Hello and welcome to Katie’s Corner! Get comfy and settle in because this year I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the latest news in American sport, every single print edition.
Autumn is one of my absolute favourite times of year for sport and there’s a lot happening across the pond. We’ve got the National Football League in full swing, college football serving up chaos on a regular basis, and my personal favourite sport – ice hockey – starting back in just a few weeks.
The latest news in the National Hockey League comes from a place you might not necessarily expect: Columbus, Ohio. The Columbus Blue Jackets are one of the newest teams in the league, created in 2000. (This makes them younger than me, which makes me feel old.)
They’ve historically struggled to gain traction within the league, never making it past the second round of the playoffs, and for as long as I’ve followed hockey they’ve been in various stages of ‘rebuilding.’ When former Calgary star Johnny Gaudreau signed with the Blue Jackets last summer, dozens of opinion pieces abounded asking why, on Earth, someone would ever willingly play in Ohio.
All of this is to say that Columbus is (rightly or wrongly) one of the most maligned teams in the National Hockey League. Yet they came into the 2023-24 season with higher hopes, and even hired a new coach to signal this new era: Mike Babcock.
And, well, that’s where they went wrong.
Babcock is one of the most controversial figures in hockey. He’s an icon in Detroit for leading the Red Wings dynasty in the late 2000s, and he’s been riding the wave of this success ever since.
Yet Babcock has long been controversial amongst players. Former Red Wing Johan Franzén has described him as “the worst person I’ve ever met.” He benched future Hall of Famer Mike Modano before the final game of his career to ensure Modano would retire with 1,499 games instead of 1,500. He was ousted as the head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2019 after stories surfaced of him mistreating the rookie 19-year-old Mitch Marner several years earlier. His reputation precedes him, and that reputation is not a respectful one.
So when the Blue Jackets announced they were hiring Babock as their new head coach on July 1, I was incredibly disappointed. He had been (rightly) forced out of the league several years ago because of unprofessional and toxic behaviour. Surely that behaviour would prevent him from becoming an NHL coach again?
Alas, in the old boys’ club which is the National Hockey League, the answer appeared to be: no. The Blue Jackets effectively said, “Treat your players however poorly you’d like! We only care about the bottom line! If Babcock can earn wins, we don’t care how he does it!”… Precisely the recipe for a healthy and productive workplace environment.
Sure enough, last week, the first controversy of the Babcock era of Blue Jackets hockey emerged. According to the hockey podcast Spittin’ Chiclets (hosted by NHL alumni Paul Bissonnette and Ryan Whitney), Babcock had asked to view players’ phones and browse their personal photos during their introductory meetings. Captain Boone Jenner released a joint statement with Babcock supporting this as an icebreaker exercise. Yet some younger players were clearly uncomfortable with the interaction, with at least one alleging that their phones were looked through for “several minutes” according to Elliotte Friedman. An NHL Players’ Association investigation was opened into Babcock’s conduct, and he officially resigned on 17 September without ever coaching a Blue Jackets game.
We might view Babcock’s resignation positively. Alumni Bissonette and Whitney used their podcast platform as leverage to elevate the concerns of younger players who were clearly afraid to speak out about the issue publicly. The Blue Jackets’ general manager and the team captain both released statements defending Babcok’s intentions. Yet Bissonette and Whitney stuck to their version of the facts and the Players’ Association took notice, so that the Blue Jackets could no longer excuse Babcock’s actions.
Yet what I keep coming back to, personally, is why Babcock was ever hired by the Blue Jackets in the first place. Being an NHL coach is a privilege, not a right, and it seems Babcock should have lost that privilege years ago. He represents an old-school approach to hockey where the coach reigns supreme and players ought not to expect anything, even basic respect. This should never have been allowed, but it is certainly unacceptable in 2023. NHL players are employees, and they deserve privacy and respect in the workplace just like everyone else.
For as long as the NHL insists on remaining an old boys’ club, rehiring and promoting people who behave poorly out of a misguided sense of loyalty, its players and fans will suffer. People in positions of power must be held accountable or change cannot take place.
Ultimately, Mike Babcock shouldn’t have resigned as the Blue Jackets’ coach before the season began. He simply shouldn’t have been hired at all.
“Columbus Blue Jackets v St. Louis Blues” by Mathieu Thouvenin is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.