"Hockey culture: it’s a commonly used phrase glorifying sacrifice, toughness, loyalty, and a sense of identity. Justin Davis viewed this culture as something he was lucky enough to experience. After all, he’d won a Memorial Cup, and he’d been drafted by the Washington Capitals. “In my mind,” he says, “I was the normal one.” Unfortunately, after stepping outside the game, he began to recognize the racism, sexual abuse and bullying that was so deeply ingrained in the sport. And then, as his own children grew into teenagers, the curtain was pulled back, the memories came rushing forward, and he was horrified: “Why did I normalize abnormal behavior? What happened to my brain, after countless concussions? How did I end up living in a basement where the strangers upstairs engaged in domestic abuse?” As it navigates the sport’s darkest corridors, Conflicted Scars shares the story of the common player and offers a guide for parents who need to know how and why a typical small-town teenager with NHL dreams now lives anxiously, battling emotional detachment." -- Back cover.