NHL Is Making Changes After Bullying, Racism Allegations Pour In
Enacting a “zero tolerance” policy is one thing, but shifting the culture is another.
Daniel Carcillo, a two-time Stanley Cup winner with the Chicago Blackhawks, spent a year telling the world that hockey culture ignores widespread abuse. The National Hockey League now appears to be listening.
What started with the firing of the NHL’s highest-paid coach last month has snowballed into a sport-wide discussion about hockey’s darker side. Since then three more NHL coaches have resigned or been disciplined over allegations of racial slurs, verbal abuse, physical violence or undefined unprofessionalism. The reckoning has reached all levels of the game, with former players growing more comfortable speaking publicly about misconduct they’d previously chosen to keep private.