The NHL needs to do better than this Stanley Cup promo that glorifies injuries

The NHL glorifies the violence of the sport all the while denying the lasting damage it can do to a player’s body. 

Hockey players pride themselves on their toughness, pushing themselves to the edges of their physical boundaries in pursuit of that ever elusive Cup win.  A new promo by the NHL attempts to honor the physical sacrifice players are making but it misses the mark completely. Instead, the NHL video glorifies a culture of toxic masculinity that has disastrous consequences for players down the line.

The promo, which the NHL released on its Twitter feed, shows player after player taking a shot to the body and then hobbling off to the bench or writhing in agony on the ice, turning physical pain into a passive spectacle to be cheered.

So much about this promo is flat footed, but it starts with the opening image, of a player with a tapped cut, staring dead-eyed at the viewer. The music is maudlin at best and then intercut with soundbites of NBC Sports’ commentating team describing the toughness of the players, as if the carnage fans are watching is part and parcel of what makes hockey so great.

Each clip happens in slow motion, the better to see the impact of the shot, and then the sickening way a player lips off the ice or hangs their head in pain. There’s nothing uplifting about this promo or even respectful. All it does is invite the viewer to gawk at the pain of someone else.

The promo isn’t about paying homage to the players who have put their bodies on the line for victory, it’s about exploiting a culture and a narrative that sees pain and suffering as referendum on masculinity.  At the very least, what the NHL can do is stop using pain as a value system by which we measure dedication and worthiness.

The spot also feels like the height of hypocrisy. The NHL loves to glorify the violence of the sport —celebrating hard hits and blocked shots—all the while denying the lasting damage it can do to a player’s body.  Former players have died by suicide  because of the inability to phase out the more brutal elements of the sport. Yet, here the league is again equating physical pain and toughness as some kind of virtuous and moral good.

The NHL’s ill timed promo also comes on the heels on a special TSN report that examines the true cost of the culture of pain that is woven into the narrative of the league.

Per ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski, one of the stories shared is by former NHL player Ryan Kessler, who says that lack of proper information about pain medication has led to chronic health problems.

“I never wanted to hurt the team, so I knew I had to play. To play, you have to take painkillers,” he said.

What’s clear is that there are long term consequences to the physical nature of the sport, but the NHL is not interested in that part. The spot doesn’t invite empathy or even reflection, rather the NHL wants to rope viewers in with a super cut of grotesque physicality. For the culture of the game to change, the NHL can and has to do better.