This Week in Big Ten Hockey: Past week has conference facing extraordinary times, both on and off the ice

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Matthew Knies and his Minnesota teammates went into Yost Ice Arena last week and took both games from the Wolverines (photo: Big Ten Network).

By every possible measure, the past seven days have been extraordinary for Big Ten hockey.

Minnesota swept Michigan at Yost Ice Arena.

Michigan State – the team picked by coaches’ preseason to finish last – split a pair of road games against Penn State, and the Spartans sit in second place, one point behind the Golden Gophers.

The Nittany Lions – the team picked by coaches to finish one spot above the cellar – are in third, a point behind the Spartans.

We’re eight games into the B1G conference schedule, and Minnesota, Michigan State and Penn State are the only teams with league win percentages above .500, but six out of the Big Ten’s seven squads are above .500 overall and Big Hockey has the best interconference win percentage (.761) in D-I.

As interesting as all of this is, though, not a bit of it is so far out of the realm of possibility that it’s difficult to believe. Interesting to discuss, perhaps unexpected, but nothing unimaginable. The fortunes of individual programs wax and wane all the time. Sure, for a few years some teams are up while others are down, but that rarely lasts forever – especially in a conference as loaded with talent and resources as is the Big Ten.

What’s extraordinary is that a Michigan State player went public with the news that he was repeatedly targeted because of his race by a player on an opposing team during the playing of a hockey game.

What’s extraordinary is that a Michigan player was hospitalized because of a virus that was once considered a routine cause of the common cold and that his condition was so serious that he was put on a ventilator.

These are two very different stories. They are grouped together here not because the reality of each player’s situation is comparable in any way except in that each player experienced genuine trauma.

And the experience of one of these two players, MSU senior Jagger Joshua, illustrates a big problem that hockey culture is long overdue in addressing.

Joshua tweeted a statement Monday, Nov. 21, that read in part, “On Nov. 11 in our game against Ohio State, one of their players called me a racial slur multiple times. One of the officials heard the slur and gave the player a game misconduct penalty.”

Joshua didn’t name the player. At 10:39 in the second period of that game, Ohio State’s Kamil Sadlocha was given a game misconduct, the only misconduct of the game.

In his Twitter statement, Joshua said that he was left feeling “confused and pessimistic” after the Big Ten and Ohio State took no further action.

Joshua’s statement on social media was the first nearly everyone in the hockey world had heard about the alleged incidents, and that is extraordinary in itself. Even more extraordinary was the stream of statements that followed in response – from Michigan State, the Big Ten, Ohio State – and the attempt by two of those institutions to write this off as a misunderstanding.

A student-athlete playing for one of the most elite conferences in the NCAA felt the need to make public his experience because he perceived – and correctly so – that many people in a position to protect him were not, in fact, protecting him.

To be clear, Joshua is very brave. He knows full well that he’s exposing himself to derision and worse. Victims know the risks when they speak up. It’s why they so often choose to remain silent.

The statements by Michigan State vice president and athletic director Alan Haller and Spartan hockey coach Adam Nightingale are supportive of Joshua. They’re also coated in the kind of careful, noncommittal language that legal departments of large organizations encourage. Haller praised Joshua for the player’s “courage” and said that the MSU athletic department is “committed to providing opportunities for all student-athletes to compete in a space free from discrimination, racism or hate.”

That word, “opportunity,” is troubling. It literally means that students are given the possibility of competing in a hate-free environment. Not the probability. Not the guarantee. Just maybe the chance.

Nightingale said that he is “proud” to have Joshua on the Michigan State team, and he echoed that Michigan State is “committed to a safe and welcoming space” for its student-athletes.

Both statements are supportive, and Joshua himself thanked his team, the coaches and staff at Michigan State. Neither statement condemns racism itself, in overt terms. Language like “racism has no place in hockey” from an institution like Michigan State would directly address one of the many toxic elements of current hockey culture.

But it may be that neither Haller nor Nightingale could say more than they did, given the statement released by the Big Ten itself. Three paragraphs long, the meat of it is this:

The conference office collected and evaluated information from the Big Ten Conference ice hockey officiating crew, The Ohio State University (OSU), Michigan State University (MSU), and available video footage stemming from the incident involving ice hockey student-athletes from both member institutions at Munn Ice Arena in East Lansing on November 11, 2022. The conference supports the decision by the official to levy a game misconduct penalty on OSU. Due to the absence of indisputable evidence presented to the conference, the conference has not imposed further disciplinary action.

There are two glaring issues with this language.

The first is obvious: what evidence does the Big Ten need beyond the word of the official who levied the penalty? If what he heard was good enough for the call he made on the ice, why isn’t it conclusive enough to impose further disciplinary action?

The second is a little more nuanced. The conference gathered information from all parties about “the incident involving ice hockey student-athletes from both member institutions.” The language here is problematic in that, as written, it makes both players equal participants in “the incident.” That certainly isn’t how the on-ice official who levied the game misconduct against Sadlocha saw it. Joshua wasn’t penalized. The parties involved were not equal participants because one was an aggressor and the other was the victim of aggression.

Ohio State’s statement makes no mention of disputing the game misconduct and it, too, is full of language designed to commit to nothing.

The Ohio State Department of Athletics and the men’s hockey program worked collaboratively with the Big Ten Conference to come to a resolution in response to the allegation of misconduct toward the Big Ten sportsmanship policy. Ohio State is focused on providing an inclusive and supportive environment for all. Our Buckeye Inclusion committee has done an outstanding job with providing education and awareness across our department, both for students and staff. We are committed to recognizing our remarkable diversity and utilizing our core values to ensure everyone attending or participating in an athletic event feels safe and welcome. 

The heavy lifting in this statement comes in the first sentence, when a “resolution in response to the allegation of misconduct” is referenced. What resolution? What does that mean?

And the allegation of misconduct is at the heart of this, turning the entire “incident” – not my word, but the Big Ten’s – into a he said, he said situation. It’s not difficult to read between the lines here. Joshua said that he was targeted. Ohio State said that he wasn’t. As far as the Big Ten is concerned, that’s the end of the story.

But we know it isn’t. This will fester. And all because the Big Ten is more afraid, legally speaking, of what will happen if this is pursued than what will happen if it is not.

Extraordinary. Also sad. And infuriating.

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith also released a statement Tuesday evening.

While Jagger Joshua and his teammates were processing his experience in that Ohio State game, down the road in Ann Arbor, adenovirus – making its way through the University of Michigan community – was hitting the Wolverines hard. One player, defenseman Steven Holtz, became so ill that he was admitted to ICU and placed on a ventilator – an extreme reaction to the virus.

According to a Michigan hockey spokesperson, Holtz was released from the hospital Nov. 22 and stopped by Yost Ice Arena to see his teammates before heading home with his family. There is no word on how long Holtz will remain out of the Michigan lineup.

The week leading up to Michigan’s home series with Minnesota was rough on the entire team, something that coach Brandon Naurato acknowledged after the Wolverines’ 5-2 loss to the Gophers Thursday, Nov. 17.

Rather than focusing on the series against Minnesota, Naurato said that the Wolverines had been “worrying and thinking about” the players and their “mental health and their physical health.”

Cynics will say that Naurato was making excuses for Michigan’s losses, but everything about his demeanor in that clip – and all of his public communication so far this season – conveys a transparency that is refreshing. Putting the mental and physical health of his team above wins and losses is something that not all fans will appreciate, but it is extraordinary.

Every so often we hear about something that happens that affects a player or a team, and we send good wishes and we move along. There’s nothing wrong with our reaction. We’re hockey fans.

But weeks like these remind us that the players we root for – or against – are playing a game we love within the context of a world greater than themselves. Hockey isn’t self-contained. What happens on the ice – or what happens in reaction to something that happens on the ice – exists in greater contexts. And these players are affected by all of it. And they should be protected by everyone who has the power to do so.

For what it’s worth, there was some really good hockey played last weekend. The Gophers absolutely earned their six road points in Ann Arbor with several players out of the Minnesota roster as well because of illness.

After losing 5-2 in their opening game of a road series against Ohio State, the Fighting Irish rebounded with a 1-0 win, with Ryan Bischel stopping 37 shots in his third shutout of the season.

Wisconsin swept visiting Lindenwood, outscoring the Lions 9-4 in two games and coming from behind in Friday’s 4-3 win.

Six different Spartans scored in their 7-3 Saturday win over Penn State. Jagger Joshua didn’t score Saturday, but he did in Friday’s 4-3 loss, his team-leading sixth goal of the season.

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