Hockey culture needs to change

Hockey is not for everyone. Hockey culture needs to change.

These were the words from Akim Aliu, who opened up about his experiences as a black hockey player. The article, open for everyone to read, is a damning account of hockey culture, racism, and bigotry. Hockey needs to be better. Hockey needs to weed out the racists. But the problem goes beyond just a few racist players and a few experiences.

Hockey culture is toxic, a word you will read regularly throughout this post. Aliu’s story of racist teammates, racist fans, racist locker rooms, and racist coaches sheds light on just how toxic it truly is, and how players can be black balled by speaking out. The fact that only three NHL players, as of the writing of this post, came out in support of Aliu shows how toxic the culture is and the power that some in the league have.

It honestly isn’t that hard to speak out either. A tweet may not necessarily do anything tangible, but it at least continues to draw attention to the toxic problem in the league. Yet the stars in the league, Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, Alex Ovechkin, Patrick Kane, Henrik Lundqvist, and the many that the NHL markets as stars on their nightly shows, have been silent. Some after repeated pushing for a statement.

It doesn’t matter that none of them played with Aliu. This is an issue in hockey and in life. That fact that we are STILL having these conversations in 2020 just illustrates how desperately we need players to speak out and start changing that toxic culture. Yet all we have are players subtweeting cryptic remarks:

The culture is ingrained in hockey. It was put there by the “200 Hockey Men” that refuse to acknowledge they are not only a part of the problem, that they are THE problem. This is a culture that came from them, was passed down to coaches like Bill Peters, whom Aliu called out previously, who passed it down to Steve Downie, whom Aliu called out in this article.

Yet nothing is ever done. No one is held accountable. John Vanbiesbrouck, noted racist, is still the Associate Executive Director of USA Hockey. Peters resigned as coach of the Calgary Flames this season, but only after the allegations became public. It’s a safe assumption that the Flames knew who they were hiring.

The Rangers are no strangers to this either. The team took a lot of heat for failing to immediately respond to K’Andre Miller’s Zoom call that was hijacked by racists. Four hours later, it was made clear they were working with the league, the NHLPA, and the FBI before releasing a statement.

This isn’t a player “earning his keep.” These are hate crimes. The utterly ridiculous thing here is that these hate crimes are occurring so regularly in the NHL that the players, the 99% that haven’t acknowledged the article yet, brush this off as “just boys being boys.” It’s not.

Hockey needs to be better. Toxic hockey culture needs to change. The NHL prides itself by saying Hockey is for Everyone. But it’s clear it isn’t.

Hockey needs to be better. We need to be better. But the question is how.

This is how. We all play a part here. Publicly outing racist people in hockey. Making sure we talk about it. Making sure everyone is aware of the current toxic culture.

The first step in solving any problem is admitting there is one. Hockey has a racism problem.