A Fly in a Pail of Milk

1,217 words / 8:54

Audio version: To listen in a player, use the one below or click here ^[2]. To download the mp3, right-click here ^[2] and choose “save link as” or “save target as.”

What would be more shocking to the average person: the fact that a black professional hockey player actually exists, or the fact that he’s currently suspected of murdering a white player during a game?

In a world where blacks seem to dominate pro sports just like they dominate crime statistics, ice hockey — AKA “the NASCAR of the North” – remains a white man’s redoubt. Out of a total of 1,058 ^[3] National Hockey League Players for the 2022-2023 season, a tally from last summer lists “34 active black players ^[4].”Although many of them have typically hockey-sounding names such as Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Nicholas Baptiste, there’s even a K’Andre Miller and a Kyle Okposo tossed into the mix. Despite the fact that black players barely comprise 3% of the total, it’s a tremendous uptick from the all-white 1940s and ‘50s, when Herb Carnegie, an allegedly talented black hockey player, was denied a spot in the National Hockey League (NHL) because his skin color made him stick out — as the title of his memoir put it, like A Fly in a Pail of Milk ^[5].

https://counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Goad-AFlyInAPailOfMilk.m4a ^[2]

I suppose the fact that pro hockey has now “diversified,” however slightly, would be comforting to the types who fret that the NHL was formerly regarded “as a league riddled with racism and exclusiveness ^[6],” a barbaric hyperborean bloodsport where, “for much of its history, only the puck has been black ^[7].”

But since we still live in an at least a partially racist world, there is also another contingent who, when they hear that someone actually let a black player into an obscure British hockey league — and who last Saturday night killed a white player after his skate’s blade sliced his throat — will reflexively bellow, “See? This is why we can’t have nice sports!”

Never mind the fact that one of hockey’s selling points is its implicit ultraviolence. My all-time favorite sports team, the Philadelphia Flyers ^[8] of the mid-1970s, earned the moniker the “Broad Street Bullies” not due to any excessive athletic ability but because they snagged two Stanley Cups in a row by punching the teeth out of everyone else in the league. The “goon” or “enforcer” is a stock character in hockey, and his role is not to rack up points but to terrify and sometimes maim his opponents. As someone who’s attended both NHL games and National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) races — the other white sport — I can attest that nothing gets the crowd up on its feet, screaming in horny bloodlust more quickly than a fistfight or a car crash.

Last Saturday night in Sheffield, England during an Elite Ice Hockey League game between the Sheffield Steelers and the Nottingham Panthers, the blade on black defenseman Matt Petgrave’s skate sliced across white forward Adam Johnson’s throat during a frenetic collision that some claim was a tragic accident, but others insist was a deliberate act of murder.

To clarify, the black player was on the Steelers, while the white player was a Panther. I suppose it would have been more gruesomely poetic if the black player was a Panther, but we can’t have everything.

Apparently only one person in a crowd of 8,000 was filming the event, because the only video I’ve seen plastered all over the Internet is a super-grainy clip ^[11] shot from up in the stands that yields more questions than it answers. What’s not disputed is that immediately after Petgrave’s skate made contact with Johnson’s throat, Johnson began spouting buckets of blood ^[12] all over the ice. The game was halted, players from both teams formed a protective shield around him, and Johnson was dead by the time he reached the hospital.

News outlets ^[13], especially in England, where authorities infamously looked away from Muslim grooming gangs for fear of being called racist, referred to the incident as a “freak accident.” Official statements from the Nottingham Panthers and the Elite Ice Hockey League also called it a “freak accident.” As of this writing, a search for the name “Petgrave” alongside the phrase “freak accident” already yields 55,200 results, which itself is freaky. Why do so many insist on using the word “freak”? Is it because any black hockey player is, by implication, a freak?

Appearing on FOX News, former NHL player Sean Avery ^[14] says it was no accident, but he disagreed with host Jesse Watters that the fatal collision between Petgrave and Johnson looked like “murder”:

That’s a pretty dangerous word to be throwing around. I’ve watched it, it’s terrible, it’s tough to watch. . . . Did this kid make a move that was very unorthodox? Do I think he was trying to make contact of some sort? Absolutely. . . . Do I think he woke up and said, “I’m going to murder somebody today”? No.

On Twitter, former NHL player Chris Therien ^[15] wrote:

After seeing the incident involving Adam Johnson, that Bush [sic] league needs to shut down for investigation immediately. I was literally appalled and sickened by what I saw. It looked intentional. It was a Kung [sic] fu kick. My eyes are not lying tell me I’m wrong.

The film is so low resolution that even when you try to blow it up and slow it down frame-by-frame, it’s little more than a live-action Rorschach inkblot where people wind up seeing whatever they want to see.

I’ve pored over the clip for the last 24 hours as if it was the Zapruder film, and I’m still baffled as to whether or not Petgrave intentionally kicked Johnson. It looks as if Petgrave may have tripped over ^[16] another player en route to Johnson, which may have sent his legs flying in the air unintentionally. Then again, it also looks as if Petgrave got in an extra kick ^[17], but since Johnson was wearing a black glove and Petgrave was wearing black skates, the glove and skate meld together, making it hard to discern whether Johnson is moving his glove to protect his throat after it was sliced, or if Petgrave kicks again.

British police are currently investigating the incident, but have yet to press criminal charges against Petgrave. Many have noted that Petgrave, in addition to being black, had a reputation as a dirty goon who had allegedly racked up more penalty minutes last year than any other player in the league.

Wikipedia ^[18] lists 20 pro hockey players dating all the way back to 1904 who either died during a game or as a direct result of playing. The bulk of fatalities seem to have involved head injuries and heart attacks. Four players died after being hit in the head, neck, or heart by hockey pucks.

Adam Johnson’s death wasn’t the first time a hockey player died in the wake of an on-ice slash. While playing in an Italian league in 1992, Miran Schrott ^[19] died of cardiac arrest after being slashed by another player, who later pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Three years later in Sweden, Bengt Åkerblom ^[20] bled to death after his carotid artery was slashed during an exhibition game.

But unlike the others, Adam Johnson perished from a blade on a skate wielded by a negroidal foot, which is what makes this case stand out like a fly in a pail of milk.

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