![]() This one isn’t from us, but is the screencap that led to EA actually being questioned about the issue in a professional setting and giving an answer – but only before people like myself and Vancouver Province writer Patrick Johnston pointed out what the problems were. The risk isn’t particularly high, though, and that’s a problem. That number drops as you climb up the promotion-relegation system – presumably because higher-ranked players are either more mature or just don’t want to risk discipline or scolding on accounts that they’ve gotten good in-game results on. Even if the offending teams and players aren’t attacking the specific race of all of us playing, for most of the team, it’s still a reminder of the pain and the aggression and poor treatment that they can often fall victim to, and it’s only a matter of time before we end up in a lobby that’s pointed in their direction.īy our estimates, we see something in a team’s identity that can be considered racism in at least a quarter of our games. The mood audibly changes in our chat parties when we get quick-matched against teams like these, and for good reasons. While I have little to worry about in this regard, I hate seeing it for my friends. ![]() Our PS4 EASHL roster is similar, with 4 of the 7 of us who fit that description. Half of our real-life roster of 14 players are visible minorities, which also reflects our extended social circle. This all hits pretty close to home for us as a group. For example, this local team that we matched up against last week: It’s not just limited to anti-black racism either. Whether it’s racist team names, racist player names, players dressed up in highly caricatured ways (players set to the biggest size and darkest skin colours are probably the most common “build” in the online game), team mascots with racist names… it never really ends. I’m only including attaching a few of our matchups in this piece, but make no mistake – we see these all the time. Instead, our biggest point of frustration has been the racism that we’ve seen within it. We don’t have an amazing team, but we have a pretty good one, so we end up playing most nights.īut it’s a very frustrating game to play, and not just because of the technical flaws of the hockey game (which are small, but abused). We thought this was a great way to keep the Beavurritos together, and we’ve played hundreds of games together since March. For those who haven’t played a hockey video game in the modern era, “EASHL” was a feature introduced in 2008 that allows you to take control of your own individual character, on a custom team, and work together with your friends in 3v3 or 5v5 games. Our solution? We all picked up NHL 20 and decided we’d take our league play to the digital ice – the EA Sports Hockey League. We’re not particularly good – in fact, we’re the worst team in the lowest level in our league, as a byproduct of the fact that every one of us either started playing, skating, or both in the past few years (personally, I’m a life-long ball hockey player, but a relatively untrained and therefore poor skater). Besides the odd gathering at one of our places, or at a bar, or whatever, what brought us together the most was playing hockey every Thursday. When COVID-19 put the world on pause a few months ago, it meant that my real-life friend circle was suddenly low on things to do. With that all said, I’m back on the blog today to show an example of complacency towards racial issues, and one that hits close to home. The whole policing system needs significant reform for reasons beyond, but largely made evident within its racial bias, and it’s far from the first system of power that needs a serious re-look. I would like to be in support of respectful law enforcement officials, but what we’ve seen this week – peaceful protests being broken up by extreme shows of police violence while the destruction on the peripheral is largely allowed to give cause – shows that the “one bad apple” analogy cannot be spoken without the “spoils the whole bunch” part and that the apple count is very high as it is. I’m in full support of those that they’re fighting for. ![]() I’m in full support of the millions of protesters in the streets and in the media, traditional or digital. Instead, I’ve largely used my Twitter account to amplify voices talking about and documenting the Black Lives Matter protests that are happening around the world, particularly in the United States and issues that surround them. This site has been more or less silent, and very little of my social media content has anything to do with the sport. As you’ve probably noticed over the past few days, I’ve by and large put hockey content on the back-burner. ![]()
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