The recent sex assault allegations by former Chicago Blackhawk Kyle Beach reignited concerns and questions about Hockey’s culture.  Beach filed a lawsuit against the Blackhawks, accusing the organization of mishandling his sexual assault claims. Beach says he was assaulted by Coach Brad Aldrich in 2010 and when he reported it, he was ignored until after the team won the Stanley Cup.

Sexual assault in hockey is just one topic explored in a new book titled “Game Misconduct: Hockey’s Toxic Culture and How to Fix It.”  It was written by Chicago author Evan Moore, who is now the press secretary for Chicago Public Schools.

“I’m someone that follows sports pretty well and particularly the NBA and the NHL, and over time I just noticed a lot of like dog whistle rhetoric and players and fans saying things about the NBA, which obviously the NBA is a mostly Black league,” said Moore when talking about what inspired him to write the book. 

In the book Moore writes about hockey having a culture of “toxic masculinity” and argues players, coaches, and staff put the game before anything else.

“As we saw with what happened with Kyle Beach and other players, you have people who are in power or saying like, hey, if you don't go along with whatever I want, then you can't play hockey, I'm not making it in the NHL and every hockey player out there, that's their main focus is to get to the show as they say, to get to the play in the NHL and unfortunately over time, some folks went along with some experiences because they wanted to play hockey.”