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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

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I'm noticing a controversy brewing over the interpretation of a fatal collision that occured at a hockey game recently.

What's interesting to me is that every mainstream site reporting on this issue that I clicked on refuses to name the player responsible for the death, Matt Petgrave, and always refers to the incident as a "freak accident," rather than something more neutral, which I have attempted to do so far. The guy who died is Adam Johnson.

On 4chan you see people posting the video and saying it's intentional. On reddit you see some removed comments and people wondering whether neck guards will be mandatory now. One comment I saw did mention that it looks intentional, but actually isn't, if you think about it. I haven't played hockey, so I feel I'm not in the position to speculate how "freak" of an accident this is, but, from the video, it does look like an intentional manoeuver.

Oh, yeah, Petgrave is black, and hockey is one of the whitest sports around. I recall in recent years the NHL making some abortive attempts at being more woke that didn't go over well with the players or the fans, but someone who knows more about hockey should add context for the rest of us.

I'm not the one that should be making this post, but no one else has! So I must.

Is that player known for being dirty? If the guy has no history of being a dirty, I find it pretty hard to believe he'd try to murder a guy in front of thousands of people.

I saw a reply on X (formerly Twitter) that said he was a great guy and gentle player, and then a reply to that reply saying that he's actually one of the most penalized players in the league and he linked to some source that I didn't check.

He led in penalty minutes last year.

/images/16986944948311403.webp

Looks like there are two ahead of him in PIM (assuming that means penalty minutes).

Different years, different leaders.