Fallout of Jay Beagle's actions sheds light on NHL's systemic violence problem

Fighting and violence in the NHL are often portrayed as “part of the game.” This idea was supported following the beating of Anaheim Ducks winger Troy Terry by Arizona Coyotes veteran Jay Beagle. Despite the violence on display, it was the words of Coyotes commentator Tyson Nash that drew ire.

Nash blamed the skill of Ducks youngsters Terry and Trevor Zegras for Beagle’s actions.

“That’s the problem sometimes with these young players,” said Nash. “You want to embarrass guys, and you want to skill it up, you better be prepared to get punched in the mouth.”

Nash was admonished by media and the hockey world, although the fight itself was not.

Fighting has been outlawed in other leagues, including the NFL and NBA, while in the NHL it’s accepted and encouraged. Similarly, in media and fandom, athletes who fight in the NFL and NBA are villainized, while in the NHL they’re canonized.

The analysis of fighting in these leagues shows a more significant divergence. In the NBA and NFL fighting is portrayed as a sign of something societal, an issue to be solved. In the NHL, it’s glorified as noble, as a sign someone has upstanding character in support of their team. The NHL, unlike the NFL and NBA, is a predominantly white league which benefits from the white privilege of players. Hockey’s whiteness insulates the NHL from criticism of the violence inherent in traditional hockey culture. Media’s inequitable coverage of fighting in these leagues entrenches white-supremacist systems aimed at upholding power imbalances.

“I think that how media shrugs off white male violence in sports is telling,” Louis Moore, author of We Will Win the Day: The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Athlete, and the Quest for Equality and professor of Sport History and African American History at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, wrote in an email. “It's thuggish behaviour, but it's seen as part of the game. Men being men. Fighting is not viewed as deplorable. That's some serious privilege.”

In the third period of the recent 5-0 Ducks win over the Coyotes, Beagle cross-checked Ducks rookie sensation Zegras. Fellow youngster Terry came to Zegras’s aid, which was met by a beating from Beagle, including throwing punches at Terry while he was down.

In the predominantly white NHL, however, this was just another game. Even within a single weekend on the NHL schedule, parallel acts were given varying consequence. Beagle was assessed two minutes for cross-checking Zegras, five minutes for fighting Terry, and given a ten-minute misconduct totalling 17 minutes in penalties.

Two days later, in defence of a hit against a teammate, New Jersey Devils defender P.K. Subban, who is Black, fought New York Islanders forward Oliver Wahlstrom. Subban was assessed two minutes for instigating, five minutes for fighting, a ten-minute misconduct instigator penalty, and another ten-minute misconduct for being the “aggressor.”

Only Beagle’s acts caused injury.

Not only was Subban more penalized, his opponents hinted at retribution. As Islanders head coach Barry Trotz alluded following the game, “[Subban] was very fortunate he got kicked out of the game.”

Fighting is a form of adjunct policing in the NHL.

The failed logic — as proponents claim — that fighting exists to make the game safer and protect star hockey players remains. But if this were true, fighting would certainly be present in the NFL, where no player is more valuable than the quarterback. Yet, the NFL has created and enforces rules to protect the quarterback, similar to rules protecting NHL goalies.

When a late hit happens in the NFL, a flag is thrown. When a late hit happens in the NHL, fists are thrown.

Similarly, unlike the nobility of a hockey fight, where the integrity of the fighter is rarely questioned, fighting in the NBA is often painted as an inherent character issue among the players themselves. Specifically, this messaging became common following the infamous 2004 “Malice at the Palace” brawl between the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons, and two years later during another fight featuring the NBA’s leading scorer and Team USA captain Carmelo Anthony.

In 2006, then-NBA commissioner David Stern stated the league had “the goal of eliminating fighting from our game.” As Stern said, pointing directly at the players’ ability or inability to maintain personal control, “there were certain players who weren't going to allow themselves to be calmed.” That fight involving Anthony resulted in 47 games of suspensions for NBA players, while NHL players routinely fight and return to the ice five minutes later.

To curb fighting in the league, the NBA instituted another form of policing, this time of off-court expression and identity. Specifically, this took the form of an arguably racist dress code. In the NBA, even attire has been tied to violence.

“The players have been dressing in prison garb the last five or six years ... all the stuff that goes on, it's like gangsta (sic), thuggery stuff,” then-Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson told ESPN at the time. Critics and players in the league called the rule changes racist.

As Dave Zirin, sports editor for The Nation magazine stated in his 2007 book, Welcome to the Terrordome: The pain, politics, and promise of sports, the NBA was concerned that the league was becoming “too young, Black, and scary.”

During 2005-06, Black NHL netminder Ray Emery received similar feedback from media and league officials for his attire, hair, tattoos, and the artwork he chose for his mask. He was “too hip-hop,” seeking “attention,” and not “professional” enough in the eyes of the NHL. Today, stars such as Auston Matthews are often lauded for their fashion choices divergent from the NHL’s traditional attire. It’s a two-tiered system that extends beyond fighting.

While the NHL still accepts regular on-ice violence, and is the only professional team sport that allows fighting, no such reform has been proposed. The racist connotations in the wake of this most recent wave of on-ice violence in the NHL are evident.

Even in Nash’s defence of his words during the confrontation, he connected the all-Black Harlem Globetrotters to the NHL’s skilled young players, both “hot dogging” and both the problem. In 1948, the Globetrotters defeated the all-white NBA champion Minneapolis Lakers, but regularly faced racism.

“They’re skating around like the Harlem Globetrotters,” Nash said. It was a connection to showmanship and individual expression, similar to an athlete’s skill or attire, that reeked of racism.

Had Beagle been a Black man in the NBA or even in the NHL, the violence seen in his beating of Terry would have most likely prompted a larger media response. Not for the commentary, but for the actions. The NHL has been guarded by whiteness since the league was founded, as well as by the inequity in society’s response to fighting in pre-dominantly Black leagues, versus the predominantly white NHL is stark.

As Stacy Lorenz and Rod Murray wrote in a 2013 article published in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, “Despite significant differences in the racial composition of the two leagues, the NBA and the NHL made similar efforts to discipline, police, and contain the young Black males under their control. Racialized constructions of Black athletes as menacing, criminal, and dangerously different were prominent in media coverage of both sports.”

The hockey fight was accepted as a normal aspect of the game. It was only the commentary of Nash that drew criticism. Had this incident occurred in a predominantly Black league like the NBA, Professor Louis Moore believes the response from media and fans would have changed significantly.

“If we were to see Black players in the NBA fight, their actions would be immediately condemned, morning shows would lead with the story, and there would be a call for lengthy suspensions.”

Violence in hockey is regularly on display. What sits beneath the surface, however, is how race impacts the perception of fighting in the NHL and other professional sports leagues.

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