Across Canada, the start of hockey training camps this year is accompanied by a flurry of “extra-sporting” news.
In Montreal, young defender Logan Mailloux, found guilty of sharing explicit photos of his sexual partner without consent while playing in Sweden, will fight to carve out a spot on the Canadiens roster.
In London, Ontario, the trial of five National Hockey League (NHL) players accused of participating in a gang rape during the celebrations of the Canadian team’s victory at the 2018 World Junior Championship is beginning.
In Edmonton, the Oilers will be greeted by their new general manager, Stan Bowman, who was allowed back into the NHL this summer after being banned for three years. His fault? Ignoring accusations of sexual assault by a coach on young players while he was coaching the Chicago Blackhawks.
So many stories (and more) that have, in recent years, shattered the veneer of respectability that surrounded the elite of our national sport. And, above all, that have lifted the veil on the misogynistic and violent atmosphere that can reign at all levels of professional hockey, from the locker rooms to the administrative offices.
It is this toxic male culture that sociologists Walter DeKeseredy and Martin Schwartz tackle in The Ice is Thin: Professional Hockey, Rape Culture, and Violence Against Womenwritten in collaboration with the journalist of the Montreal Gazette Stu Cowan. Published in English last year, the book intended for the general public is published in French by Québec Amérique in time for the start of the hockey season.
Theoretical concept, real violence
The book is based on the Canadiens’ decision in July 2021 to choose Mailloux first overall in the draft, even though he had just been found guilty by the Swedish courts.
“Even more shocking than the decision to draft him was the surprise of Canadians at the media outcry it created. It’s like they never anticipated such an outcome,” Stu Cowan told the Duty.
“It shows a profound ignorance. It’s as if the hockey world has lost touch with reality and the way modern society approaches issues like violence against women. The NHL still seems to be living in the Middle Ages on these issues.”
Unlike the NFL and the NBA, for example, the NHL still has no internal policy to combat sexual or domestic violence, despite several high-profile incidents involving its stars over time, such as Patrick Roy, Bobby Hull and Semyon Varlamov.
The sources of this violence and this culture of impunity are dissected by DeKeseredy and Schwartz in The ice is thin using sociological concepts such as “hegemonic masculinity” and “male peer support.”
Hegemonic masculinity is a “value system in which male athletes are encouraged by their coaches, their organizations, and society at large to be ‘super males’, who avoid anything feminine and homosexual, who are very tough (tough), who have a lot of sex, etc. It’s a very rigid type of masculinity, but it’s very encouraged in hockey,” and that’s from the earliest levels of the sport, says Walter DeKeseredy, a professor of sociology at West Virginia University and a recognized expert on violence against women.
Added to this is gender segregation, which pushes male athletes aside very early in their development.
“In anthropology and sociology, we’ve found that men who live among themselves, away from women, for a period of time, and who have very close ties, are more likely to be violent toward men. Hockey players travel a lot, live among themselves on the road, without their partners. It’s not surprising that they have high rates of aggression,” says Walter DeKeseredy.
As for “male peer support,” it is not a system of mutual aid between men, but rather a way of legitimizing sexual assault within male groups, by promoting hyperactive sexuality and degrading women to the status of objects. All this is accompanied by an oppressive culture of secrecy and the valorization of blind loyalty. As the authors write, “ [f]“Being part of the team becomes way more important than doing the right thing.”
” Wake up ! “
Despite the mounting scandals, the authors believe that it is possible to combat old mentalities and definitively close the doors of boys’ club.
To achieve this, they first demand that justice be done and that organizations stop protecting their offending players.
“When teens get away with things like this, what message does that send?” asks Stu Cowan, recalling Hockey Canada’s efforts to cover up the 2018 gang rape scandal.
As a reminder, the national federation initially reached an amicable agreement with the alleged victim for $3.55 million. It was later learned that Hockey Canada had a special fund to compensate victims of its players responsible for sexual misconduct. Twenty-one such agreements have reportedly been reached since 1989, for a total of $8.9 million in compensation. Worse still, some of these sums came from the National Equity Fund, financed in part by the registration fees of young players across the country.
“Our goal with this book is not to tear down the entire hockey world, but to say, ‘Wake up!’ These things are happening and they have to stop for hockey to truly be the great game it claims to be,” says Walter DeKeseredy.
To change things in depth, it will be necessary to educate the players of course, but above all their coaches.
“If we can educate boys as soon as they enter the world of hockey, we could have more of what we call active witnesses, capable of countering sexist, homophobic or racist remarks in the locker room and intervening in the event of a slip-up,” says Mr. DeKeseredy.
According to him, hockey also needs a good dose of diversity. More women first, as coaches or managers, but also more members of ethnic and sexual diversity. Out of 700 players, the NHL currently has only about fifteen black athletes. And in more than 100 years of the circuit’s existence, only one player has dared to display his homosexuality, Luke Prokop, who currently plays in the Nashville Predators’ affiliates.
“To their credit, the Canadiens made changes after the Mailloux affair. They implemented the Respect and Consent program internally, and they brought women like Chantal Machabée and France Margaret Bélanger into senior management. One wonders if we would have made the same choices if these women had been around the table at the time of the draft,” notes Stu Cowan.
In conclusion, Walter DeKeseredy reminds us that there are other women who deserve our attention: the victims.
“We never talk about all these women who have been assaulted by hockey players. The Canadiens did nothing to help the victim [de Logan Mailloux]. She will have to live with this trauma for the rest of her life. We offer support programs for players in difficulty, but what do we do for women victims? Nothing.”