Hi everyone,
I hope y’all are doing well! We are one-ish week into the season, and we at the THWL HQ are settling in for what seems to be a very interesting hockey season. For the first time in a while, we had to choose between what we wanted to include in one of these. We don’t know if the rest of the season will keep us this curious, but we’re intrigued, nonetheless. Enjoy our Other Thoughts for this week :)
NHL Diversity Report
On Tuesday, the NHL released their first-ever demographic study of their workforce. The general reaction seemed to be, “ok, I guess?” because nothing within that study was particularly a revelation for anyone who pays the slightest attention to the sport. The general feeling we got was that while it gave us a bit more details, it was also vague enough to question its efficacy. It seemed that we weren’t the only ones who felt like this as Akim Aliu, Chair of the Hockey Diversity Alliance, released a statement to the AP, basically calling the entire effort performative.
The report definitely deserves a thorough look, so we’ll go over it more in-depth eventually but to give you all a TLDR; the report focused less on what the league was going to do to address the current cultural issues and more on how they were going to exploit a new fanbase. There was approximately zero accountability from the league on how they perpetuated the culture. The language was incredibly passive, and they refused to name any of the problems they had. To give you a sense of how shallow this was, in a 24-page report, the word “racism” came up four times, while “homophobia” and “misogyny” came up precisely zero times.
The timing of the release was very interesting, as we’re almost one year out from the release of the Block and Jenner report on the Blackhawks, so we expect to start seeing some retrospectives being published. Between that and the Hockey Canada situation, we wouldn’t be surprised if this was their effort to muster up some goodwill after three straight years of scandals.
In the meantime, we recommend reading this thread from Ian Kennedy at the Hockey News going over some of the highlights (or lowlights??) from the report:
P.S. - To anyone doubting the depth of awfulness of large swaths of hockey fandom, this summary by Mark Lazerus at the Athletic has one of the worst comment sections we’ve seen in a while and it’s upsetting that they haven’t chosen to close it. It subjects authors to abuse and forces readers to interact with so much racist language, pretty much against their will. It’s a gross practice.
Keefe’s Leafs
Like most of us, Sheldon Keefe and Kyle Dubas are starting to see the writing on the wall. On Monday, the Maple Leafs lost to the Arizona Coyotes 4-2, leading to this truly hilarious graphic from the social media team:
That’s right, the Toronto Maple Leafs - home of back-to-back Rocket Richard Trophy winner Auston Matthews - have not beaten the Coyotes in regulation for 20 years. Honestly, iconic.
Everyone is starting to feel the pressure, with Keefe lashing out a bit in his criticism of his players (for which he later apologized first). Dubas is in the last year of his contract, and after more than half a decade of failing to make it past the second round, the very rational Toronto fanbase is out for blood after only four games. If there’s one thing Toronto will do, it’s the Drama.
We both have a soft spot for Mitch Marner, who tends to get a lot of shit thrown his way that he doesn’t deserve. He’s good at his job and minds his own business, which is where we set the low bar for hockey players. While talking about this, we both remembered the smiley face on the glove thing during the Babcock era and, like, leave Mitchy alone!
Vancouver, baby, what are you doing?
The chronically cursed Canucks are 0-3-1 and setting a fantastic new record by becoming the first team in NHL history to lose their first four games after holding a multiple-goal lead in every one of them. That is…quite the mouthful.
It’s probably not a good sign that the team already has players’ only meetings and that their coach calls them “mentally weak.” We like Bruce Boudreau, so we’re gonna give him the benefit of the doubt, but it’s never a good look to talk about your players like that - even if your Captain agreed with the assessment. They’re playing the Wild (who are also winless and have let in 20 goals in 3 games!) tonight, and it’s going to be hilarious regardless of who wins. Or, who knows, maybe the loser energy currently emanating from both teams will create a break in the time-space continuum, and they’ll both come out with an L. We’ll see.
Reverse Retro by Adidas
Adidas is releasing a new version of the Reverse Retro Jerseys, and we want to say that so much history is being rewritten here! We clearly remember that everyone was roasting the jerseys when they first came out with the concept two years ago, so we don’t understand what the hype is this time around.
History repeats itself because most of these are ugly, except for a few.
Dear Panthers, we will stop clowning you (for a few weeks, at least) if your jersey magically appears in our mailboxes - they’re so gorgeous. Gaby also wants to mention that this time around, Adidas didn’t even try to add the cursed logo on Chicago’s jersey. They’re still tired from all the energy they exerted trying to hide the logo the last time. But hey, the logo is totally not problematic. Perrye’s note: You know it’s not an Other Thoughts without a Blackhawks mention.
Well wishes to Jakub Vrana
After rampant speculation abounded yesterday morning, the NHL/NHLPA announced that Detroit Red Wings player Jakub Vrana had entered the Players Assistance Program. We want to send him well wishes and commend him on the courage it must have taken to seek help. Even though there are no details, we cannot imagine how difficult and how brave you must be to have to announce to the public that you are currently struggling. We’re glad that we’ve seen more players access the program over the last couple of seasons. We all deserve to feel safe and supported.
We're about to reach the one-year mark since the Block and Jenner report, so we will keep our eyes open for the upcoming influx of interviews, but until then - see y’all soon.
Perrye & Gaby