Geoff Robins/Reuters
Start the vicious timeline wherever you like. Billy Coutu, the first NHL player banned for life, after a 1927 Stanley Cup final game where he started a bench-clearing brawl, then attacked the refs. Or the first all-star game in 1934, a benefit for Toronto’s Ace Bailey, who almost died from a hit from behind by Boston’s Eddie Shore. Ultra-violence is part of the game’s lore. But in recent years, it’s become harder and harder to excuse fits of rage and chronic lapses of judgment as simply “old-time hockey.” Marty McSorley on Donald Brashear. Todd Bertuzzi on Steve Moore. Matt Cooke on Marc Savard. Chris Simon on everybody. With each fresh outrage, more and more fans have said, “enough.”
Still, without Sidney Crosby’s concussion problems, would the issue of head shots even be on the table? Transformed from the face of the game to its conscience, he continues to shape the debate. “As far as deliberate head shots, you don’t lose anything from the game if you take that away,” he told reporters after resuming skating. “You don’t lose anything at all.” In the past, stars like Pat LaFontaine, Eric Lindros and Keith Primeau have had their careers cut short by repeated knocks to the head. But it is the absence of Canada’s gold medal Olympic hero, the most marketable player in the league, that has made even non-fans sit up and pay attention.
“There’s no question that there are concerns out there,” says Bob Nicholson, the president of Hockey Canada. “And we have to find a way to clean up our game.” Charged with managing everything from the grassroots to the Olympic teams, his organization is acutely aware of the challenges facing the sport. Enrolment at the minor levels is in steep decline. This year, there are 560,000 kids playing hockey across the country, down from 577,000 a year ago, and 585,000 in 2009. At the current rate of attrition, there could be 200,000 fewer players by 2021. Soaring costs and changing cultural tastes are part of the challenge—in 2007, there were 868,000 kids playing soccer in Canada. So are concerns over player safety. “It’s always been there when we try to recruit youngsters,” says Nicholson. But increasingly, there seems to be a disconnect between the way the game is played and taught at the grassroots level and what kids and parents see on TV. “Look at the way Hockey Night in Canada and the sports networks introduce their games—with big hits. And big hits translate into concussions. There is a negative part there,” says Nicholson. “We have to stand up and let parents know that we are doing everything we can to make the game safe.”
Canada’s politicians certainly sense an outrage that should be addressed—or tapped into, depending on your level of cynicism. With a federal election looming, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is promising “action” on the problem of head injuries in children’s sport, broadly defined in this case as a public awareness campaign. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has gone a step further, suggesting Ottawa should step into the NHL game, too. “There is a strong feeling here in the House of Commons that if they don’t act, then, you know, we should get involved,” he said last week. In Quebec, the province’s director of criminal and penal prosecutions, Louis Dionne, has saved politicians the trouble, ordering Montreal police to investigate whether charges should be laid against Chara. (The force certainly won’t be short of witnesses. After the NHL handed down its no-suspension decision, Montreal’s 911 network was overwhelmed with angry calls.)
However, that part at least closely follows past scripts. The difference with the Pacioretty hit seems to be that it has released not just public anger about the game, but corporate angst as well. Air Canada’s blistering letter to Bettman may have been more a product of CEO Calin Rovinescu’s unbridled love of the Habs than a belief in corporate social responsibility, but it kick-started a debate. Pestered by the media for their views about on-ice violence, other league sponsors were drawn into the fray. To be sure, no one actually did anything, but for once, some actually talked. “I don’t think it’s just this one incident. It’s been building for a long time,” says Norm O’Reilly, a professor of sports management at the University of Ottawa. “Sponsors want to be associated with a fast, aggressive sport, but when it comes to the point of someone almost dying, they get nervous.” At some point the negatives—hello Tiger—start to outweigh the positives. “Sponsors aren’t in it for philanthropy or the love of the game,” says O’Reilly.
Brian Cooper, president of the S&E Sponsorship Group, a Toronto sports marketing firm, paints Air Canada and Via Rail, another Montreal-headquartered sponsor who complained about the hit, as hypocrites. “There have been many, many occasions over the decades where they could have complained, and they’ve never said anything,” he notes. The reality, says Cooper, is that in Canada at least, the NHL remains the hottest of properties. “It’s hard to find an opportunity to sponsor hockey because they’re all taken up.”
Just a month ago, the league signed its biggest-ever deal, making Molson Coors its “official” beer on both sides of the border for the next seven years in return for close to $400 million. “Hockey and beer go together,” Andy England, chief marketing officer of MillerCoors, told the New York Times. “In fact, we have data that shows hockey fans are the biggest beer drinkers of any major sports league.” NHL sponsorship revenues are up 32 per cent this season, after new deals were clinched with Bridgestone, Cisco Systems, Tim Hortons and Canadian Tire, among others. A strategy that builds on large-scale events like the Winter Classic, and digital media, seems to have found favour. In fact, 2010-11 is shaping up to be the league’s fifth straight year of growth, notes Brian Jennings, the NHL’s executive VP of marketing.
Chara’s hit on Pacioretty, already in the league’s rear-view mirror, has led to some rule changes, but probably isn’t enough to change the game’s culture. And if Crosby returns to action soon, the danger that the current momentum will be lost (or at least misplaced until the next on-ice catastrophe) increases exponentially.
In Montreal, angry fans were still planning a demonstration outside the Bell Centre and an online petition drive demanding further action on head shots. “People don’t want to see this kind of violence anymore,” says Victor Henriquez, one of the organizers. Since emigrating from Chile 15 years ago, he’s learned to love the game—and curse the league—like most other Canadians. “It’s not their sport. It’s our sport,” says Henriquez. “It’s time to draw the line.”
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