Episode 50: Harm and Hockey with Rick Westhead

In this episode, all three hosts are joined by TSN's Rick Westhead to discuss pain and injury in the NHL and the league's failure to protect players. Rick Westhead is Senior Correspondent and investigative journalist at Canadian sports broadcaster TSN and contributor to CTV News and W5. Prior to his work at TSN, he was a contributor to the New York Times and a world affairs writer for The Toronto Star. He is also the author of the brand new book Finding Murph: How Joe Murphy Went From Winning a Championship to Living Homeless in the Bush (Harper Collins).

The conversation delves into Rick's new book and how the story of Joe Murphy exemplifies the challenges of athletic work in the NHL and then moves on to Rick's terrific recent documentary "The Problem of Pain." We discuss why pain and injury are "a feature, not a bug" in the NHL and the consequences of that reality for players. In the final portion of the conversation, we get into the question of whether the mainstream sports media can hold the league accountable given its institutional complicity with the league itself, and what it means to be a reporter operating in that space.

You can find Rick Westhead's new book Finding Murph: How Joe Murphy Went From Winning a Championship to Living Homeless in the Bush (Harper Collins) here. You can find an excerpt from the book here. The terrific documentary "The Problem of Pain" is here. You can also find Nathan's book on violence, injury, and harm in professional hockey here. 

 

For a transcription of this episode, please click here. (Credit @punkademic)

After listening to the episode, check out our most recent pieces:

“College Football in a Pandemic Reveals our Capacity for Trumpism” in The Baffler

“Red-Scare Rhetoric Isn’t Gone From Histories of American Sport” in Jacobin Magazine

"Canceling the College-Football Season Isn't Enough" published in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

“'We are being gaslit': College football and Covid-19 are imperiling athletes” in The Guardian

“Canceling the college football season is about union busting, not health” also in The Guardian

__________________________________________________________________________

As always, please like, share, and rate us on your favorite podcast app, and give follow us on Twitter or Instagram.

@Derekcrim

@JohannaMellis

@Nkalamb

@EndofSportPod

www.TheEndofSport.com