OHL Does Right For Women

Women are not trophies for hockey players, or anyone else for that matter. The only trophy a Junior hockey player should be chasing is the one with their league name engraved on it, or at a higher level, the Memorial Cup or Stanley Cup.

That’s a lesson two OHL players learned this week as the league announced they would be suspending a pair of players, Greg Betzold of the Peterborough Petes and Jake Marchment of the Belleville Bulls. Each were suspended after they made disparaging comments about women on the social network Tinder.

While by hockey standards, the 15-game suspension each received is significant, in terms of the real world, the OHL did right for women by sending a message to Junior hockey players across the country, that these types of comments, thoughts, and actions, are not acceptable.

“The OHL takes issues related to respect, diversity and harassment very seriously,” wrote OHL commissioner David Branch in a league news release.

“The social networking conduct displayed by these players goes against what the League stands for and serves to highlight a sense of entitlement that we, as a League, have worked hard to try to eliminate. We believe these suspensions, going forward, will reinforce to our players that all activity, be it in person, on the ice or online, must be in keeping with our policies. These events further illustrate that the League and our teams must continually work with our players to ensure they understand and appreciate our social networking policy. The League will also look to our current programs, outlined in our Players First Guide, to see where improvements may be made in terms of communications and respect for others,” continued the statement.

Good for the OHL, although to me, the statement still reads that the real mistake came in an inappropriate use of social media, not in the misogynistic comments of the players, which included both calling the women they were communicating with the “C-word,” and belittling the women after being denied during attempts to procure sex.

Unfortunately, if I scanned the social media accounts of local Junior C and B hockey players, I undoubtedly would see similarly degrading comments to women, along with vulgarity and drug references that I’m sure by the OHL’s standards, would surely result in a suspension.

So what is the deeper, underlying problem? As David Branch, who to his credit continues to be at the forefront of moving the game of hockey forward in terms of ethics and rule enhancements, there is a sense of entitlement among hockey players.

There is also an embarrassing culture of chauvinism, where male hockey players see women as trophies, or as a “perk” of playing. It would be easy to point the blame solely at the players, which in fact, much of it should. Blame also needs to be pointed at their coaches, past and present, and the parents of many young hockey players. Parents, who allow these boys to run wild, and treat others with little to no respect, all in hopes of their child reaching the NHL.

If these young players don’t know, the NHL doesn’t take kindly to these types of incidents either, and recently, the big league made a stand of its own, suspending Los Angeles Kings defenseman Slava Voynov indefinitely after he was charged with domestic violence. Funny, since Marchment himself is also a Los Angeles Kings draft pick.

These young men, Marchment and Betzold, weren’t charged with any kind of violence, but their words were definitely inappropriate, and speak to a larger, underlying problem in Junior hockey, where boys believe they are superior to their peers, and entitled to things no person is entitled to. While not all Junior hockey players subscribe to these actions or beliefs, there is definitely a culture surrounding the game, a negative culture that needs to change.

Kodus to David Branch and the OHL for suspending these players, but let’s not stop the discussion, and the progress there. Other leagues should be following the OHL’s lead, searching out these players, and then offering help to educate these individuals.

As a society, we should demand young men act with respect before they hit the ice. After all, it’s only a game. A game we as Canadians value deeply, but not more deeply than people, and not more deeply than a respect for women.