Juno News - May 17, 2020


Cancel culture in the NHL？


Episode Stats

Length

5 minutes

Words per Minute

160.72801

Word Count

836

Sentence Count

31


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Because of the hyper focus on coronavirus right now, there is a very interesting story coming
00:00:08.960 from the world of hockey that has kind of gone under the radar. In early May, private Instagram
00:00:14.640 messages from a group chat were leaked by an anonymous Instagram account that is now deleted,
00:00:20.720 but the screenshots were made public and were widely circulated on social media.
00:00:25.600 Among the group chat participants were Canadian hockey players Brendan Leipzig of the NHL
00:00:31.280 Washington Capitals, his younger brother Jeremy Leipzig of the University of Manitoba Bisons,
00:00:37.360 and Jack Rodewald of the Florida Panthers. However, I should kind of be speaking in the past tense here,
00:00:44.400 as Brendan Leipzig was placed on unconditional waivers for purpose of terminating his contract,
00:00:50.400 and Jeremy Leipzig was kicked off of his university hockey team after these messages were made public.
00:00:56.480 So what was so bad about this group chat that these men have effectively been kicked off of
00:01:00.960 their hockey teams? Some of the screenshots discussed drug use or seemed to disparage other NHL players,
00:01:08.320 but the real reason the men are in trouble is because of what they said about women,
00:01:12.880 what the NHL called misogynistic and reprehensible remarks. The men share Instagram pictures of women,
00:01:21.040 many of them local Winnipeg women, as some of the hockey players from the group chat are Winnipeg born,
00:01:27.920 and some of the women are also the girlfriends or the wives of other players. When the men are not
00:01:35.840 mocking the appearances of the women, they are discussing their sexual conquests. And in case you're
00:01:42.000 wondering, yes, Brendan has acknowledged that the screenshots are real, so they're not fake or
00:01:47.040 doctored, and he issued an apology. Before you say good riddance, who cares that they were kicked off
00:01:52.720 of their hockey teams? I want you to ask yourself, if a private conversation you had with your friends
00:01:59.120 was leaked, do you think you'd be spared? Think about everything you've said to your friends or family
00:02:04.800 these the past week or the past month. Do you really think there was nothing you said that if it was
00:02:10.080 made public could result in you being publicly shamed? I know I wouldn't be spared. And so that's why if
00:02:16.960 even I find these hockey players' messages to be immature and shallow, I refrain from reveling in
00:02:23.280 their cancellation because this same situation could happen to me, this same situation could happen to
00:02:29.520 anyone. Granted, some bloggers and commentators are saying that if Brendan Leipzig were more of a star
00:02:36.400 player, then the result could have been different and the league might have tried harder to keep him
00:02:41.520 or they might have just issued a smaller punishment instead of terminating his contract. But what about
00:02:46.960 his younger brother, Jeremy Leipzig, who was kicked off of the university hockey team? Is that really an
00:02:52.400 appropriate reaction to just have called some women fat or have been involved in a group chat where that
00:02:59.200 was said? Why don't these men get a second chance? And from these messages, yes, sometimes they were
00:03:05.760 mean, but there wasn't anything criminal. And I would argue some of the messages that were leaked
00:03:11.600 were actually not even that mean. When they were commenting about women altering their appearance by
00:03:17.120 using too many filters or wearing too much makeup, for example, that's not mean or misogynistic. That's
00:03:22.560 just kind of social commentary. Initially, when I saw these messages, my first thought was just kind of
00:03:28.240 that it's funny that top tier hockey players, you would think that they have lots of important
00:03:34.160 endeavors that they need to do, like train or meditate or spend time with their family. But it
00:03:41.120 actually looks like they're just spending an inordinate amount of time scrolling through Instagram
00:03:46.960 and writing petty comments about women's Instagram pictures, which is a very, very spiritually empty
00:03:55.040 activity. Their hockey teams, I think, obviously felt like they had no choice but to distance themselves
00:04:00.400 from the men. We've seen many recent high profile cases of hockey culture being portrayed as toxic.
00:04:06.400 Just late last year, Don Cherry's Remembrance Day comments got him fired from Sportsnet. He was saying
00:04:12.800 that, uh, you people don't wear poppies, but you love our land of milk and honey. And so people interpreted
00:04:19.440 his comments to be about slamming immigrants for not wearing poppies. So I guess now the
00:04:24.640 hockey industry wants to rebrand as a tolerant and inclusive culture. But the point is, okay,
00:04:32.480 these men made fun of women's bodies. Does that really mean that they deserve eternal public shaming?
00:04:39.440 I don't think so, especially considering that these men have time to grow. Yes, I understand that actions
00:04:46.240 have consequences, but it's about what bar we want to set. Because this kind of thing where
00:04:51.760 private messages amongst friends are leaked for whatever reason and swift public shaming follows,
00:04:58.320 this can happen to anyone. It could happen to you. I'm Lindsay Shepard with True North. Thanks so much for
00:05:04.560 watching.