SHE’S GOT GAME

WORDS BY ABI SLONE
PHOTO BY LISA MACINTOSH; COVER PHOTO BY ANITA ZVONAR

Television host, rock star, mother, friend, meditator, activist, feminist, runner… like women who have lived a full-throttle life into their croning years, Tara Slone is accomplished at a whole lot of things. Currently the co-host of Rogers Hometown Hockey in Canada, Slone was also recently the host of an interview series called Top of Her Game which featured female athletes, was a full-fledged rockstar who fronted the brand Joydrop, and has the future of sport in her sights.

THE CRONING: Even though no one else can see us, I feel like it’s important to note that you’re wearing glasses, and I’m jealous having left mine downstairs and feeling like without them, my whole universe is fuzzy. 
TARA SLONE: I know. I can’t live without them. Its exponential deterioration.

TC: I went to the eye doctor recently and she told me that my prescription hasn't changed that much. I was like, really? Why do I feel like I can't see anything, ever?
TS: I have the same thing though. I have glasses for distance and that prescription hasn't changed, but it's the reading… it’s embarrassing.

TC: You know what’s not embarrassing? Your commitment to social change (how’s that for a segue?). That is both a part of how you operate in your personal life, but how you present in your work life, in sports broadcasting.
TS: For me, being anti-racist and an intersectional feminist isn’t a hat I put on and take off. It's part of my being. It is a hill I will always die on. 

TC: The thing that I personally find remarkable about you in this regard is that you seemingly have infinite patience, or at least a great willingness to guide people through their learning.
TS: At this time, I feel like everything is so divided and you are starting to see sides of people that you didn’t see before. I don't think I'm a white saviour. Maybe I am… but given my platform at work, I want to create space for marginalized voices and perspectives in my industry.

TC: Yes. Let’s talk about working in sports as a woman, in your mid-to-late forties and not only what that looks like, but how advocating for change has impacted your career, the team you work with, and the sport of hockey, if at all. 
TS: It’s interesting. It's not like I got into sports to advocate for change. I wanted to work in sports because I thought it was an interesting space. And I think the irony is, I always felt like I connected to what I then described as hockey culture, which, after my years in the industry, hockey culture now signifies something very different and it's very broken. So what I liked about hockey and sports are the things I think we all like — the camaraderie, the teamwork, the overcoming obstacles, the glory, the rooting for a team — the stuff that makes our hearts swell. And I've always been really curious about elite athletes and how the hell they have that kind of extra speed, you know?

I don't have that. When I set out to run five kilometres, I'm not running 5.1. My body and mind will just simply not let me. So yeah, I'm just super curious about the mindset and the mentality of elite athletes. But as I started to move into the world of sports full time, you can't miss [the inequalities]. And especially in hockey, I mean, it's just so white.

TC: Do you think hockey, more than other professional team sports?
TS: Well, I don't think it's a mistake to say every team sport or every sport at the executive level when you're talking about ownership and organizationally is white. In terms of team sports, you certainly wouldn’t say the makeup of a basketball team is predominantly white or a football team, but probably on an organizational level, it is. Right. And even like, yeah, even when you get a little bit, like, We need to start talking about the power dynamics in sport. And the power is wielded by white people. Abd hockey, just through and through the sport, is predominantly white.

TC: Even as someone who is not really a hockey fan, when there is a Black hockey player, I know all about it. 
TS: I’m pretty sure there's one Black guy on Canada's Olympic hockey team. And that’s probably indicative of the numbers in the NHL. Because I'm a woman I am often bothered, and the whole time I’ve been working in hockey I have been a mother which I think makes me particularly sensitive to everyone who feels othered. When we’re gathering stories for Roger's Hometown Hockey and you consider the makeup of the country, we weren't always telling stories that represented the country. We were telling stories that represented hockey and it was just glaringly obvious that all our stories were about white guys. So, a few of us on the team had to make a really concerted effort to not only bring women into the storytelling but also make sure that we were representative of people with disabilities, that we talked about the indigenous community, that we talked about BIPOC. And that we just had to do it in an intentional way. 

TC: Do you think you would have done that 10 years ago? It’s a bit of a back to the future question. 10 years ago we certainly were where we are with white people even being willing to have the conversation…
TS: Well, I think part of it that's yes, a million percent part of it is, is privilege for me and recognition of the at right. So I have a certain degree of, you know, security as a white cisgender straight woman. I have a certain amount of security and, you know, empowerment in the job that I have with the, the crew. And, you know, Ron is part of that, like allowing me to, to use my voice. Um, and yeah, I mean privilege in that, that I have sort of gotten to a certain point in my career where I'm a known commodity and I'm not as afraid to, to use my voice. I am not afraid of the re as afraid of the repercussions. Right.

So all of that I think is, you know, it's tenure, but it's also privilege. Um, but for sure, it's just like, I, I think instead of just approaching everything with like the fear, the people pleasing, like what will people think of me? I don't wanna rock the boat. What matters to me more is doing what I think is the right thing. Um, and doing the thing that like on my deathbed will I will my contemplation be, you know, what do I wish that I had been more meek or do I, that I had actually, you know, put myself on the line for something that I I think is, is meaningful and it's, it's the latter.

TC: How has the reception been not only with your team and within the industry itself, but also because you don't exist in a bubble and we live in the age of social media. I mean, I see some of it.
TS: So I would say within like the Hometown Hockey little ecosystem that we have, I think I'm very respected. I'm very lucky to have the team that I do. When I did my hockey rant in November [about how hockey culture is broken and that as a community we’re in crisis] they gave me that space and that platform and didn't ask to vet any of my comments. That showed a lot of trust from the organization. Outside of that, I'm sure there's a lot of eye-rolling. I know that I drive people crazy.

I point this out, ask questions and remind people that, for example, if you’re going to talk about sexual assault and sexual assault allegations we need to be trauma-informed and find someone who can help with that. I, for sure, am not the most popular person there. Social media has been really interesting. There is a really great community of people who are specifically engaged in shifting hockey culture — some really amazing people doing amazing things. And I get a ton of support, but there are people who really don't like me. 

TC: They don't like you because they're afraid.
TS: Yes. And I think the more that the truth starts to be revealed and light is shed on the inequities, the more these people are freaking out.

TC: It’s this idea that they’re afraid because they feel like everything is at risk, but what people with privilege don’t understand is that the top is as big as we make it. There is room for everyone. Just make the top bigger because we control that. 
TS: The resistance to people just admitting that there is a problem within hockey culture. ‘This isn't us. That's not how we are.’ Nope. It is.

TC: Like that kind of light, like where we are now had Colin Kaepernick. I’m sure he's doing lovely and great things [started a publishing company in 2020 and is planning on publishing a children’s book in spring 2022], but he still doesn’t have a job in the NFL. 

It’s that he’s moved the needle. And now we recognize him as having done this really radical action. And that's really great, and Nike puts you in an ad and you become this icon or change agent, but the realities of then how things change… like they actually need to change.

TS: Right. There's now a lawsuit with some Black coaches in the NFL who say that they haven't been able to ascend the ranks the way white coaches would be. So, no. Things haven’t really been changing. The NHL has enlisted sexual abuse survivor and former NHL player Sheldon Kennedy, to talk about  TK. And more than talk, as an organization, you have to have the willingness to change.

TC: Let’s talk about Top of Her Game, your interview series featuring elite female professional athletes that launched during the pandemic.
TS: It was a small group of us, my executive producer from Hometown Hockey and folks from SportsNet. It really was a byproduct of losing all live sports events and everything coming to a screeching hall when COVID happened. The network and website were scrambling for content so we kind of put our heads together. I think we did about 40 episodes. It never really had a huge audience, but the brand impact exceeded the viewing numbers. I don't know how you measure it, really. It's been kind of dormant and we're looking to revive it in some fashion.

I think what it did do for me is have some impact. And so I think it helped me cement, where my real interests lie at this point, which are less in hockey, more in women in sport.

TC: How did you land up in sports from entertainment?

TS: I really steered myself there and I was very purposeful about it. Entertainment was fun and a natural landing place for me because of the music world that I've been in [as a solo artist and the lead singer for the band Joydrop]. But I just was more interested in sports. I felt like I could do more interesting stories in sports, and I found it more exhilarating than being on a red carpet and asking the same questions over and over and over again, Maybe I felt like it set me apart as well, as a woman with sports knowledge and moxie,

TC: Everybody loves moxie.