Ilves pilot Antti Pennanen’s speeches on Saturday evening in Vaasa drew silence. The incoming Lions head coach said the harassment of players crossed the line after Friday’s loss to the Pelicans. Players and even their families had been threatened with death. Ilves has filed a criminal complaint about one of the messages received by one of its players. He was the first to tell about the criminal complaint Morning paper.
Faced with such things, it starts to feel really bad.
There is still no need to act surprised.
It hasn’t been long since Markus Nurmi said that his social media channels were filled with rude messages. In the spring of 2023, in the middle of a hot Ilves-Pelicans series, fans of the first mentioned had disturbed a Pelicans defender Ben Blood’s pregnant wife in the middle of the match. The wife also had a one-year-old child with her.
Sick.
Last fall, a fan in Tampere got his nuts in the wrong position and on a whim decided to attack the Ilves mascot, ripping off the main part of his suit.
The same is happening with the sport in North America. When booked by Philadelphia, the United States junkyard hero Cutter Gauthier, recently refused to play for the club and was therefore traded to Anaheim, the fans totally freaked out.
Some of the club’s supporters even came to a game of Gauthier’s Boston University team wearing Flyers clothes to make their point. Of course, many also brought their children with them, so that the model of school and social media bullying can be carried forward.
The examples would be endless.
When Florida was represented at the time Mike Matheson tackled Vancouver by Elias Pettersson to a patient a few years ago, he was shocked by the reaction he encountered. The fans of the Canadian club hoped that the defender would, among other things, commit suicide or get cancer.
It is clear that the universal hockey audience cannot be slandered all over because of a few overshoots, but in the same breath it must be stated that it is no longer about a few overshoots. It’s about systematic ways of doing things, which the species has to work harder to eradicate.
Of course, when it comes to social media, problematic behavior is not limited to hockey only.
Junior hockey in chaos
Ice hockey can also blame itself for the problems at hand on the ice and in the rink. This is what this aggressive real-life game has been begging for for decades. Of course, death threats are still not acceptable under any circumstances.
It’s hard to come up with a sport, at least in Finland, where bad manners prevail from the junior level than in hockey.
Starting from the juniors, the children grow up in an environment where a large part of the parents and coaches have lost everything through the children chasing their NHL dreams. Adults show children how, for example, you don’t have to show even basic respect to judges.
I’m kidding, but it’s not far from the truth.
I’ve never been able to understand how to talk to referees in hockey. It already starts with juniors and is allowed with an adult mandate.
At the adult level, the activity has lost all sense. And this cycle never seems to break, because new children are raised by those who themselves are raised by the same twisted species culture.
In the media, the general discussion and the climate of opinion are often led by former players hired as experts, who even after their playing careers protect the culture that has grown crooked. You don’t dare to bring out the ugly truth or criticize methods of operation. The idea is to “protect” the species, even if it does more damage.
When we then move to the side of the stands, race studios or social media, we already reach such an otherness that better doesn’t matter. It is extremely disgusting to read on social media how players, coaches or referees are written. Of course, the problem is not just hockey.
One big skein
Of course, problems and hate speech occur in all social classes and sports, but all of the above is still one big tangle with which ice hockey sleeps Ruususen’s sleep.
Those who are actively involved in Finnish junior ice hockey know that at the moment the last shred of meaning is disappearing from the activity – if it hasn’t already. The stories from behind the scenes are one crazier than the other, telling of a culture that has grown totally crooked. SUEK, here we come!
So is it any wonder that there is spilling in the rink, spilling in the stands and excesses follow one another, when in many places the entire sport has no understanding of even rudimentary manners. Once again, I’m exaggerating, but the hockey culture has undeniably grown crooked, idealizing violence and looking down on manners, starting from the junior levels.
Would it be time for the ice hockey association to start talking and for the clubs to really start talking about the issue to their supporters?
The whole community should be cleaned here and now, starting with the junior clubs. The doors of the ice rinks must be closed to those who do not know how to behave and raise children through the right values. This also applies to parents. Those who cross the border in the stands and on social media must be sanctioned with endless gate bans.
Manners and respect for fellow human being at the center, thank you.