Hockey rumors are so crazy and misogynistic. Just listened to an episode of Decoder Ring with Jane MacDougall, who has been plagued for decades by a completely unsubstantiated rumor that Jeff Brown slept with Kirk MacLean’s wife in 1995 and that’s why the Canucks struggled that year and why Brown was traded.
The craziest part of this is that Jane didn’t even know MacLean at the time this all happened. MacLean was divorcing his first wife, Linda, because they had married too young and had outgrown each other. But when Jane married Maclean a few years later, she inherited the rumor. People would whisper behind her back at dinner parties, her son got into multiple fights with kids on the playground who would repeat the rumor from their parents. She was asked about it in work settings and on first dates. It’s been 30 years and it still gets brought up to her at least once a month.
And the men involved in this rumor are totally unscathed and fine. Jeff Brown has had it brought up to him maybe a few times in the last 10 years. Kirk MacLean and Jane divorced years ago and he hasn’t really heard about it since.
And this rumor is entirely based in the Canucks not making it back to Stanley Cup Final in 1995 after losing in 1994, MacLean seeming kind of depressed, and Jeff Brown being traded. They still were a playoff team and Brown was traded cause he didn’t get along with the coach. But Jane MacDougal is still always defending her honor against a rumor she inherited.
