Sunday, April 18, 2004
Keeping on the sports kick I bought "Breaking the Ice : the Black Experience in Professional Hockey" yesterday and have most of it read. It's a pretty great read and it spread some light on players like Tony McKegney. I remember when I first started following hockey religiously and getting a McKegney hockey card when he was with the Nordiques. I assumed McKegney was a good player because he had been a regular 20 goal scorer and even potted over 35 goals four times.
I remember both my dad and my sister's boyfriend at the time dissuading me from liking McKegney and I never understood why. Apparently he was hurt a lot and was a complainer. They also weren't fond of him due to the fact that he had played for both the Red Wings and the Nordiques and failed to produce in his stints with those teams which were the teams they rooted for. I don't think there was any intentional racism behind their persuasion. In reading "Breaking the Ice" you can see how McKegney's problems on and off the ice with racism and being the first black player to excell at hockey affected him and led to a lack of productivity in particularly troubling times. McKegney's first professional contract with the Birmingham Bulls of the WHA, worth 750,000 dollars in 1978, was declared null and void by the team because thousands of fans threatened to not renew their season tickets if McKegney, a black man, became a Bull. These are the sorts of facts you won't find on a hockey card.
Erin and I use to talk quite a bit about the Cape Breton Oilers and the fans that attended the games. I recalled incidents of fans yelling at Dan Currie, who was a star goal scorer at every level of hockey except for the NHL, about his alcohol abuse constantly. It seems so odd now. 40 year old men taunting the 20 year old star of the local hockey AHL hockey team with calls of "Boozey" and "Alkie". I thought it was normal. I've been to a number of NHL games since that time and never once have I seen the hometown fans insult the star player about his personal problems.
Erin told me about how fans at the Cape Breton games use to taunt Donald Brashear, who was then with the Fredericton Canadiens, with cries of "You have weak ankles!" Apparently the stereotype is that black people have weak ankles (it's also mentionned as slur/insult use in "Breaking the Ice") and therefore have trouble skating. Because Brashear is for the most part an 'enforcer' and not a terribly great skater, people ignore anything that could disprove the stereotype (Anson Carter and Jarome Iginla who are both superb skaters and black) and focus on what confirms it. It just feeds on itself.
I remember both my dad and my sister's boyfriend at the time dissuading me from liking McKegney and I never understood why. Apparently he was hurt a lot and was a complainer. They also weren't fond of him due to the fact that he had played for both the Red Wings and the Nordiques and failed to produce in his stints with those teams which were the teams they rooted for. I don't think there was any intentional racism behind their persuasion. In reading "Breaking the Ice" you can see how McKegney's problems on and off the ice with racism and being the first black player to excell at hockey affected him and led to a lack of productivity in particularly troubling times. McKegney's first professional contract with the Birmingham Bulls of the WHA, worth 750,000 dollars in 1978, was declared null and void by the team because thousands of fans threatened to not renew their season tickets if McKegney, a black man, became a Bull. These are the sorts of facts you won't find on a hockey card.
Erin and I use to talk quite a bit about the Cape Breton Oilers and the fans that attended the games. I recalled incidents of fans yelling at Dan Currie, who was a star goal scorer at every level of hockey except for the NHL, about his alcohol abuse constantly. It seems so odd now. 40 year old men taunting the 20 year old star of the local hockey AHL hockey team with calls of "Boozey" and "Alkie". I thought it was normal. I've been to a number of NHL games since that time and never once have I seen the hometown fans insult the star player about his personal problems.
Erin told me about how fans at the Cape Breton games use to taunt Donald Brashear, who was then with the Fredericton Canadiens, with cries of "You have weak ankles!" Apparently the stereotype is that black people have weak ankles (it's also mentionned as slur/insult use in "Breaking the Ice") and therefore have trouble skating. Because Brashear is for the most part an 'enforcer' and not a terribly great skater, people ignore anything that could disprove the stereotype (Anson Carter and Jarome Iginla who are both superb skaters and black) and focus on what confirms it. It just feeds on itself.
# posted by Die Brucke @ 5:42 PM 
