Reflections on a Sad Summer

So. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this—not about Wade Belak specifically, or even about the tragic rash of deaths in hockey more generally, but about unexpected deaths and the ways we react to them.

I want to be very careful about how I say this, because the last thing I want is to sound callous or cruel in any way. These men are dead. It is a tragedy for their friends, families, and communities. It is tragic. I won’t say I grieve with these people; that would be an insult to the incredible, inescapable agony they’re feeling right now.

Becca, I think this is an incredibly thoughtful, touching, moving piece. But I respectfully disagree that now isn’t the time to have the hard conversations. I think now is exactly the time. Now is the most important time.

These players that we watch, and cheer for, and jeer against are dying. And I know it feels raw and inappropriate to ask “why?” so soon, but if it isn’t asked now then the agony fades and the issue becomes less important and nothing gets done. And then we’re right back here, mourning and carefully saying, “Let’s wait and not make poster children out of any of them. It’s too soon.”

Wysh said:

It’s on us, on the League and on its players to find causes, solutions, a way to save lives.

Very soon, players will begin returning to their teams, and the pre-season will begin, and before we know it, the regular season will be kicking into gear. And there will, undoubtedly, be memorials to the men who died this summer. But day by day, the outrage will diminish. The sadness will remain, but it, too, will fade.

It doesn’t matter if there’s one cause or six that resulted in these players dying. The cause needs to be determined. People—us, the fans, the ones that feed this league—are more prone to action when outraged. We should be outraged! We are outraged now! It’s on us to save lives.

We should take a moment to remember Wade, Rick, Derek, and Tom. Remembering does not require inaction. They can remembered respectfully and mourned for deliberately while serious conversations are being had. I’m not talking accusations across twitter, or even well-written pieces like this one. I’m talking legitimate and meaningful debate about the role of fighting in hockey, about the failure of the NHLPA to support former players, about substance abuse. Because if we wait until the grief has passed, we’ve lost the urgency of the moment.

Once we’ve lost that urgency, that on-the-verge-of-panic, complacency begins to set it.

And then we’re right back here the next time.

A very good article, Becca, and exactly what the moment called for.

There is another death this summer that has hit me even harder, though it was not one from the hockey family. It’s Mike Flanagan’s, and the early reports said that for months before his suicide, he’d been despondent about the state of the team that he dedicated almost 30 years to.

Flanagan’s death has me thinking very hard about fans’ behavior and about the stresses and pressures we place on our teams and their representatives. Flanagan’s situation was a little different from that of the players that the NHL has lost this year because Flanagan had been a General Manager for a few years. The buck had stopped with him in a way that it doesn’t for individual players or even coaches.

But in the end, how can any team’s results in a game compare against a man’s life? What could possibly make baseball or hockey rise to a life-or-death matter?

The truth is that none of this is important. Not Varlamov’s choice of country in which to ply his trade, or Vokoun’s choice of teams, or Semin’s “compete level,” or the size of Ovi’s gut, or Boudreau’s power play scheme. Not the Orioles’ continual lack of success on the field. None of it matters. Not compared to how people matter. (Apologies to Pete Postlethwaite)

If I wanted “important,” I’d go to work. Hockey is fun. Sports are fun. If you’re constantly angry at the team you follow because they’re not meeting expectations, then you’re doing it wrong. And whatever led Flanagan to feel so despondent about the state of a baseball team that he ended his life over it — well, all I can think is that the pressures have gotten too high. That people have become too demanding of endeavors in which only one team out of 30 can be called "champion."

I see throughout our culture a tendency to value being able to say you "won" above actually obtaining a good result. I became a Caps fan in an era when simply having a solid season and making the playoffs was good enough. When it was understood that the Islanders and Oilers and the teams with the superstars would probably win the Cup, but that the joy of watching hockey and of winning more games than you lost was enough. It’s why 1998 was such a thrill – it was so unexpected a run. I don’t remember the pressure on those pre-lockout teams being anything like the pressure on this team.

And Washington’s not the only team with such high pressure. Vancouver fans rioted because their team fell one win short of the championship. There must be more than five teams each year for whom "anything short of the Cup isn’t good enough." The expectations laid on different teams have become totally unreasonable, not to mention impossible.

Every player on every hockey team deserves our respect. They all put themselves in harm’s way, for us. They all jump in front of speeding pucks, for us. They all take big hits, the full force an adult male can generate, for us. They all risk injury, for us. And inevitably, if they play long enough, they all suffer injuries, for us.

So it’s on us to keep our tone civil. To maintain perspective. To remember that these are just people, fallible like any others. To revel in the joy of success, and to feel disappointment, sure, but to keep that disappointment within reasonable bounds. Hockey is a game. Perhaps the best game you can name, but a game nonetheless. And nobody should define their lives exclusively around a game. Friendships and families are too precious for that. People are too precious for that. Life’s too precious for that.