Overdue reckoning for Canada’s hockey culture

Opinion

RESEARCH about men’s ice hockey has consistently revealed the culture is saturated in sexism, misogyny, homophobia and hypermasculinity.

Beyond research, people have come forward in highly publicized stories speaking to experiences of sexism, being silenced and sexual violence at the hands of hockey players and teams.

And these stories echo those told to us by elite-level hockey players who participated in our small interview-based study in 2021, in which we explored how participants resisted the expectations of hypermasculinity in hockey culture.

In June 2022, Hockey Canada was summoned to speak at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in response to the organization’s settlement for the alleged sexual assault of a woman by players at a Hockey Canada event.

There, Hockey Canada CEO Tom Renney said the alleged incident committed by members of Canada’s 2017-18 U20 Men’s World Junior Team was “unacceptable and incompatible with Hockey Canada’s values and expectations.”

We disagree. This is entirely on brand — the assault, the impulse to cover it up and the broader community’s attempt to label this as an isolated incident. This is part of hockey culture.

Rather than finger-pointing, the hockey community needs to consider the ways entrenched hierarchies, rewarded performances of masculinity and enforcement of a “bro code” encourage this behaviour.

The tragedy is not just that this happened, but that Hockey Canada’s first impulse was to protect its image and that not a single team member came forward.

One of our research participants spoke about how being a good teammate means being silent: “There’s stuff…