The Unbearable Whiteness of Being Ron MacLean

Ron breathes the clean, white, air of the country.

I'm usually good for only one sports-related blog post every year, so there must be a great disturbance in the force for me to dash off my second on the subject this year. The disturbance is the news that George Stroumboulopoulos, after only two seasons as the host of Sportsnet's Hockey Night in Canada, has been dumped for the muppet man he originally replaced: Ron MacLean. The perceived reason for the change is that ratings for HNIC have gone down in the last two seasons. Sportsnet figured Strombo was just the young, hip, urban, cool cat who'd pull in a different, and broader, demographic. Apparently the fact that Canadian hockey teams have largely sucked over the last two seasons (I'm looking at you, Toronto) and that the game itself has become progressively less entertaining didn't factor into Sportnet's understanding of the ratings slip. Nor did they pay attention to the fact that although they changed the host, the supporting cast of dull, witless, cranky, reactionary, inarticulate colour commentators and analysts has never been tampered with. No, it was all George's fault. But I don't want this to be a blog about what's wrong with HNIC (you can read my post on that here), or why I think Ron MacLean is a puerile, narcissistic, self-important twat and a craven, simpering, enabler of Don Cherry's bigotry. No, what I want talk about here is that by canning GS and resurrecting RM, Scott Moore, President of Sportsnet, has effectively stuck a big sign on the metaphorical front door of Sportsnet that says, "Whites Only."

A bold statement, I know, but bear with me. The Golden Horseshoe area of Ontario, which encompasses Toronto, and the cities of Vancouver and Montreal (and their suburbs) represent the bulk of the population of Canada. These areas are highly urbanized and very multicultural, especially Toronto and Vancouver. These three areas drive hockey viewership in Canada, and their essential makeup is enthusiastically unrepresented on HNIC. Look at the faces on HNIC and it's pretty much wall-to-wall middle-aged white guys. There are two token women, and two visible minority men who get even less airtime than the women. Compare and contrast with any local TV news crew in any of Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver; diversity, diversity, diversity.

The resolute whiteness of HNIC (and this also applies to every other hockey broadcast in Canada) is, on one level, simply a reflection of hockey culture in North America. The cost of playing hockey for kids and teens is now so prohibitive it's become difficult for anyone but the overwhelmingly white middle and upper-middle classes to participate in it. Look around the NHL today and you see only a bare handful of visible minorities playing the game. Sportsnet isn't responsible for who is or isn't playing the game, but through their choices in on-air personalities and the editorial tone of the hockey broadcasts, Sportsnet is sending a clear message about who they think the game is for and about. And that brings us back to Ron MacLean.

MacLean might be a crap host, but he's the perfect choice if, as it would seem, Sportsnet is only interested in going after the suburban/rural, conservative, white male in the age range of 40 to dead. Ron launches into a bromantic paean whenever he gets to talk about the small-town roots of this or that player. The gushing gets even more torrid if the player is from the Prairies, which, in the minds of Ron and his on-camera cohorts, seems to be the abode of the gods. If a player is from Saskatchewan or Alberta, Ron is sure to mention that "They raise them tough out there" or "He's a good Saskatchewan boy" or "Those long western bus rides build character." Players from the cities don't get any extra praise, unless, of course, they have an Irish last name, which means we're bound to hear either "He's a tough Irishman" or "He's a fine broth of a lad." It's enough to make you gag on your soda bread. And if you're a visible minority the message is clear: don't bother playing or watching hockey...we don't want you.

As though to underline its commitment to an aging, white demographic, two years ago Sportsnet gave MacLean his own show, Hometown Hockey, which saw him hosting NHL games from a different suburb or small town each Sunday. The idea of celebrating places where the vast majority of people don't live seems odd and/or foolish when you're in the business of pulling in viewers. Sportsnet markets the show as a celebration of Canada and Canadians, but the sub-text of the show is that white, non-urban Canadians is who hockey is for. Visible minorities are in the majority in both Vancouver and Toronto, but  good luck seeing any on Sportsnet hockey broadcasts. Too bad they didn't have the foresight to move to a Newfoundland fishing village or a Manitoba farming community.

I'm part of that aging, white demographic, but I work in Toronto with a very diverse group of people, many of whom are young. They talk a lot about basketball and soccer, even baseball, but the subject of hockey is pretty much left to us old guys. Is this what Sportsnet wants? For some of these young Canadians hockey is as remote and irrelevant as jai alai or Australian football. Hockey broadcasting bears a large part of the blame for this situation. Instead of reaching out to the next generation of sports fans, they have turned their backs on them, almost thumbed their nose at them, with their ceaseless and mawkish love affair with a Canada that hasn't existed for at least a generation. Strombo was a weak choice to pull in new viewers, but bringing back MacLean to front Sportsnet's marquee hockey broadcast probably puts HNIC on the black diamond slope to ratings oblivion. And it's what they deserve.

A Five Minute Major For Boredom

Yet another player nods off during a playoff game

Well, the NHL playoffs have reached the halfway mark and, once again, the game has been reduced to the sporting equivalent of trench warfare: bloody, slow-moving, and painful to watch. What's worse is that the game's stars, the ones who haven't been eliminated by series losses or headshots, have disappeared from view. Skill players such as Ovechkin and Gaborik have either been checked into irrelevance or have purposely dumbed their games down to satisfy the backcheck first, score later philosopy of, well, all the remaining playoff coaches. Add in goalies who seem to get bigger and more agile every year, and referees who leave their whistles in the dressing room, and you have some diabolically dull hockey.

Not that the hockey media has had much to say about the poor entertainment value of the playoffs. The talking heads on Hockey Night In Canada, Sportsnet and TSN toss out terms like grittiness, playing responsibly, the 200 foot game, fininshing your check, sacrificing yourself, which are all, it would seem, synonyms for not attempting to put the puck in the net. The vast majority of commentators seem delighted with this kind of hockey. Partly this is down to the fact that so many on-air hockey pundits are ex-goalies and ex-fourth-liners, all people whose hockey life consisted of preventing goals. The other reason is that the networks have far too much invested in playoff hockey to dare mention that what they're broadcasting is akin to rugby on ice.

In addition to the cheerleading for no-offence hockey, there's been a not so subtle delight expressed in the the failure of elite players to perform. The reason for the disappearance of skilled play is that everything about playoff hockey (the ferocious hitting and checking, the clutching and grabbing) is designed to diminish the talents of players like Crosby and the Sedins, and the ex-grinders who comment on the games are often thrilled that their kind of player is grabbing the limelight instead of the guys making the big money. It's a situation that's entirely unique to hockey. A crude analogy would be the NBA ordering its top players to switch to lead sneakers during the playoffs. There's also been a whiff of bigotry coming from the ranks of the hockey media when it comes to Russian players. The ineffectiveness and reduced ice time of Alexander Ovechkin, and the one-game suspensions handed out to Radulov and Kostitsyn in Nashville, have been met with mutterings about Russians not being emotionally committed to playing hard in the playoffs. These comments once again point out the apartheid that exists in hockey broadcasting. European players have been a big part of the NHL for nearly forty years, but, as far as I can tell, there has yet to be a European commentator hired by any sports media outlet in all that time. Any mumble-mouthed ex-goon who wants to spout cliches about hockey gets his shot on TV or radio as long as he's from Moose Jaw or Minnesota, but God forbid that a European should appear on the airwaves. Maybe if one of the networks was employing a Russian ex-player he could talk to Ovechkin or Radulov in their native tongue and get some kind of inside information.

Being the degenerate hockey fan that I am, I will continue to watch the playoffs, but, be warned hockey gods, lately I've found myself switching briefly to Blue Jays baseball. The fact that I'm willing to risk slipping into a coma by watching baseball is an indication that playoff hockey is pushing me to the limits of sanity.

Game Misconduct For Hockey Night In Canada

If you have an underperforming and/or overpaid player in the NHL you can trade him, bury his contract in the AHL, or even buy him out. I only wish CBC would do the same with some of HNIC's on-air talent.

Let's see; how about sending Glenn "Hyperbole" Healy down to a house league somewhere in the Yukon where he can constantly tell kids they're about to play the most important game/period/shift of their lives; Don Cherry could be traded, straight up, for Donald Trump; and Ron MacLean could be bought out and sent to open a referee school in Khandahar.

The problem with all three of these personalities is that thanks to being given jobs on Canada's premier hockey program, they have all developed a level of self-importance that beggars belief. This was most recently seen with Healy's tirade against the Green Men of Vancouver, who, he claims, detract from the game. Outside of Osama Bin Laden hunting, hockey is the nastiest, ugliest, most violent team sport in the world. Does Healy really think two men cavorting in green unitards can tarnish the game? But then, Healy is speaking from the HNIC pulpit where hockey is viewed as a quasi-religion.

Don Cherry has simply gone past his sell-by date. It used to be that he couldn't pronounce European names, now he can't handle good ol' Canadian names like Kevin Bieksa. Aside from that problem, his bigotry remains undiminished (he only makes loving mention of the hometowns of Anglo-Canadians), and his praise of players who don't wear visors is akin to urging parents to forgo baby seats for their infants.

The worst of the lot is Ron MacLean, the perpetually smirking adolescent of Canadian sports broadcasting. Ron's tortured, witless puns now seem to have become the manifestation of his outsize ego: "I said it, so it must be funny!" His self-importance becomes glaringly obvious whenever someone other than Don Cherry disagrees with him. Recently, Mike Milbury took a more pacifist stance than MacLean thought desirable and a whining Ron practically choked on his own bile. And on the rare occasions MacLean interviews Gary Bettman, his disdain for the commissioner could only be more obvious if he bit him.

So here's a plan to revamp the HNIC team, much as hockey teams do in the off-season: bring Elliot Friedman up from the minors and give him MacLean's job; poach Pierre Maguire from TSN and cut loose Healy; and send Cherry to the old goons retirement home and just do away with Coach's Corner. Finally, here's a really revolutionary idea for HNIC: hire a European colour commentator. A Russian one, preferably. Europeans have been a major force in the NHL for nearly 40 years so it would seem that they're overdue for one of the commentating jobs currently monopolized by ex-enforcers, ex-backup goalies, and ex-coaches.

I know, get Alexei Kovalev to replace Don Cherry and call the segment Commissar's Corner. At least Kovalev's actually won a Stanley Cup.