The Four Nations Face Off, which just concluded with a thrilling win for Canada over the USA, felt like a recent high water mark for the NHL.  It showcased its stars in a premium offering of skill, competition and speed. But it also led to fairly predictable, thinly veiled attacks on the NBA. The irony of seeing a country defeat the USA at a time when Trumpism is a direct and offensive attack on their nation, while at the same time hearing hockey fans revert to notable Trump tactics of trashing someone else to make a victory feel sweeter, and making that target (a group largely comprised of) people of color.  if this last sentence made you huff, puff or roll your eyes then you should definitely keep reading, but first, some J-L sports background.

The Utah Jazz Sour Note

Basketball has almost always been my favorite sport. I have been a Utah Jazz fan for 38 years.  While it was Stockton and Malone that created my dedication to the Jazz, it was the franchise’s consistency and resilience in the face of the pressures on small market teams that kept me a fan.  I had witnessed three, organic rebuilds in those 38 years. After Malone-Stockton, came Kirilenko-Williams-Boozer. After that fizzled came the surprising Gordon Hayward-Gobert era and after that fizzled came the second best era of my life: Mitchell-Gobert.  The Jazz organization gave me a product with values that seem to be so underappreciated in our current social and sports climates: integrity, consistency, effort.  They continued to rebuild quicker than I expected each time by drafting smart, trading smart (please do not look at the 2011 draft though – one team drafted Enes Freedom Kanter (the GOAT of Fox News Summer league?) and Alec Burks, when those picks could have been Klay Thompson and Kawhi Leonard) and always giving their fans the feeling of “if we are not relevant, we will be as soon as possible.”

Now I do not want to get into the “should they have broken up the Mitchell-Gobert team?” – they should not have – but what has followed has been nearly unforgivable.  They made some big trades, hired a new coach (a fellow Williams College basketball alum, somehow bringing my connection to the Jazz even closer) and overachieved three years ago.  That Jazz team was doing what Jazz teams had almost always done – competed and performed greater than the sum of their parts.  When it was clear they were doing a forced rebuild I did not order the NBA team pass and then I saw what was happening and got it.  And then Danny Ainge decided his plans to tank were more important than the Jazz culture shining through. So he tanked the season, leading to a low lottery pick.  The same thing happened the NEXT SEASON.  Both years the team was in playoff position midway through “tank” years and both times Ainge made sure that they had the worst possible outcome – losing just enough for a low lottery pick. Creating a loser culture while not big enough losers to draft a Wembanyama.

Now for a lot of fans, the load management of basketball players and the emphasis on threes (even for teams that

cannot shoot them – hi Hornets-Bulls games) have diminished the game and I sort of agree. I love watching Steph Curry shoot, but that doesn’t mean I need to see every 7 footer do so as well.  I miss the post game and the mid range game and as a Malone-Stockton fan I am particularly fond of durable players. But none of these were enough to drive me away. It was the tanking, so shamefully and repetitively done, that forced me to look elsewhere for sports entertainment.

Jean-Louis is a Fit for Hockey

I grew up a fan of hockey because I loved hockey video games.  The same space that Madden and NBA 2K occupy in pop culture today was the terrain of NHL video games in the 90s.  Hockey was a bigger deal. I could name at least 25 NHL players without watching a game because of the games and trading cards.  Now my Uncle was a diehard Rangers fan, so my allegiance, as passive as it was, was to the Rangers.  My Uncle received calls from high school classmates that he had not seen or heard from in decades the night the Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994.  I have a 94 championship hat in my closet, but I did not really care beyond the video games.

But every few years I would catch some Olympic hockey, or playoff hockey and go “it really is a great game. I should watch more” and then never do so.  But once the Jazz committed a mortal sin to my sports ethics, I felt free mentally and with my time to give hockey a real chance.

I have not been disappointed with the decision.  Live hockey games are outstanding. And while all professional athletes are impressive (I was blown away by the ballet at Lincoln Center last week, which feels like sports and art fused) the combination of skills needed to be a pro hockey player feel remarkable.  It made me realize, with a name like Jean-Louis and a 6’7″ 245 lbs frame (my college dimensions), why my Uncle wished I had played hockey (after my stint as a Yankees pitcher). Other than not knowing how to skate and being a “Mary” (an old school alternative to the F word I would hear from my uncle when complaining during baseball drills with him) I would have been an all world defenseman!

Hockey gave me something more than just a new sport though. It gave me, a middle-aged man (so weird writing that) a new, engaging hobby.  I had to learn the game of hockey and there is something fun, refreshing and innocent in learning something new at age 45 that doesn’t involve the words throuple or fentanyl.  But going to hockey games, in particular, NY Rangers games, has given me a glimpse of some of the off putting stereotypes of the hockey world, which some of the Four Nations Faceoff commentary confirmed.

NYPD Orgy

At NY Rangers games, much more so than the 3 other arenas I have attended hockey Games (Pittsburgh, NJ, Washington) there is a weird pro-cop vibe. While most sports have force fed the non-sequitur of saluting the flag before games, the Rangers seem to have a Police Benevolent Association sponsorship.  One of their post season awards is named for an officer who was paralyzed in the line of duty and cops seem to always present the flag before the anthem to a big cheer.  Supporting law enforcement is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is hard to remove the context of being in an arena that is overwhelmingly white, watching an overwhelmingly white sport check every box of performative MAGA patriotism and not feel like it is not mere coincidence.  Then there is the anthem.

During every Ranger game (parody video coming from me before the end of the season) the national anthem is a time to scream and shout throughout for the fans.  Many of these fans look and act like the types of people who condemned Colin Kaepernick to employment crucifixion for “not respecting the flag,” but then seem to abuse the anthem for sport, like the owner of a car who treats it like shit, but then asks you not to bring food inside the car.  The idea being that respecting the flag is for outsiders, but if it’s your anthem (conservative white Americans and their plus 1) you can scream over it.

It is with this intricate backstory that I watched what unfolded during the Four Nations Faceoff with disappointment, yet not with much surprise.

Four Nations: USA, Canada, White, Black

I had been rooting for the USA team at the beginning of the Four Nations Faceoff. They had four NY Rangers and I am American. Easy pick all around.  But then the GM of the US team made a statement before the finals that he hoped Trump would attend the finals and that (this part appears to be disputed by community notes under the Daily Beast article that reported) he said the idea of Canada as the 51st state had fired up the USA team).  Despite my disgust with Trump, I understand a national team inviting the President to attend an international competition finals.  But given the political and cultural climate right now (Trump is basically the 1936 Hitler to Conor McDavid’s Jesse Owens in Canada)  it seems that Trump has decided to extort an ally and disrespect their national identity. Good enough reasons to perhaps strike a more respectfully cautious, competitive tone.  I even see a lot of Canadians shitting on Wayne Gretzky because of his ties to Trump.  So perhaps this is bigger than just hockey for Canada, and hockey is just their best weapon to fight the USA with, other than poisoning maple syrup.

Canadian commentor and former player PK Subban did not help himself with his enthusiastic endorsement of Trump’s potential engagement. Subban as a Canadian and a Black man seemed to be doing a double sell out move to a lot of Black people and Canadians.  The response to Subban showed me that in Canada, Trump’s threat and insults were bigger than their national heroes and identity. We could possibly learn a lesson from them on that front.

But when Subban spoke of the NBA, it caught my ear (and my algorithms) more than his MAGA whisperings (whether to create buzz or not – some things are maybe not worth the clicks).  The NBA has been more popular than the NHL for decades in this country.  I think there are many reasons: lower barrier of entry for basketball, infinitely better marketing of basketball, mismanagement of TV deals by hockey, and an almost performative commitment to humility by hockey players (interviews with hockey players are mind numbingly bad to the point of intentionality). Mind you, when the NBA had a fighting problem, they legislated it out of the game because they were afraid of turning away fans. Yet fighting is still part of the culture of hockey.  When basketball players brawled it was thuggery that threatened the sport. When hockey players do it, it’s still the sweet science apparently.

In college when I would discuss which sport had better athletes, basketball or hockey, it always centered on the skills, size, athleticism. There was never that thinly coded language about “work ethic” and “character” and “passion.”  But there it was from Subban and hundreds of social media posts.  As the Four Nations showcased all the greatness of hockey, hockey commentators and fans could not help taking shots at the NBA.  Basketball gave a path out of poverty for many Black men. This is not to stereotype, but to ask, do those stories not demonstrate heart and determination and character, just as much as a grown man playing hurt?  Just because the NHL has not been able to make their game as financially successful as the NBA, does that mean NBA players do not work just as hard on their craft?  I hate the load management stuff. But I also hate the way that a lot of hockey people cannot help but showing their bitterness through code words that cannot be separated from race.  Especially because the hostility seems to be particularly heavy for Lebron James (Michael Jordan and Kobe never got that sort of hate and were specifically exempt from one of Subban’s diatribes). Is Lebron “soft” or is he the only one of the three to embrace Democratic politicians and Black rights? Or is it both?  I have been to hockey games. I see the culture. I see the fans.  Just as I cannot claim to know any one individual’s heart, I cannot, in the aggregate, pretend to see the racial bitterness posing as more “play the right way kid” crap that makes baseball so boring.

And speaking of baseball – if inflated salaries for a diminished product are what bothers hockey fans and commentators so much, how about some attacks on baseball?  What is is about baseball that makes it so immune from the NBA criticisms?

Watching the Four Nations Finals I felt compelled to root for Canada, even though I still felt myself pulling for the USA. I felt the just result happened and it was easier to feel that way while watching a bunch of bros in MAGA hats sitting behind the USA bench.  A win for the USA would be a double win for those scumbags – a gloating defeat over a wronged ally and a win for “hard working, non-showboating, play the right way” hockey bros.  So the better team won and, it would seem, the better country.

The Compromises We Make

I love basketball. I do not love the current product and I do not love what Danny Ainge has done to my favorite team.  I really enjoy hockey and enjoy seeing it live more than any other sport.  I have a quarter season plan with the Rangers and will likely upgrade to a half season next year.  I sit near respectful people and really look forward to the games (and when John Brancy sings the anthem, I feel a swell of pride that almost drowns out all the morons shouting for attention during the singing). But it still feels like a compromise at times. Sitting, hoping not to hear some ignorant stuff (the last time I went to a Steeler game was 2009 when I heard a fan refer to a Cleveland Brown star player as a ni**er, 7 years before I largely gave up on the NFL in the wake of its treatment of Colin Kaepernick) so I can enjoy the game guilt free.  But I never feel that way at basketball game (even in Utah). I don’t have a mild discomfort hoping to not hear hate speech at basketball games (not saying it cannot happen or doesn’t happen, but I don’t go into a basketball game thinking about it).

I bought a Chris Kreider jersey as my first Ranger jersey.  I had been to some games with my Uncle, but I regret that he was not alive for me to become fully immersed in the game. I feel like he would have approved of a Kreider jersey (or “sweater” as I am probably supposed to call it), and he may have called Zibanejad a “Mary” if I got his (no offense Mika – his imagined words, not mine).  Kreider is the longest tenured Ranger and I figured he was a safe purchase (he was almost traded this year, so not as safe as I thought).  He was also on the USA team during the Four Nations Faceoff.  And as the video played of the team receiving a phone call from Trump in the locker room I watched the expressions of the players. Matthew Tkachuk (he of the Morgan Wallen haircut) looked like a kid on Christmas morning.  And then I paused the TV when I could see Chris Kreider in the corner. He was just looking ahead. No enjoyment or amusement. No shame or disgust either.  Maybe he’s a Trump guy. Maybe he’s not. But I guess not knowing at all is as close as I can get in the hockey world to a win on the topic.