Hockey Is A Total Institution
finished We Breed Lions by Rick Westhead and holy hell. It is a NECESSARY text for hockey fans and sports fans alike, albeit it is a very difficult book to digest. I was moved to tears, shocked and absolutely disgusted at many different parts. Sociologist ramblings below...
Even though abuse, especially sexually abuse is so commonplace, it was shocking to find out how DEEP it goes within hockey. Abuse and RAPE are so normalized because players and coaches perpetuate it and then the systems at power (hockey leagues, law enforcement) sweep it under the rug at the expense of young players.
I don't think it's a reach to say that hockey and these teams function as total institutions. These kids move away from home so early and their entire life becomes all about hockey and their teams. All about the cultural norms of that institution. The culture fostered is unique and different from the rest of the world and it becomes dangerous. While reading, I drew parallels between hockey abuse and the Abu Graib torture committed by US military personnel (because it was a norm within that institution to torture prisoners, people felt pressured to partake in cruelty and eventually did it for sport re: normalization). Perhaps some of these people wouldn't commit heinous acts if not in these total institutions but they do because it sucks them in. It creates and continues to feed into this vicious cycle within junior leagues, hockey canada, etc, that gets us to a point where i'm not even sure some of these players can recognize that what they are partaking in is fucking heinous and criminal when they are constantly told "I went through worse" for the sake of the "team's" cohesion. And everyone remains silent for the team's cohesion too.
Most shocking to me is just how much SEXUAL abuse happens between teammates. So much of the hazing is sexual in nature which was very hard to understand as a woman who quite frankly didn't spent a lot of time around young men growing up. (I have heard of or seen that kind of behavior out of young men as a teacher, but it's not something I understand still. Even then, as a teacher the worst that i knew of was boys dumping trash over rr stalls while someone used it. Very uncool, but not near the same level of the deeply depraved and sadistic things mentioned in this book). It's extremely difficult to wrap my head around how someone could even come up with the things mentioned in the book that real people experienced! So much of the hazing is tied to humiliation of a sexual nature. This is also deeply confusing to me... if homophobic why engage in rape basically sex with same sex-teammates? What level of cognitive dissonance do these young men have to achieve when sexually hazing other boys so that they continue to see themselves as not gay? If you make a male teammate l*ck your *ss is that not kind of gay? (i'll likely end up reading academic articles on this because it's so??? especially when homophobia is extremely high in sports).
My american POV also definitely painted the way i read this book in a much worse light than maybe a canadian person would read it (possibly?) though i'd argue it's still borderline strange if we applied the numbers and age gap to americans. I did not know the age of consent in Canada is 16. In the US we generally think of the age of consent being 18 so that's what I assumed (my bad). I had to google Canada's age of consent because I kept getting caught up with the numbers and it felt like I was going insane that sexual hazing of 16 year olds isn't described as predatory against children. Like, there's so much fucking casual pedophilia going on??
A coach coercing an under 18 player to bring his under 18 girlfriend so they can all have sex is clearly coercive and an abuse of power but also it's fucking PEDOPHILIA?! That's an additional layer of harm. Older guys/leaders on these junior teams are 20 and the youngest are 16 and hazing INCLUDING SEXUAL HAZING happens between these age extremes. THAT is also pedophilic. And also the violence even when not sexual is (in my american eyes) doing harm to a minor when you're an adult. HOW is it possible and even seen as normal for teams to consist of that age range? 16 and 17 and maybe 18 are vastly different developmentally from 19 and 20 year olds.
And we see how these "boys" all treat each other and it's so normalized to the point where they don't recognize the harm that it's no wonder they see people outside of that (women) as not deserving of respect of human decency. It's terrible that young women ALSO become victims of this abuse. 20 year old teammates asking 16 year old boys to bring 16 year old girls around like they're fucking pimps?? Under 18 year old boys seeing sharing intimate (PRIVATE) pictures and videos of under 18 girls with their older teammates as normal and it's even encouraged is also weird because of how young they are. LIKE ITS WRONG AND A BREACH OF TRUST BUT YOU GUYS ARE DISTRIBUTING CHILD PORN. Again idk maybe that whole aspect of it is an overreaction on my behalf (you can't change my mind on this sorry :/) because in the US the "magic number" is 18. Still weird if 18 year olds are engaged in that stuff with older teammates even if by a few years because they're still so young. Canadians... do you view 16 as an okay age of consent or does it also feel icky? (I'm genuinely curious, no judgement. I know different places have different social norms).
CONCLUSION
While these men may have been victims themselves that doesn't mean they're absolved from answering for their actions. It is so unfortunate that they are protected and shielded by larger systems that fuck over victims at the same time. The way law enforcement mishandle sexual assault cases involving young hockey stars and the way hockey organizations sweep in-house abuse under the rug so easily is appalling and contribute to why this shit continues.
Future research ideas: We HAVE to look at this through a racial lens. We HAVE to. It's such an overwhelmingly white sport in Canada that is governed by white masculinity. That has to have some effect on how abuse is experienced by players of color and further, the women of color they interact with!
Race was such a small part of the book (guys getting made fun of for sleeping with/dating WOC, some guys talking about how racist jokes were normalized) but i really do think that adds a whole other lens to view this through.
