The NHL has an image problem
Hockey, the NHL claims, is the best game on earth – played by the best teams, by the best athletes, and with the best fans in the world. Fans who, when given the chance, will boo and jeer and throw jerseys on the ice in disgust at a team’s performance. Fans who, when faced with opponent’s fans, will resort to assault literally ‘just because‘. Fans who, when faced with a chronically underperforming team, resort to insults about players’ families.
The Face of The Game
With fans like this, it’s no wonder that the nominal face of the league isn’t a 26-year old defenceman who donated $10 million to the Montreal Childrens’ Hospital and held a Christmas party in that same hospital for patients and their families. The NHL hasn’t chosen to promote PK Subban as its unofficial spokesperson, thanks in large part to an undercurrent of racism that absolutely permeates league culture. It is unfair to assume that Subban is not front and centre in league PR campaigns solely because of the obvious, but it’s also not a stretch to assume that his ‘brand’ is not really all that palatable to a cadre of rich white men who haven’t yet accepted and embraced Subban’s personality as something to be desired.
Instead of championing one of its most charismatic and talented figures as the face of the league, the NHL has instead chosen to anoint an enigmatic superstar who has somehow created a reputation for himself as a bit of a loose cannon (off the ice, of course). Instead of Subban, a gifted athlete whose prowess is matched only by his off-ice personality, the NHL has hung the ‘franchise’ tag on another player – 27 year old Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks.
There’s no denying that Kane is exceptionally talented. Through 73 games he’s amassed 92 points (already surpassing last year’s Art Ross Trophy winner, with 9 games left to play), and has dominated every team in the league this season. His skills have been prolific since childhood, and with the exception of his omission from the US National team Development Program (in 2004), Kane has starred on every team he’s played with, and he’s won at every level except the Olympics.
On the surface Patrick Kane is the perfect ambassador for the game, especially in the US where some markets struggle to compete for fans with other sports. The league needs someone recognizable to put out front and centre especially in non-traditional markets like Nashville, Phoenix, and Carolina, where teams compete for fans with other sports on a regular basis. Having an American atop the scoring race this late into the season is nothing but good news for the league, even if that player is controversial at best and polarizing at worst.
The Patrick Kane we see on the ice is one person, and a great emissary for the game of hockey. The Patrick Kane we’ve seen many times in the media is an entirely different person.
The NHL has an image problem.
The NHL’s Problem with Women
The exclusionary nature of North American professional sports is such that women don’t have a place within the fabric of the games, even though women make up half the potential audience. There are women who work incredibly hard as reporters and analysts who have to spend large parts of their days justifying their seat at the table. One of the best analytics minds in hockey is Jen Lute Costella, and despite the prolific body of work she’s produced, she still has to deal with stuff like this:
*having a great time talking hockey*
*dude pops up in my mentions to lecture me about sexual assault and law* pic.twitter.com/m5ZLb8HnMG— Jen LC (@RegressedPDO) March 16, 2016
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This isn’t even close to the vitriol that occurs out there on the Twitter machine, but it’s something that happens on a daily basis. So when I see women working hard to prove their mettle in the wider world of sports, and I see the league they’re discussing actively avoid any measures to make it easier for them to be involved, it makes it really difficult to continue to be a fan.
The NHL has a problem with respect to its treatment of women and issues surrounding domestic violence and sexual assault.
Each team sells pink apparel to cater to (as small fraction of) a female fan base, even though the league has shown absolutely no interest in legitimately appealing to half of the population. In many cases, a pink jersey is as far as it goes in terms of reaching out to women.
The difference between reaching out to women and including women in a legitimate role amongst fans is astronomical – there are teams that feel they need to promote special events for women only, in some cases called “Hockey and Heels”. This season, the New York Islanders promoted a February event named just that, where women were encouraged to buy tickets to a game, bring their girlfriends and attend a Hockey 101 ‘session’ before the game. The same night, the Islanders also promoted a “Guys Night Out”, where men who bought tickets would receive two beer vouchers, presumably to help them enjoy their evening more. There could not be two more diverse approaches to attracting fans to hockey games.
This tone-deaf promotional idea is absolutely emblematic of the problem the league and its male fans have with women in general. It’s rare that female fans are recognized as real fans by the teams they cheer for or by other fans. There is the problem of women having to justify their knowledge base in order to even be accepted into the club, where men get a free pass even as brand new fans. It is not uncommon for a woman to be asked about the minutiae of the game in order for her to prove that she isn’t just there because hockey players are good looking.
In a post last spring, I wrote the following, and it still rings very true:
As a female sports fan, I am not (and never will be) the person to whom the product is aimed. I’m allowed to like the sport, but as soon as I express a thought about how attractive an athlete is my entire knowledge base is questioned. I’ve had numerous interactions, both online and offline, where I’ve been accused of liking a team because the star player is attractive. I’ve been told “You don’t know anything, you’re just a stupid b*tch.” I’ve had to prove, time and again, that my membership in whatever sports fandom is legitimate and based on knowledge of the game rather than a deep appreciation for football pants and playoff beards. Some pro leagues try to target me to buy merchandise, but I’m not interested in a pink jersey, or fancy team earrings, or a necklace or a heart shaped keychain featuring the logo of my favourite team.
The NHL is not alone in this kind of marketing, but it hasn’t taken cues from female fans on social media (and elsewhere) who are tired of being pandered to.
The NHL has an image problem.
The Patrick Kane Conundrum
It’s doubly hard to justify being a fan of the NHL when it’s been made very apparent that the face of the league is
someone who has had aspersions cast on him for the majority of his career. There was the incident with the cab driver in 2009, for which Kane was indicted by a grand jury on misdemeanor third-degree assault and theft of services charges and a noncriminal harassment charge. Kane pleaded out, and was released with a conditional sentence. If the news reports were to be believed, the altercation took place over 20 cents; Kane and his attorney denied that this ever took place but the die was cast, and Kane has since been seen as a figure who attracts controversy. Months after this incident, photos of Kane and some teammates partying shirtless in Vancouver made the rounds on the internet; Kane apologized for his behaviour. In 2012, photos of Kane partying in Madison, Wisconsin durng a Cinco de Mayo celebration also made their way around the internet; Kane, once again, apologized for his behaviour. And until the summer of 2015, it looked like Kane had cleaned up his act, so to speak.
By the time the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in June, Kane had been out of the media for anything other than his hockey (which is absolutely the way it should be unless the media exposure is because of charity obligations and participation). At the end of the Hawks’ Cup parade, however, Kane warned fans to “watch out for [him] the next week.” An athlete with some suspect public behaviour in his past does not and should not need to warn anyone about what is coming. The thinly veiled threat in his words seemed to be a regression from the progess he’d made.
By now, we know that on the night of August 2, Kane met a 21-year old woman at a bar and allegedly invited her back to his place. Her story, since called into question, suggests that he raped her; his defense does not. Details of the case are available all over the place but it’s important to note that Kane was never officially charged with anything and just as the optics of the investigation couldn’t get any worse for Kane, the case blew up in the accuser’s face. While the details of the alleged assault are still quite unclear, what is unambiguous is the position of both the Blackhawks organization and the NHL itself on this issue. Instead of suspending Kane from team activities (in this case, training camp), the Blackhawks stood by their much-maligned winger as the hits kept coming. An awkward press conference to kick off the season was an exercise in theatre of the absurd:
Nothing about the way this was handled deals with the actual problem – that the NHL has chosen as its mouthpiece an athlete with, at the very least, character problems. In a recent Sports Illustrated cover story, Kane admits that he wanted to defend himself, but acknowledges that the situation is “kind of in the past”, as if he can escape the image he’s created for and of himself. (That SI story, by the way, is titled “On the ice, Patrick Kane is so good and still has so far to go” but the URL ends with patrick-kane-chicago-blackhawks-assault-case.) The fact is that this investigation, like the others before, will colour people’s perceptions of Kane for the entirety of his career. While “innocent until proven guilty” theoretically works in legal circles, the court of public opinion always seems to discount that notion immediately. We may never know what actually happened, but as long as Patrick Kane is poised to be the next superstar of the NHL those facts matter.
The NHL has an image problem
In a year when another young star donated $10 million to a children’s hospital, a donation which changed the complexion of athlete involvement in community endeavors, putting Kane on the pedestal seems like an awkward misstep. Subban’s donation wasn’t entirely unselfish, but the kind of media attention that garnered was far more significant than what was seen with coverage of the accusations against Kane. PK Subban used his notoriety and money for something that will legitimately change lives for the better:
“The only word that comes to mind is ‘transformational.’ That gift has been transformational for all kinds of reasons,” Gariépy said. “The money of course, because we’re talking about a lot of money, but it’s also P.K. himself; his brand, his personality, what he’s bringing to the kids as an amazing role model. Every time he shows up, I’m telling you, people are so excited to see him, and he’s happy.
Choosing to promote Patrick Kane as the ideal athlete over almost anyone else in the league displays a tone-deafness that I cannot comprehend. I fully understand that there was a time when the league’s leading scorer was also its Golden Child, but the halcyon days of Gretzky’s dominance are over. (Some would argue that Gretzky wasn’t all that innocent as a burgeoning superstar, but there were no camera phones or twitter accounts to project his image everywhere.) Patrick Kane, through choices he’s made and actions he’s taken, has tarnished any potential hero status he had. Should he be recognized for his on-ice talents? Absolutely. Does he deserve to be compensated for his talents to the tune of $10.5 million a year? Sure, I guess. (No athlete deserves the money they get, but if that’s what we’re paying professionals, then Kane should be one of the highest paid based solely on his skill level.)
Should his Sports Illustrated cover story have been a tale of redemption, or an indictment of the off-ice behaviours that have cast shadows on his character?
I think you know.
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