Scholars, media and advocates are being brought together to tackle toxic issues in hockey culture at Hockey Canada's Beyond the Boards summit in September.

Hockey Canada wants to combat the toxic culture of the sport. In a year Hockey Canada has faced intense scrutiny related to issues of sexual assault, the organization is hoping their new Beyond the Boards series of summits will help guide the organization and the sport to a healthier, safer place.

Their first event, according to Hockey Canada’s chief operating officer Pat McLaughlin, isn’t looking to fix the symptoms, it’s looking to combat the root cause, toxic masculinity.

“We’re at a point now where we want to get to the root cause of culture,” McLaughlin told The Hockey News. “We wanted an event that was going to make us incredibly uncomfortable and to tackle the core of our culture.”

The event, taking place Sept. 8 and 9 in Calgary, is bringing together scholars, media, and advocates, many of whom have been critical of Hockey Canada, to help shift the conversation and combat harmful masculinity. As McLaughlin said, Hockey Canada is hoping to lean on research and data to guide their approach, which is why they brought in hockey scholar Teresa Fowler to help guide the inaugural event.

“There’s many hockey cultures, but what we’re talking about here is elite masculine hockey culture,” said Fowler, who has a PhD in philosophy, curriculum and learning. “In Canada, hockey is so ingrained with our national identity and the one we uphold the most in this country is men’s ice hockey, so it’s important to get at the root of masculinity within that elite culture because little kids are looking up to these players, other people want to have a safe space in hockey. There clearly is something that needs to be addressed, so that’s why starting with masculinity spills out the other topics the next summits will talk about.”

Those other summits will combat racism, homophobia and other issues facing the game, but according to Fowler, it’s the overarching issue of how hockey defines masculinity, and systems of white supremacy that are at the root.

For Fowler, looking at how aspects of the game, including violence, and the narrow definition of what it means to be a man in hockey are important topics to discuss.

“There’s a narrow focus that we think of when we think of masculinity and hockey, there’s only one way,” said Fowler. “When we talk about one way it is to be a man, we’re already nixing all the other ways, and that excludes so many children, and so many women and girls from hockey.”

Fowler also hopes to discuss the glorification of violence in hockey, citing a recent study that found hockey enforcers die on average 10 years younger than other hockey players.

“What would happen if there wasn’t violence in hockey? Then you get to see the skills, the quality, the beauty of the game. When we talk about changing the game, we need to look at the impact it’s having on men. What is the impact of violence in men.”

The event is scheduled to include sessions discussing the Intersection of Masculinity and Hockey led by Bill Proudman, keynote speeches from Carla Qualtrough, Jamie Clarke and Sheldon Kennedy and a literature review on hockey culture by Fowler.

While Hockey Canada claims to have come a long way, achieving many items descried in their Action Plan, McLaughlin acknowledges Hockey Canada now knows their learning will be ongoing, and that it’s necessary to ask for help from experts to guide the future of the game.

“At Hockey Canada, we’ll be the first to say we’re definitely in learning mode in this space, and we have a lot to continue to learn,” said McLaughlin. “This summit is going to make a people feel very uncomfortable, and we need to do that in order to improve.”