A courtroom sketch of Justice Maria Carroccia delivering her ruling in the Hockey Canada trial on Thursday. All five players were cleared of sexual-assault charges.Alexandra Newbould/The Canadian Press
Throughout the Hockey Canada trial, what everyone seemed to want most was that someone be taught a lesson. That someone varied – the accused, the accuser, their critics or supporters – but people were united in their hope that some blanket realization be come to.
A few hours after the not-guilty verdicts, we got our teaching – be nice, or else.
The NHL was the enforcer of this excellent rule for life. Immediately after learning Justice Maria Carroccia’s judgment, it decided that the five parties involved won’t play in hockey’s top league. Not until everything is “reviewed” – whatever that means.
Since none of the five are getting younger, better or more palatable to a general audience, that sounds like being sentenced to bureaucratic limbo.
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The league’s key point doesn’t refer to any rule. Instead, it is an assertion of normative values: “The behaviour at issue was unacceptable.”
Some people will think this is unfair, the NHL Players’ Association prime among them. The players should have “the opportunity to return to work,” the PA says, like we’re talking about striking coal miners.
They’re right. It’s unfair. That’s what the “or else” is about. When you make bad decisions, bad things can happen.
The players made a lot of terrible choices. One of them was choosing to work in the entertainment industry. Nobody has a right to play in the NHL, any more than you or I have a right to join the circus.
Can you walk the tightrope? That’s part of it. Do many people dislike you? Well, that’s going to be a problem in our ticket-sales-based enterprise.
Were I running an NHL team, this case would be first among the behavioural study sessions they give to recruits. I’d stay out of the weeds about what men need to know about modern sexual mores. Any 19-year-old who doesn’t already understand what those bright red lines look like is too stupid to risk putting on the payroll. What I’d focus on is being nice.
If you want to make a million dollars skating around in short pants, you have an increased interest in making sure that your public interactions go well. You aren’t just being paid to score goals. You’re being paid to be likeable. If you don’t like that part of it, nobody’s stopping you from getting into the insurance business.
So when people approach you, be reasonably accommodating. Do not treat them like they’re the animals in a human petting zoo. Imagine that everyone you meet is your dad or your sister. How would you like famous strangers to act toward them? Do that.
That means you cannot punch anyone, unless they have punched you first. You cannot berate waitstaff, cab drivers or hotel maids. You don’t get to swan around like the rest of the world is beneath you because they aren’t members of your tribe.
If you choose not to behave decently, you may get away with it. The system is set up to protect you. But ask yourself this from the outset – am I good enough to get away with it forever?
If one of the players was a perennial all-star under long-term contract, I suspect the NHL would have a different perspective on what is or isn’t acceptable behaviour. But these five misjudged what unofficial rules their level of talent allowed them to break.
Some people can be terrible and get away with it for a whole career. But in today’s world, that’s getting harder to do. All it takes is one video with sound to burn the brightest talent to the ground.
More people get that than don’t. Eighteen players on the Canadian junior team got Michael McLeod’s “Who wants to be in a 3-way quick” group text. The majority didn’t show up.
That doesn’t mean they’re nice, but they were smart enough to follow the “be nice” rule. Because anyone with a scintilla of common sense could see how that text at that time of night is an “or else” situation.
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Athletes talk about being role models to children. What they seem to mean in the current context is that kids will see them and think, “I can do that.” They can’t, and they shouldn’t be advised to try.
Play sports, sure, but if a 12-year-old had to pick one person in that London, Ont., courtroom whose job they might dream of doing, it’s the lady in the high chair wearing the robe. Dream of being a judge. Those, we actually need.
The only useful way pros can lead the youth is in comportment. I’m not talking about delivering TikTok-ready banalities in a second intermission interview. I’m not even talking about being nice. Everybody’s nice enough when they know the microphones are on.
I’m talking about having a healthy respect for others when you think nobody’s watching. Not because you’re a good person – though that would be lovely – but because you understand that actions create reactions. That when you do something to someone, they will feel a way about it. Think hard about that before you do anything. It’s much better, cheaper protection than a half-dozen Bay Street lawyers.
Unfortunately, there is no great way to prove the positive of this moral instruction. Nice people tend to be nice because they were raised well and they just are that way, not because they think they will get something out of it.
It’s only when someone famous does what we would all (I hope) agree isn’t nice that we are reminded why it’s wrong. Not criminally wrong, but wrong nonetheless.
But seeing that it’s wrong isn’t enough.
It isn’t until the “or else lands on them like a piano that we are really taught why we should respect the feelings of others, or why we should fear what could happen to us if we don’t.
The lesson works just as well both ways.