Can sports show us a new kind of kind?

When head coach Patrick Roy stepped up to the postgame podium after the New York Islanders loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning a couple nights ago, he pulled no punches about his feelings on forward Anthony Duclair. “God-awful” and “lucky to be in the lineup” were some of the jabs Roy threw at his underperforming star. Roy had lots more to say, none of it much more flattering.

Two days later, Duclair has taken some time away from the team to get his head on straight, with many wondering if he will be able to ever fully do so. And though Duclair’s performance this year has been uninspiring, it seems as if Roy could use a day or two off to get his oft-tempestuous temper in order as well. Colorado Avalanche fans have seen the highs and lows of St. Patrick a time or two.

Conversely, when Denver Nuggets Russell Westbrook had a night he’d certainly rather forget against the Minnesota Timberwolves a few nights back, spoiling a career night from somehow-not-the-MVP Nikola Jokic, his head coach, Michael Malone, took to the podium and took a vastly different tack.

Malone said he knew Russ would take too much of the blame upon himself in the first place, and that the Nuggets had lost that game as a team, as a collective. He placed his faith back in Russ that he’d be a positive and a catalyst in games to come. Jokic himself dismissed any notions that Russ had been the cause of their loss, or even that he needed to take time to speak with him further about it, saying Russ had played well and hard and had obviously not intended to make the mistakes that had lead to the narrow and heartbreaking loss.

“That’s basketball”, Jokic said, laying aside any and all blame, and moving on with the sort of calm and class both he and Malone are usually known for.

That’s basketball. Well said. Just a game. A fluky, fluid, frustrating game.

Yesterday, standing on a corner in Phoenix, Arizona (no, not Winslow), I witnessed a grown man have a full-blown meltdown with a restaurant hostess over the fact that his party would be seated a scant five minutes after his designated reservation. His cursing and stomping could be heard from a block away as I continued my walk, and I was only slightly ashamed of myself in hoping that his dinner would be a terrible one, only to realize that such a thing would only further inflame his already boorish behavior, and that his unkindness need not incite my own. How many times have any of us seen such over-the-top idiocy in the last few years?

Days ago, a high school track athlete was stabbed to death at his track meet by a student from another school who he had asked repeatedly to move out from under their team’s tent.

At a recently played youth hockey game, a violent brawl broke out amongst a few of the parents over something miniscule, with police needing to be called to settle the affair.

A high school girls basketball coach was recently fired after his team’s championship hopes were coming to a disappointing end, and he was caught on camera yanking on one of his already-crying athlete’s hair as he berated her.

Back to pro basketball, you see more time spent on television debating the thuggery of a Dillon Brooks (suspended after his 16th technical for kicking someone below the waist), or conversing about a two-game suspension for goonish Isaiah Stewart than you’ll usually see about any of the other 537 players in the league. Ja Morant is asked about his reputation as one of the league’s new villains, and he grinningly says he loves it and breaks out a new set of finger guns.

That’s basketball?

This sort of behavior is certainly not limited to the sports world (see restaurant a-hole a couple paragraphs above), but sports often tends to be a microcosm of our world at large. The taunting, angry, divisive world we seem to be set upon becoming is producing stress and unhappiness at near-record levels, and we continue to feed it to ourselves in heaping helpings because it’s far more interesting (and lucrative) to televise the madness than it is to try and sell us all on taking a deep breath and recollecting that we’re all just humans trying to get through another week of sound and fury. The extreme news may sell, but it also takes a long term toll.

As we ratchet up the noise, we not only become desensitized to further and further psychological blows, but take that fight-or-flight response upon ourselves, until we’re not even realizing we’re also adding to the problem, via inaction or similar action. There may be nothing harder when you are already amped up than to turn the other cheek. To not respond in kind.

But if a five minute late dinner rez is worth taking a restaurant’s staffs heads off… If a win in a game is worth kicking someone in the crotch, or cheating your way to victory… If being asked to remove yourself from an opposing team’s track tent will cost you your life…

That’s not basketball. That’s not track. That’s not a night out. It’s hate with a uniform on. Until we can find a way to start glorifying kindness more than whatever this all is, to realizing it’s just a goddamned game… we may just continue to keep riding this spiral down to whatever the bottom looks like. It turns out it’s kind of hard to be kind. It also turns out to be the thing we need most desperately. It’s also the only way back up out of this morass. Which smells like more ass.

Hoping your weekend is filled with joy and patience, and most of all kindness… Even if your team ends up losing. Love you, DNVR Nation. Hoping you find a new kind of kind.