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Playing On Thin Ice
An interview with Evan Moore, co-author of Game Misconduct: Hockey’s Toxic Culture and How to Fix It BY SAGE BEHR
COURTESY OF EVAN MOORE
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hen South Sider Evan Moore first began playing hockey, he rarely encountered other Black players in the rink. Even though he loved the sport, he grew frustrated with social and political issues in hockey culture. Now, as a sports writer, Moore brings his firsthand experiences as a player into a new book, Game Misconduct: Hockey’s Toxic Culture and How to Fix It. Jashvina Shah, the book’s co-author, has had a similarly complicated love affair with the sport, caught at the intersection of hockey and its social issues. As two of the most prominent critics taking on hockey’s deeply ingrained culture, Moore and Shah decided to band together to write about the sport and offer potential solutions for both hockey at every level. Game Misconduct is a worthy read for anyone, hockey fan or not. The book lays out hockey’s issues in the broader context of sports solidarity with social justice movements. It is neatly divided into sections that confront racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and more. While many of hockey’s issues do feel reflective of broader issues in American society, Moore and Shah skillfully elucidate the specificities of hockey as an example of a wealthy, white sport that desperately needs to shed much of its identity in order to grow. Perhaps the fact that Moore and Shah dedicated so much time and energy to eviscerating hockey culture reveals, as Shah writes, that the sport really should be for everyone. They criticize hockey because they love it, and because they feel that this sport has a potential future to offer so much more than its present. Game Misconduct is a call to arms for anyone who loves hockey, and especially those that have felt hurt, left out, or ignored by the sport. Evan Moore sat down with the Weekly to discuss Game Misconduct, as well as his relationship with the sport that he not only loves, but would also love to see change. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I'd love to hear about the beginnings of your relationship with hockey. What is it about hockey that is so compelling to you as a sport? It's really fun and dangerous. And there's a lot of work put in to just even learn how to skate, how to not hurt yourself. I feel like there is science to it, or even poetry. When I saw it as a kid, I saw a really fun and engaging sport. I mean, it caught the eye of a Black kid who grew up on the South Side of Chicago. And it caught the eye of my co-author, a South Asian woman from New Jersey. So we're both from two different backgrounds, where we would be most likely into other sports based on where we grew up. But somehow, some way, we fell in love with hockey. NOVEMBER 25, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17
