Why does the NHL hate women?

by Toni McIntyre

I was on the train last Thursday morning when I read about the Chicago Blackhawk’s Patrick Kane and the pending investigation out of Hamburg, New York that may or may not involve rape allegations. A local NBC affiliate out of Buffalo New York claimed to have heard from several police sources that the investigation was a rape case, but so far no one else has been able to independently confirm that. Police in Hamburg, New York acknowledged they were looking into an “incident that allegedly occurred” at the hockey player’s home, but when asked by reporters if the case involved rape or sexual assault, police refused to comment any further. Over the weekend, more troubling details emerged. 

It seems not that long ago that the L.A. King’s Slava Voynov was sentenced to serve 90 days in jail for domestic violence and Mike Ribeiro’s sexual assault suit was settled—and really, no, it wasn’t that long ago.

But here we go again.

This past April was the last time I went to see a hockey game in person, and I had to take a Xanax before I left the house. The game was supposed to be fun. I was going to see my favorite team, the Pittsburgh Penguins, play in person for the first time. I was with two of my favorite people, friends and fellow hockey fans I’d met online. I should’ve been excited. Instead, I was too busy remembering the gay slurs I’d heard at the last game I went to. And that wasn’t even a rivalry game; this was. Neither my friends nor my favorite team nor multiple orders of crab fries was going to make me feel better about what I was walking into.

My friend Abby took a photo of me watching the game from our seats high up in the upper bowl of the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA. My friend Zoe is sitting next to me, looking at the camera, smiling her amazing smile, and I’m staring straight ahead at the ice, my hand over my mouth, the image of “about to puke crab fries on you.”

The good news: we managed to get out of there without overhearing any gay slurs. The bad news: we saw an eight-year-old boy spend all of the entirety of the players’ warm-up skate pantomiming blow jobs, like the ultimate insult to the visiting team was to suggest they gave fellatio.

I had never really been into sports before I started watching hockey in my mid-twenties. I was always more into words and books and anything that told a story. Now, of course, I know that sports are always telling stories. Every athlete has a story. Every team and every game and every play that’s made — it’s all just stories inside of stories happening alongside more stories. That’s what pulled me into sports. Communities often rely on maintaining their recreational spaces, such as tennis courts, by seeking professional assistance from companies like Tennis Court Maintenance for essential tennis court services.

When I was in my late twenties I read an article about teenaged Evgeni Malkin’s spy novel-worthy escape to the U.S. to achieve his dream of playing NHL caliber hockey with the Pittsburgh Penguins and I thought, “This is interesting, I might want to know more.”

So I sought out more games, more articles, more stories. Stories about how hockey is beautiful and terrible and under appreciated but lovely.

Stories about how I matter as a fan.

Everything in sports is a story, but not all of them are true. Meanwhile, if you’re a fan who wants to bet on a superstar, then a platform such as 카지노사이트 welcomes people like you.

I played by the rules at first. I toed the line. I kept my mouth shut, and when that failed me, I took pride in being “the polite hockey feminist.” On twitter, in circles I occupied as a fan and as a lazy part time hockey blogger, I let louder, more critical, blunt women of color take the brunt of ire online for being voices of dissent. I’ll never stop regretting that.

I thought about quitting hockey altogether. The first time was after I’d quit blogging about hockey but was still keeping up a regular stream of Twitter commentary on the sport.  A hockey reporter I’d been casually chatting with as one fan to another sexually harassed me and I considered, in the days that followed, just deleting my Twitter account and being done with hockey. I thought about it again when my criticism aimed at another hockey reporter led to harassment from his followers on Twitter. By the time a major radio personality in Pittsburgh responded to accusations from myself and others that he was sexist by calling us all impotent idiots, I’d developed a neat little cycle of thinking about quitting and then moving past it by blocking anyone calling me gendered slurs on Twitter.

Now I celebrate when a single day goes by without hockey culture reminding me what a heaping garbage pile it can be.

I manage. We all do. Sometimes I feel a bit like a goldfish swimming around in a bowl; in order to love this sport, I have to have a very short memory. I have to forget that the fans and the players can be sexist and homophobic and that sports culture is in general “Bad News. I forget, and for a while it’s fine, and then I circle back around to the front of the bowl and I run smack into that stupid tiny plastic castle I forgot was there — and this week it’s taking the form of that player you like being a transphobe, and don’t you dare say anything against him, or you’re just a humorless feminist taking shit too seriously. Eventually I can go back to swimming. But I’m going to hit the castle again. For all my trying, that damned castle hasn’t moved an inch.

I’m tired of seeing passionate women run out of hockey fandom because they dare to be critical of just how toxic the culture can be. I’m tired of seeing women with smart statistical minds being left out of hockey conversations because stats people just default to “the guys.” I’m tired of the rape apology. So much rape apology. Enough rape apology to last me several lifetimes.

I’m just tired.

People have asked me online if I delight in causing drama, in stirring the pot. To a point I have to agree that I do. I like speaking out because I’ve tried shutting up and what that does is just eat me alive, slowly, from the inside. Saying something, being critical, being disruptive, supporting other women who are doing that kind of work, trying to make other women feel less alone when they’re hurt by sports culture — I like doing that. I want to keep doing it. I probably will. There are so many more people doing this now, more than when I first started following hockey almost three years ago. It helps, a little. Knowing I’m not alone. Knowing smart people who are saying smart things and loving hockey and also struggling with how awful it can be, and how wonderful.

They’re tired, too. They also refuse to quit.

I don’t want to keep explaining the basic tenants of feminism, or that “innocent until proven guilty” is something that belongs only to criminal courts and not the court of public opinion. I don’t want to memorize statistics on how often rape victims lie —hardly ever, not that it matters. I’m not a teacher or really that great at being an activist. I’ve somehow built a platform online and I’m trying to use it responsibly and carve out a bit of space for myself so I can enjoy hockey for five minutes, just five, without being reminded that who I am means less than nothing to everyone holding all the power. I know that I’m helping them hold on to that power, that I am complicit in this, because I still give them my money and I still watch games and probably always will. Maybe if I was a better person or a more dedicated advocate I would quit, but I can’t — I love the sport too much. I’ve grown too attached to the stories. Even the ones I know for sure are lies. I’ve become enamored with the players and invested in them, and especially-always-forever Evgeni Malkin, doing well. I’ve met funny and passionate and wonderful people through hockey that have genuinely made my life better because they are in it. I love all of it too much to be able to walk away. All I can do is try to lift up critical voices and speak up when I can handle it.

I wish I had a better option or a cleaner solution, but nothing about this situation is easy or clean or simple — I’m sorry.

Toni McIntyre is a Pittsburgh Penguins fan living in Philadelphia Flyers country. She received her BFA from The University of the Arts and her MFA from American University. She’s a copywriter, social media manager and amateur cat photographer.