so long as a player remains academically eligible and is not removed from the team for behavioral reasons). Even then, it is not as professionalized as Junior Hockey.

It's no wonder that without better systems and programs in place that these hockey players get a warped perception of their place within reality and come out of it as 19 and 20 year old shitheads that think the world serves to cater to their needs, after all that is all it has done for the last 7 or so very formative years of their life. Add in the weird hazing culture and "fer da boyz" culture and I guess it's no wonder that gang bangs (consensual or not) because some sort of odd bizarro team-bonding ritual.

The whole system is pretty lousy... all to produce around 30-40 future NHL players per year.

i get what you said, but I disagree with you on a few things.

other sports are travel teams like in soccer. Tennis and golf have developmental school for some of the potential young pro stars.

my nephew is good enough in hockey and soccer that he coukd have done the travel teams/ billet route.

changing the “system” isn’t change the issue. It will just move elsewhere. 16-22 yr old are the same people with the same attitudes and risks and the affects of bullying, hazing,and sexual assault still occurs on high school and college teams.

 

[WarriorofTime]

i get what you said, but I disagree with you on a few things.

other sports are travel teams like in soccer. Tennis and golf have developmental school for some of the potential young pro stars.

my nephew is good enough in hockey and soccer that he coukd have done the travel teams/ billet route.

changing the “system” isn’t change the issue. It will just move elsewhere. 16-22 yr old are the same people with the same attitudes and risks and the affects of bullying, hazing,and sexual assault still occurs on high school and college teams.

I'm not saying we need to unwind all of the junior hockey system, it's too firmly engrained, I just think there are a lot of problems that it creates that have to this point gone ignored. I agree all sports have their share of issues, but it's good to look at Hockey's specifically and how it's separation (and catering from) the school system has lead to some of these issues, and take a more thoughtful and proactive approach to addressing some of these.

(I don't pretend to know the answer, more so just issue spotting)

 

[Djp]

I'm not saying we need to unwind all of the junior hockey system, it's too firmly engrained, I just think there are a lot of problems that it creates that have to this point gone ignored. I agree all sports have their share of issues, but it's good to look at Hockey's specifically and how it's separation (and catering from) the school system has lead to some of these issues, and take a more thoughtful and proactive approach to addressing some of these.

(I don't pretend to know the answer, more so just issue spotting)

yousee the same problems in high school sports….the problem is not being detached from the family or detached from the school.

the problem is elsewhere such as not having team psychologists or teams being too focused on winning vs safety

 

[4thline]

Personally I think the main issue that exacerbates the problem in Canadian hockey relative to other sports is the age band. U17's and U18's shouldn't be being shipped off to live away from their parents to be entrenched in a high pressure "peer" group with new adults who's emotional and moral development was stunted by having the same happen to them, with authority figures focused on (in order of priority: Team Success -> Individual Athletic development --------------------------------> individual personal development.

Bring back residency rules into minor hockey, keep U18's out of Junior.

 

[jbeck5]

Sure, fair point But i did not simplify porn as only negative. What I did say was that its naive to think that porn is only positive and that as studies on rapists confirm, might be a fuel to certain people to act as sexual predators, as porn shapes our brain.

My only take was to defend the view that porn can also have a negative effect. I did not say it is so always, though personally I think the positives of porn in our culture are exaggerated. Just wanted to jump in when the conversation felt one sided on this matter

Fair enough. Sorry if I came off strong.

Let's just put it this way. I think societies that legalize and Regulate mild drugs or alcohol, sex workers, and porn is a much better society than one where they're all illegal or frowned upon.

I don't want to live in some old school religious backwards society where anything involving pleasure is seen as bad. I don't want to live in Sharia law or old American prohibition times. No thanks. Give me the more modern, free, secular society where we allow all these pleasures, but go about making sure they're safe. The moment we frown upon these activities is the moment people try to hide everything and it becomes less safe.

Legalize weed and you have way less crime around drugs. Less theft. Less assaults. Less need for every day adults to come into contact with harder drugs or criminals.

Legalize prostitution and regulate it in a safe manner, and you get less abuse, less STDs, etc.

Legalize cocaine and regulate it and you probably have way less fentanyl deaths, etc

Those are kind of just examples...but almost every "fun but potentially dangerous" activity is made safer by being legal and regulated. Everything becomes much more dangerous when it's illegal and run through the black market.

 

[super6646]

Oh, please... poor Russian victims? Give us a f***ing break.

What does Russian have to do with changing the outcome of facing abuse?

 

[Uncle Rotter]

Depends on the bribes Canada can provide.

Disclaimer: This is a dig at FIFA, not canada for those who dont get the reference.

I should note that the President of the Canadian Soccer Association from 2012 to 2017 is now the President of CONCACAF and a FIFA Council member.

 

[Advanced stats]

The whole system is pretty lousy... all to produce around 30-40 future NHL players per year.

Didn't want to copy your whole post, but have to say it was very well worded.


Don't try and pretend that this doesn't happen with other sports though. Maybe not in Canada necessarily, but look broader.

Look how American parents angle their 13 year old kids for football and baseball.

Look how European parents do the same for soccer

Dominicans do it with baseball

South Americans do it with soccer

You'd probably find similar around the world.

 

[Uncle Rotter]

Look how European parents do the same for soccer

And their are North American soccer parents who ship their sons off at a young age to train and play in Europe

 

[Hobnobs]

I should note that the President of the Canadian Soccer Association form 2012 to 2017 is now the President of CONCACAF and a FIFA Council member.

Alright its a dig at both FIFA and Canada now apparently

 

[WarriorofTime]

Didn't want to copy your whole post, but have to say it was very well worded.


Don't try and pretend that this doesn't happen with other sports though. Maybe not in Canada necessarily, but look broader.

Look how American parents angle their 13 year old kids for football and baseball.

Look how European parents do the same for soccer

Dominicans do it with baseball

South Americans do it with soccer

You'd probably find similar around the world.

I do think the issues with hockey are part of a broader package of issues in sport. No doubt. Some I’m a little less aware “process” wise as to how they work than others. The ones I am most familiar with are hockey, football (the American kind) and basketball with a bit of knowledge regarding baseball and football (the European kind). I think for hockey’s sake, hockey should focus on cleaning up its own house. I think that starts with looking at a how a system that ships off 16 year old boys to grow in an environment with constant travel and on the road with other 16-20 year olds can lead to poor personal development and thinking thoughtfully on how that could change. Clearly wearing a suit to gamesand some team mandated time at the soup kitchen isn’t cutting it.

 

[GM Armchair]

Didn't want to copy your whole post, but have to say it was very well worded.


Don't try and pretend that this doesn't happen with other sports though. Maybe not in Canada necessarily, but look broader.

Look how American parents angle their 13 year old kids for football and baseball.

Look how European parents do the same for soccer

Dominicans do it with baseball

South Americans do it with soccer

You'd probably find similar around the world.

What does it matter what happens in other countries. Who cares about Dominicans playing baseball.

This is about canada and the terrible culture we have created. Stop looking for excuses to justify this terrible behaviour. BuT lOoK aT oThEr CoUnTrIeS

 

[caymanmew]

What does it matter what happens in other countries. Who cares about Dominicans playing baseball.

This is about canada and the terrible culture we have created. Stop looking for excuses to justify this terrible behaviour. BuT lOoK aT oThEr CoUnTrIeS

Not looking at what happens in other countries with regards to sports culture is dumb, and a sign that you're more interested in being mad at what is happening than actually trying to fix the culture we have.

Arguments could be made this culture is directly connected to sports, as it appears all over the world in different sports. And if it is directly connected to sports, and especially youth sports, can it be fixed or dealt with? Perhaps the culture can be changed, or perhaps this culture is simply connected to sports in such a way we must accept the culture if we want sports.

Hopefully, we can change the culture, but given it doesn't appear anyone has ever changed away from a sports culture(I hope I'm wrong) like this I suspect we can't. I think the cause of the culture is directly connected to sports itself. Or specifically spectator sports.

 

[apparentlyclueless]

Arguments could be made this culture is directly connected to sports, as it appears all over the world in different sports. And if it is directly connected to sports, and especially youth sports, can it be fixed or dealt with? Perhaps the culture can be changed, or perhaps this culture is simply connected to sports in such a way we must accept the culture if we want sports.

What???

Are you for real?

What you're saying is essentially that we might have to accept scumbags sexually assaulting people in vulnerable positions, hazing people to the brink of suicide, etc, just to enjoy our entertainment.

If that's the price (and it really should not be, it's just laziness to imply otherwise), f*** hockey and sports once and for all. And If you're not with me on this you can't really even pretend to be a decent human being. Sports is entertainment and it's not worth completely ruining anybody's life.

 

[I am toxic]

There is nothing in sports that requires 16-18 year olds to be shipped off from their families. Not here in Canada, not in any other country, nor in any world in any universe in all the multiverses.

That isn't a sports model, that's a business model.

The whataboutisms intended to sew confusion as to what we can and cannot do about addressing a known problem - hockey culture and it's toxic code of silence combined with a win at all costs attitude, blacklisting, hazing, misogyny, homophobia, racism - a known problem acknowledged by all serious participants including Hockey Canada themselves are astounding.

And yet I am not astounded.

Well, duh. I am . . . I . . . well, you know.

 

[caymanmew]

What???

Are you for real?

What you're saying is essentially that we might have to accept scumbags sexually assaulting people in vulnerable positions, hazing people to the brink of suicide, etc, just to enjoy our entertainment.

If that's the price (and it really should not be, it's just laziness to imply otherwise), f*** hockey and sports once and for all. And If you're not with me on this you can't really even pretend to be a decent human being. Sports is entertainment and it's not worth completely ruining anybody's life.

Yes, I am for real.

We make these children gods at age 12 or 13 in their communities. By 16 they are playing in the CHL with thousands of people in the stands. They are not like you or me, they grew up in a totally different world where they are quite clearly better than everyone else, at least from their perspective. You can tell them a 100 times they are not better than everyone else but when they step onto the ice and see thousands of people cheering them on, THAT WILL EFFECT THEM. They have no accountability, their talent lets their behavior be overlooked, they are financial assets and their performance is key to the continued economy of hockey. They WILL be protected by their employers as they are not an easily replaceable asset.


If you want these people to be normal functional people who are grounded and generally good people...then they can't be raised in an environment like the one I described above. They can't become gods to society and key financial assets to large organizations and still be a normal functional teenager developing into a normal functioning adult.

Athletes who have gone through what hockey plays go through are no different from child actors or ultra-rich children, hell they are probably worst. We know most of those people end up fairly screwed up and doing shit that is totally unacceptable by our standards.

What do you honestly think we can do to fix this? How do we not idolize athletes, treat them like they are special, and give them clear public proof of our love for them and the team while also enjoying and supporting sports?