#23 — Brown Goes Down

[dekedangle_rpf_mod]

This is the twenty-third post of Deke Dangle RPF Anon, a community for all your ice hockey anon meme needs.

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Comments

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, and the whiteness is not just about individuals, but how the sport as a whole is perceived (hockey players are classier than other athletes, more down to earth, etc.). I feel like it ends up fitting something of a "hipster" niche for a lot of people who otherwise don't like sports and who really look down on sports like (American) football and basketball.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Yeah and could say the same for soccer (second most popular on AO3) in North America which has a similar white hipster niche thing.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

na

I think one factor is also that hockey and soccer are more of an international thing. I know people have said hockey isn't as mainstream as other sports in North America, but outside that those "popular American sports" really don't have much presence at all. So I think part of it is also that hockey is more popular or at least more known in Europe for example than basketball/baseball/American football.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

Baseball is pretty international, albeit, not in Europe.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Yeah I was going to add this. (And I'm annoyed that the lack of European popularity does hurt its rep in that regard with the IOC and such.)

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

yeah, I remembered that at the end of my comment there, should have specified it at the beginning, too, sorry.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

na

Apart from the fact I love ice skating, this was a huge thing from me (I'm from the UK). I know nothing about baseball and American Football but ice hockey has sort of similar rules to regular hockey. It helped I already knew what the purpose was to hockey (to put the puck in the net) while American Football I'm still lost, despite who knows how many TV shows feature it (do you put the ball over a line? Do you run with the ball for a certain distance? Does it work if you kick it?).

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Haha, your thoughts on American football are my thoughts on it. :D I've seen movies featuring it and I've watched the super bowl, but I'm still just as confused, lol.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

I think only people who've grown up with the sport and imprinted on its culture think hockey is classy. No one else looks at a sport with that much fighting and violence and thinks it's classy.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

Nah, there's definitely the idea that hockey players aren't as 'flashy' and 'showboaty' (ie not white) as other sports. Which basically boils down to them having media personalities of wet cardboard. Hockey seems less tolerant of big personalities than other sports, and people confuse boring and media trained with classy.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, but again, that's coming from inside the sport. People who aren't into the sport - especially people who aren't into any sports - don't just walk in and take that narrative as given. At least, none of the people I've known who've gotten into hockey. They all get here and go "LOL wtf."

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, fair enough. I was trying to think of players in baseball that are universally thought of as classy (Mo Rivera, Ichiro, Jeter on a good day, etc.) and they don't seem to be as personality-less as most similar hockey players.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

I think that's true initially -- it's not the "classiness" that's the draw, it's the wtf-ness -- but in my experience a lot of RPF fans who aren't sports fans buy into that aspect of the sport very quickly and uncritically.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm I feel like I see RPF people who I'm pretty sure got into hockey college aged or older buying into the classy myth. You can see seep through when they talk about the sports the don't follow.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

Haven't we debunked the myth of media training yet?

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

You think they don't get media training?

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

I'm glad to link to that video with Giroux and others again where they say they don't get any or only minimal media training, lol. I mean, they could have lied, but why.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, and people also see every "good" thing hockey players do as "evidence" of the sport's moral superiority. The r/hockey threads and comment sections every time a hockey player visits a children's hospital, good lord.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

The coded use of "classy" is often used separately from violence or dirty play, people will decry player for not being "classy" with stuff like celebrations and attitudes in interviews. I saw someone call Matthew Dellavedova "classy" because they thought he gave a humble interview lmao.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

There was a small contingent of people criticizing Ryan Reaves for dabbing after he scored this season, too. Most people seemed to agree that it was fun and the people complaining were idiots, though.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

na

In the US at least, hockey is not really universally well-known like the other big 3 sports, and if you aren't from somewhere where it gets cold it's easy to have zero exposure to it (I knew nothing about the rules before I got into the fandom). Pair that with the fact that fandom is full of nerds like me who turned up their noses at "sports" growing up, and it makes hockey and hockey culture feel new and interesting, versus a mainstream thing like NFL football.

(I actually came to hockey from another sports rpf fandom, and was just a mainstream fan of that team before I went looking for rpf, but it still took me years to get over the instinctive "ew sports" position I'd had since high school.)

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

I mean, I think you're not wrong (speaking as someone who was very "ew mainstream sports" in high school), but the conception of what "mainstream" jock/sports culture is versus what "new and interesting" hockey culture is is very obviously conditioned by the racial demographic of sports' athletes and fans.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

da

All the jocks at my high school were white (as was everyone else, for that matter). My feelings about jocks and jock culture growing up and my "ew sports" reaction had zero to do with race. While most people went to high schools with more varied demographics than mine, I really don't think that fundamental nerd/jock division is nearly as obviously racially divided as you think it is.

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

da

It's both? The white people in question don't like sports, and there's also subconscious racism, so when they finally try a sport/sports fandom, they gravitate towards white sports/white players because it feels more familiar. I absolutely did this myself, I know, so I'm not dragging anybody here, just trying to be aware of it.. And conversely, look at how tickled hockey Twitter was that a cool black guy got into the Blues this week. "Look! Black people like us too!"

Re: Fic Discussion - Deja vu

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

No no absolutely, I complain about the obvious white bias in sports rpf all the time. (Which I am guilty of perpetuating by my choices too, in hockey fandom at least). There are all kinds of cultural reasons why NBA and NFL fandom aren't big, and it's pretty depressing.