On Tuesday, March 14, a video posted by Twitter user @juliazukowski showed a hockey player from Mercyhurst University pushing a wheelchair down a set of stairs while attending what appeared to be a St. Patrick’s Day party. The hockey player in question was Carson Briere, son of the newly appointed GM of the Philadelphia Flyers, Danny Briere.
Side note: this is such a deeply embarrassing look for Danny Brière. Not even a week into your tenure, your son cemented this incident as part of your legacy. Yikes.
Later that evening, Mercyhurst released a statement saying they were investigating the issue. The next day, Danny and Carson Brière released a statement, and we got a follow-up from the university that essentially amounted to nothing. The Brière family gave us different variations of “this isn’t like us.” We also witnessed a school's version of Thoughts and Prayers applied to this type of situation. To call them insufficient would be too kind. Useless, or perhaps piddling and pathetic, would be more appropriate. There was no direct apology, no mention of remediation, or any mention of how the family and the university were going to address this to ensure that he dealt with the repercussions of his actions.
As for the wording of the apology, it was intentional. Choosing to speak in the third person and using specific phrases such as “he’s so sorry” accentuates the lack of emotion and fails to tell us how Carson truly feels about all this. These apologies are also a reminder that society tends to infantilize white men and, more often than not, white hockey players. Even though their actions show us who they are at heart, they will always have someone ready to defend them and minimize their efforts. Like when white women use their tears to garner sympathy, white men lean on ignorance and infantilization to avoid any accountability.
Everything about this situation has been mishandled and infuriating in a way only achieved by people involved in hockey. Carson Briere’s actions are incomprehensible. It’s a level of casual cruelty and disdain for others’ humanity that most of us probably can’t relate to. His actions are those of someone that does not look beyond his immediate gratification. At that moment, the only thing that mattered to him was his personal entertainment. Never mind that it didn’t belong to him or that he hindered another human’s ability to mobilize. Last night, Sidney, whose chair was damaged, came out to speak about her experiences and the disregard Carson had for her.
Disability activists often talk about how terrifying it is to be separated from their mobility devices. Ableism is so deeply rooted in our society that we often fail to see the humanity of people with physical disabilities. In turn, their struggles are often dismissed.
Being a hockey fan is just experiencing one indignity after another at the hands of entitled white men. If it’s not racism, it's misogyny. If it’s not misogyny, it's ableism or homophobia or transphobia, and so on. It’s a barrage of constant violence that the culture of this sport asks us to look away from and pretend that everything is okay.
We cannot even guarantee that anything will come from this or that things will get better. It feels like every day there’s something new and more terrible happening. Someone let us know when we’ve reached the bottom of the barrel. We might still be here by then.
Here are some other posts on the subject, including one from a friend of the newsletter, Chanel Keenan:
What’s So Funny? - Chanel Keenan
Carson Briere apologizes for damaging wheelchair after 'disturbing video' surfaces - Ian Kennedy
Talk to you all soon,
Gaby and Perrye