Who am I?
Good question. I’m Connor Earegood, and I’m a hockey reporter out of Flint, Michigan. I have
been a student journalist since high school, specifically covering sports since I joined The
Michigan Daily in 2020. I’ve covered highs and lows, clutch victories and blowout losses. Yet in
all those varying cases, the one constant is the shared love for hockey that fans, teams and
media all hold dear.
In the classes I barely attend, I’m a history and American culture dual major, who also dual
minors in writing and digital studies. But my real classroom is the newsroom, and that’s where
I’ve taken on tough stories about the culture surrounding the sport I love.
I have been obsessed with hockey since I was in elementary school, and my fandom of the
sport ties back to our old IHL team, the Flint Generals. In 2010, the team was on the brink of
going bankrupt as Perani Arena filled with fewer and fewer fans. With former Michigan State
star Bryan Smolinski in his playoff swan song, the Generals squared off with the powerhouse
Fort Wayne Komets. While they lost the series 4-1, I attended that only win inside a raucous
home barn. The way the fans bought into that game, the way they forgot about the economic
downturn destroying Flint, the way they loved that team for representing them — all forged
my love of the game. That team folded in the offseason, but my passion for ice hockey did not.
As part of the statement of my project's process, I believe it is also important to clearly state my privilege, especially in the context of discussing racism, sexism, homophobia and overall discrimination within the sport of hockey. I am a heterosexual, white male. I have never experienced racism or discrimination against me. Growing up in my father’s household, however, I routinely witnessed he and his side of my family act and speak in racism. I swore not to recreate those behaviors and to be an ally, and that's a big reason why I'm so passionate about this topic. These memories caused a sense of numbness to certain issues that I am still addressing to this day, another reason I am so passionate about sharing how hockey culture can change.
Growing up in Burton, Michigan — an impoverished and predominantly white city within the Greater Flint Area — I have witnessed racism and xenophobia routinely. There were Trump signs near my neighborhood in 2016 and 2020. My family routinely watched Fox News and spit Republican talking points when discussing politics. This inherently impacts my ability to discuss racism within this webpage, and I want to make the reader aware of that experience as they read through the site. Sports are often a microcosm of larger societal beliefs, and it is important that we correct the problems in sport so that we can cause positive change.
I hope through this webpage that I can help hockey grow, and maybe educate fans — who likely sat motionless when hockey let down its Black, indigenous, female, gay, non-binary and other identified fans — to take action. It is not the role of those marginalized communities to educate us privileged fans, and I hope you — the reader — will continue to research these issues facing the sport. Only through education can we challenge the discrimination and hatred inherent in North American culture. That’s a journey I’ve been on since high school, and it’s one I implore you to take yourself. We can’t change the past or our parents, but we can make an oath to ourselves and our larger community to do better. This webpage represents another chapter in my own quest to do that, one that will continue long after its completion.
