This week, the pucks dropped on a new season for the National Hockey League, but for a select few this was not a time of exuberance but instead a point of contempt. What had them angered was a leaguewide decision to suspend the practice of teams staging Pride Nights. This was the effort by many clubs to feature Pride-themed activities for a game, including players wearing a specific jersey during warmups, signifying the event, and even using sticks wrapped with rainbow-colored tape.
Last year, there were overwrought news stories when select players chose not to participate for personal and/or religious beliefs, opting instead to remain in the locker room during the pre-skate. This led to press members noticing an absence and then racing to the locker room after the games, demanding players explain themselves. Controversy swirled, gay rights activists mewled about these supposed offenses, and sports pundits growled about the alleged intolerance.
What launched this outrage rocket was when Philadelphia Flyers skater Ivan Provolov chose to sit back in the locker room on his team’s Pride night, and the hysterics were out of balance. He became a national news story, and charges were leveled at him, the team, and the league – for not taking action. Other players later also opted out — seven in total — and this was seen as an affront of unimaginable proportions. One of the more imbalanced reactions was from Canadian broadcaster Sid Seixiero.
Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov didn’t take part in the NHL’s “Hockey Is For Everyone” pregame warmups – where players wore Pride-themed jerseys and used sticks wrapped in rainbow Pride tape – citing his religion as the reason. @sid_seixeiro shares his thoughts ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/8c7XnP2FYJ
— Breakfast Television (@breakfasttv) January 18, 2023
Fine the team $1 million, and lambaste the character of the league, all because one skater said, “I’d rather not,”? A gay rights group partnering with the NHL is the You Can Play Project, and one of its executives weighed in at the time about Provolov’s resistance. “After an incident like this, we’ll come in and run education sessions for the whole team, for the coaches, for the individual players on a one-on-one basis.” TRANSLATION: We will teach them to care.
As those other players were also electing to sit out of Pride Night festivities, the controversies grew. The New York Rangers, after seven years of staging such events, decided its players would forego wearing the jerseys on its Pride night, and a couple of other teams decided to not stage one at all. After New York spurned the rainbows on the ice Mollie Walker declared, “The Rangers made a choice, and that choice slighted members of the LGBTQ+ community. Following suit with many other NHL teams that have made harmful decisions in recent years, the Rangers made zero acknowledgment and took zero accountability for their actions.”
It was “harmful” to decide to not require players to wear a particular jersey? How, exactly? As a result of this very type of hysteria, the NHL leadership has come forward to declare no commemorative nights at all will be held, including military recognition, breast cancer awareness, or indigenous people recognition. Well done, you activist cranks, you ruined it for everyone. This, too, is a decision that has imbalanced reactions. Longtime NHL figure Brian Burke reacted to the league decision.
This decision has stripped clubs of a powerful community outreach tool and removed meaningful support for Special Initiatives, all to protect a select few who do not want to answer any questions about their choices. I hope the NHL reconsiders in order to remain a leader in DEI. pic.twitter.com/SM5Fu56w7P
— Brian Burke (@Burkie2020) October 11, 2023
What is striking is how the reactionaries do not see this decision being the result of their own actions. When a solitary player elected to sit out of Pride Night, their outrage at this eclipsed their own event. An organization was celebrating their movement, and as a team put 20 players on the ice, it meant 95 percent were in support of the cause. But this was deemed insufficient, as complete compulsory participation was apparently the rule. So screeching about the lone person not making a stink about the event was the way to approach things.
The press and the activists poisoned their own cause with this overreaction. If the beat writers had not amplified the stance made by a player sitting in a locker room alone, it is likely few would have even known about it. But the braying and peacocking reporters had to blow this up into a controversy in order to display their own self-importance, and the virtue-signaling activists thought that getting press coverage would benefit their cause.
All of the stern outrage over the choice made by seven players — out of the hundreds of skaters who gladly supported the cause — was essentially the groups and reporters demanding all-or-nothing when it came to Pride Nights. Faced with that decision, the league stepped in and chose “B.” Now, these groups are left with 100 percent non-participation as a result of their own misguided focus.
When it comes to the Pride activists and the new NHL season, I hope they are proud of their decision to kill off the games that lent them organizational support.
