“I Used to Love Scheifele:” Dominant Narratives on Reddit About the Canadian Division of the Stanley Cup Playoffs

Abstract

The community-moderated content aggregation social media site Reddit has emerged as a popular destination for discussion of topics of interest in news, sport, and entertainment. This study explored the discourse of hockey fans during the playoff rounds of the Canadian Division in the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs. The study analyzed fan discourse around two incidents which garnered significant media attention, and subsequent Reddit chatter—the inadvertent knee-on-head collision that knocked Toronto Maple Leafs’ captain John Tavares out of Round 1 and the deliberate late hit by Mark Scheifele of the Winnipeg Jets, leading to his suspension for the remainder of Round 2. On Reddit, both incidents revealed a community of hockey fans eager to engage in spirited, sometimes profane, discussion. Very quickly, discussion of the incidents led to the creation of a dominant narrative on Reddit, with the architecture of the site itself helping to inhibit alternative points of view. This contradicts the popular view of Reddit as a fan-powered community because of affordances which inhibit dissent and reward repeating other debate participants. This instant in-group creation could ultimately act as a barrier to fandom among Reddit’s 850 million users not as passionate about particular narratives of hockey.