Another day, same old hockey bullshit. For those who missed it, Nazem Kadri was pushed into St. Louis Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington, leaving him out for the rest of the series (which they lost, satisfactory). Binnington, in all his grace at his big age approaching 29, decided to throw a water bottle at Kadri like a pouty preschooler throwing a tantrum. Mind you, this was the second time Binnington had demonstrated excessive anger towards Kadri during the season.
Nothing we could write would be as cathartic as seeing Nazem Kadri scoring a hat trick and seeing his team advance to the Western Conference final, but we’ll try.
1. Mercy may not apply
Hockey is like one of those shittily flipped houses in a newly gentrified neighborhood. From the outside, you might see a beautiful, modernized home ready for a new family to come in and displace working-class families. The second you take a closer look, though, the bad drywall, cheap floors, and shoddy wiring that may very well kill you are hard to miss.
In hockey, the illusion they try to sell you is one of a sport that, despite its penchant for violence, is respectable and filled with hard-working, blue-collar men who are only here to play the game. Players are marketed to us as a different breed - classy, humble, and endearing in their awkwardness. Hockey tries to convince us that by putting up a presentable white man, clean-cut and in a nice suit, we’ll look away from the violent culture they participate in.
However, that level of grace is only ever offered to the white, straight, cis-gendered men in the sport. Anyone who falls out of line, whether they be non-white, queer or any other form of marginalized, is required to meet expectations of propriety set forth by the sport and do it immaculately without any room to fail. In Playing While White, David J. Leonard writes, “... whiteness operates as a free-floating signifier of innocence and harmlessness, forgiveness, and redemption can be somewhat superfluous.” Regardless of the gravity of the situation, their whiteness affords them a shield not afforded to all. When white players commit reprehensible acts, they often go unpunished and are handed a path to rebuild their image. It becomes a relatively unremarkable part of their history. Yet Kadri has to spend most of his career defending his character. Even after his fantastic season and an incident widely acknowledged as an accident, Nazem Kadri still finds himself fighting for his dignity. He’s the one who gets the Athletic headlines that say things like “Embracing the Villain Role” and the flood of racist messages. In contrast, Binnington, whose behavior has been immature at best and despicable at worst, gets a “just Binnington, being Binnington” from the same publication. You know, the typical boys being boys unless you’re brown.
2. Racism is not a hardship one “needs” to overcome
As soon as the racist comments received by Kadri and his family were shared, the narratives around him began. After scoring his hat trick, we started hearing about how he “overcame adversity.” The reality is racism isn’t something you overcome. Racism is a violent, traumatizing experience that shatters your sense of self and any feelings of safety in this world. There are real, physical consequences to navigating a racist world, but there is no cure, unlike a broken bone or a cold. Instead of overcoming it, you learn to deal with it, find solace in your community, and try to fight for a better future.
In hockey, reducing racism to a small obstacle is a dehumanizing endeavor. It extenuates the actual, visceral harm this sport has inflicted on marginalized people for over a century. We turn it into something that can simply be brushed off with the right amount of goals. Racism in this sport is a plight that needs to be treated with the seriousness it deserves.
3. Ron MacLean Needs To Go
Remember when people were like, “white silence is violence?” Yeah, somebody inform Ron MacLean, please. While MacLean was spared from the chopping block when Don Cherry finally pissed off the wrong people, we cannot forget that he sat beside him for over three decades (3!). He listened and embraced Cherry’s antics with an awkward chuckle, taking a passive approach to the same type of bigotry.
After Kadri scored a hat trick - and celebrated quite appropriately - MacLean found it in himself to criticize Kadri, chastising him for “riling up” a hostile audience. It was an interesting reaction given that Auston Matthews had celebrated similarly a couple of weeks back. His response and inability to see that this was a moment of celebration spoke volumes about his character. Suddenly we saw MacLean demanding respectability, asking Nazem to stick to the script to remain in his good graces. He implicitly voiced his belief that the sanctity of the game of hockey shouldn’t be derailed. Placing the burden of other people’s racist actions on Kadri told us that his newfound affability towards marginalized communities in the sport is surface level and conditional.
TLDR: Retire Ron.
4. Nazem Kadri does not need a redemption arc
Nazem Kadri does not need a redemption arc because he hasn’t done anything worthy of needing redemption. His mistakes on the ice, while serious, are just that, mistakes on the ice. He is not the first player to be suspended, nor will he be the last, and his behavior off-ice has never been called into question.
The actual issue is that hockey, like other sports, criminalizes players of color. We love to say that sports are a reflection of our society, and in sports, that means the over-policing of marginalized people.
In 2019, Jonas Siegel at the Athletic did a profile on Kadri that has stuck with us. The profile tries to paint a picture of the development of Nazem Kadri when the Leafs drafted him. Instead, while reading it, we get the picture of a kid who, from the very beginning, was targeted for being a young man who grew up in hockey culture but was not afforded the privilege of whiteness.
Even the article’s title, “‘It would’ve been easy just to go, F this kid, we’re done’: An oral history of Nazem Kadri’s early years with Leafs,” built a narrative that his persona needed some discipline. That felt particularly odd, given that this league praises confidence in young athletes.
The comments made about him were filled with insidious forms of violence. Even before he played his first professional game, his ability to be a “proper” hockey player had already been questioned. One of the quotes that stood out the most was by his former coach, George Cronin:
“I remember Ron (Wilson) used to get pissed at him because he would have this air about him, like he was beyond reproach. And it wasn’t in an asshole way. He didn’t do it in a jerky way. He was doing it with his body language, right, Nazem’s got that (confident) body language.”
There didn’t even have to be an actual transgression; his very presence was enough to make assumptions and offered no opportunity for Kadri to define himself. Often his story is written for him and not by the right people. So no, Nazem Kadri does not need a redemption arc. Hockey just needs to stop being racist.
5. Another Read for Racist People In General.
It’s so funny that terrible people love to say, “why do you have to bring racism into everything?” but the moment something happens with racialized people, the color of their skin becomes the focal point.
It doesn’t take long for comments to deviate from the hockey plot. They use these moments to blatantly express their bigotry, whether it is anti-blackness or any other -phobia related to the conversation, under the guise of sportsmanship.
No matter how unsurprised we were by the comments, we still find it in ourselves to be disgusted by such a display of hatred. Death threats over something as benign as entertainment will never be reasonable.
However, in hockey, they are explicable. Racism is ingrained in the DNA of the sport, which in turn normalizes the actions and words of certain people in the fanbase. They don’t think they’re doing anything out of the norm because that’s always been their normal.
No amount of online outrage is enough to fix the culture in the sport or stop racist attacks from happening again. As we mentioned in a previous issue, “change will never happen until we actually show people the door when they do racist things.”
And maybe that’s the end game - the constant reminder that we don’t belong in this space and that they will never make it comfortable enough for us to belong without fear.
We don’t know or care what their intentions are, but we know that all of you racists won’t get the last word.
With Love to everyone but the shitheads,
Gaby and Perrye
ICYMI - Other Thoughts: Congratulations are in order for everyone except the CHL
This is a fantastic piece. Thanks for writing it.