Jaccob Slavin’s adopted daughter opened his eyes to a diverse world the NHL is discovering
The awakening came for Jaccob Slavin in the form of a baby girl. As other white NHL players on Thursday — for the first time, really — started to acknowledge the feelings and experiences of their Black peers and teammates, Slavin was more than a year into his own new understanding.
The Carolina Hurricanes defenseman and his wife Kylie last April adopted an infant and named her Emersyn Ruth. Emersyn is Black. The Slavins are white. Immediately, whatever Slavin thought he knew about racism and race relations in America he quickly realized he did not.
So what happened in Toronto and Edmonton on Thursday, as white NHL players reached out to their peers in the Hockey Diversity Alliance to try to understand the pain they felt when the NHL played on Wednesday night while many players in other professional leagues did not — in the NBA, WNBA, MLS and MLB, to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake — evoked emotions that were all too familiar to Slavin.
“Over the course of this year, over the course of my daughter’s life, I’ve been trying to educate myself on these matters,” Slavin said. “I’m still learning. I definitely do not know everything. I’m just trying to learn and to educate right now, that’s super important. Listening to Black people, to the people who are experiencing what’s going on right now, is really big.
“Then taking what you learn from those conversations and yeah, you definitely want to have those hard conversations with people on the team, with the people that you’re closest to outside of hockey, whoever it is. Those conversations aren’t easy but they’re important to bring awareness and hopefully start that change.”
Would Slavin, without Emersyn, have fully understood what it meant to play Wednesday night, if he and the Hurricanes had been sitting in Toronto ready for a playoff game? Almost certainly not. But he does now. The contrast between his answer Friday and Jordan Staal’s answer on Thursday was all too apparent, but so is their personal experience now.
Slavin, by virtue of his daughter’s skin, has been forced to educate himself about what her life might be like as a person of color in America. Very few NHL players grew up with that knowledge. Fewer still have taken the time to understand it.
“I get a different viewpoint from it now,” Slavin said. “It’s different now that I’m living it and experiencing it. Before, I wasn’t fully aware of everything that was going on around the world. I realized that racism existed. I didn’t see how deeply rooted it was. It’s hard to see what’s happening in our country right now. It’s hard to live with the fact that Emersyn is going to grow up in this world. Obviously we want to see change happen. There’s a long way to go.”
Until Thursday, the few Black players who had the courage to show any demonstration of dissent generally did it alone, from J.T. Brown’s raised fist on the bench in 2017 to Matt Dumba’s kneeling during the anthem last month. The first step forward was taken when three white players joined Ryan Reaves in kneeling before a playoff game — two Canadians and a Swede joining a Canadian-American dual citizen. Thursday’s player-led decision not to play may have been a day late, but it was not too late.
“I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision for those guys to make, to say, ‘Hey let’s postpone this game,’” Slavin said. “But I think what they did is awesome. It showed great support for the black community, for a black community that’s suffering right now.”
But hockey, where the players are 95 percent white, still has a long way to go. Even NASCAR has taken a stronger stand against racial inequality during this summer of upheaval.
“There needs to be change,” Slavin said. “What the NHL did with postponing the games is a sign of solidarity, it’s awesome to see that. At the same time, there’s still a lot more that needs to be done than postponing one game, right? Or postponing a couple games. There’s a lot of change that needs to happen and a lot of action that needs to happen outside the game of hockey, but it is awesome to bring more awareness to it and continue that conversation.”
Slavin should not have to bear the responsibility of sharing his experience with his teammates, but just as he has an obligation to keep listening and keep learning, he has the same obligation as a father to spread that knowledge within a sport that doesn’t have its eyes open, whether he asked for it or not.
This story was originally published August 28, 2020 at 1:29 PM.
