Case not getting much play in U.S.
I had an interesting conversation last night with Mark Lazerus, a senior NHL writer for The Athletic, based in Chicago.
Two of his colleagues, Katie Strang and Dan Robson, are here covering the trial, but otherwise, Lazerus says the case doesn’t seem to be on the radar of many sports journalists or fans in the U.S.
“It was a pretty big deal when the players’ names came out, when we were able to put names to this, kind of like, mystery, because everybody knew who was on that roster. I felt like that was going to be a watershed moment,” he told me.
“I remember writing a column saying like, ‘You can’t hide from it anymore. You can’t pretend this isn’t real. … These are the players you’ve rooted for. These are players whose jerseys you’ve bought.’”
And while the public interest and media coverage have continued in Canada, it has died down in the U.S.
“It doesn’t seem to have had the impact that I thought it was going to have. … It was kind of moving on to the next thing.”
Right now, Lazerus says, everyone is much more interested in the NHL playoffs than a trial about some then junior hockey players in Canada, even though the five have all had ties to NHL teams.
Lazerus hopes this trial, no matter the verdict, will ultimately draw attention to problems within the junior hockey system — a culture many have criticized for creating an atmosphere of misogyny and homophobia — and maybe provide impetus for change.
“I don’t know if there’s been such a high-profile case involving such prominent players that were so young at the time,” he says. “It feels like we’ve seen a lot more of it come out of the hockey world than we have in other sports at that age.”
