I sat in Calc class on a Monday afternoon, having freshly napped, and stared off at anything that could interest me. I saw two kids in front of me talking and laughing, one trying to find a video to show the other. He turned his phone to his friend, which displayed a YouTube video set in a hockey rink, most likely a high school game recorded for film. After having to flip the screen multiple times before it set upright, the video began to play. As a hockey fan myself and lacking entertainment from any of the derivatives on the board, I decided to watch.Â
What seemed like a regular play was followed by two players wrestling each other to the ice. One kid piled on top of the other and began punching him in the face repeatedly. From the way my classmates began to laugh, I can imagine the one showing the video was the aggressor, throwing punches on the ice.Â
While this was a small form of entertainment to get me to 3:50, it made me realize how violence is normalized and even celebrated, especially in the realm of sports. In hockey specifically, fights and scrums like this aren’t uncommon, even at the high school and college levels. I once heard a story from my mom’s friend about her son’s club hockey game that had gotten out of hand. One team was a division lower than another and wanted to prove they could keep up. They began to get physical, committing dirty hits and penalties left and right. It got to a point where one kid got hit so hard, he began to have a seizure on the ice. My mom’s friend said there were people talking down on the kid who delivered the hit. She told them to consider how he feels, saying he must be traumatized by the harm he caused, and likely never intended to impose such harm. However, one could argue that it should not have taken an instance so extreme to stop the aggressiveness of the game, when it’s likely that many of the hits prior could have caused similar damage.Â
This kind of aggression is not only common in sports, it’s celebrated. A big hit is followed by loud cheers and a fight by a standing ovation. This creates a culture of violence, leading young players to seek approval from others through aggression. There was a kid who played youth hockey with my brother and often made plays so dirty they were worthy of 2 and 10s (penalties that consisted of a two minute minor and a ten minute misconduct). When asking about the player, my mom told me he had a lot going on at home, and likely had an anger problem. He was able to take out this anger on the ice, while putting other kids in danger in the process. Yet since the nature of hockey includes violence, it was acceptable.Â
The fact that my classmate was showing off his fight to a friend highlights how violence is celebrated in sports, and can be seen as a form of dominance over others. It is likely that if that kid was the one being punched, he wouldn’t have shown off the video. It makes me wonder whether a culture of violence to gain acceptance among peers should be studied to see if there is a potential to make sports safer and less violence-fostering.