Et Tu, National Hockey League?
Another North American professional sport goes woke and political
Ice hockey is a popular winter sport. It originated and remains popular in our coldest snowiest climates. Think Canada. Or, perhaps Sweden, Finland, and Norway. Even Russia. Those countries and the United States usually win medals at the annual world championships and the quadrennial Winter Olympics. Professional ice hockey leagues permeate almost every European country, including the Baltics. Especially Russia.
In the United States, some children who grow up in northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and the far reaches of northern New England learn to skate at the same time they learn to walk. It is one of the most challenging sports to play, played on ice at high speeds and requiring enormous hand-eye coordination, with no small amount of violence. And as the father of an ice hockey goalie, between ice rental and equipment costs, it is a very expensive sport. Especially for goalies.
It should not surprise anyone that the demographics of these countries are relatively similar. They are predominantly caucasian. There is no Nigeria on the arctic tundra.
And this past week, the NHL apologized for it. From their new report, “Accelerating Diversity and Inclusion:”
During the re-ignited movements for social justice over the past few years, particularly following the murder of George Floyd, our initial response was to listen and learn. This response ultimately led to new ways of thinking and new internal competencies that, in many cases, built upon work that had been growing across the hockey community. Since January 2020, the League Office and all 32 NHL Clubs have united to strengthen diversity and inclusion (D&I) with new urgency, pursuing a variety of initiatives to make this great game more welcoming, inclusive, accessible, and socially conscious.
No, you won’t find the words “apology” or “apologize” in the report. The league used the report to promote its longstanding diversity efforts and programs. But a review of the “commitment to change” section of the NHL website embraces and promotes publications and authors that promote a distorted view of America’s origins (the 1619 project) and “white privilege.”
“White privilege” training is designed to bludgeon Caucasians into believing they are racist. And if you don’t accept that, you’re . . . racist.
This is despite longstanding efforts for decades to broaden its fan base and diversify, including making it accessible to women and the physically challenged (e.g., sled hockey) and notable investments in hockey in predominantly minority communities, especially Washington, DC.
The NHL’s report is the latest corporate and professional sports virtue signal and risks devolving the sport from a meritocracy to one where quotas trump talent and hard work. And they might invite legal challenges if they discriminate based on race.
The NHL is the most international professional sports league in the world. My favorite team, the Washington Capitals, currently features a roster with players from the United States (9), Canada (6), Russia (3), Sweden (2), and one each from Denmark, Slovakia, and Belarus. There are currently no African American players on the team, but in past years, now-retired Caps Joel Ward and Anson Carter were popular with fans. Several players have championed LGBT communities in their respective communities, including Washington Capitals Stanley Cup-winning goaltender Braden Holtby.
Women are now making it into the NHL as coaches and officials. The names of six women appear on the Stanley Cup, including co-owners and executives. The Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association is on the verge of creating its own league, which will undoubtedly receive great support from the NHL. It already has.
But that is not good enough. It is never good enough. Nothing satisfies the woke.
The trendline is clear. The NHL and the entire sport of hockey have nothing to apologize for. But their sparkling achievements and efforts aren’t good enough. They have too many white people, and they plan to exclude them from mentoring programs. From the website boundingintosports.com:
Getting to the section of the Workforce Demographic Study, it specifically notes the purpose of the study was to confirm they had too many white people.
It states, “When our survey was distributed to the thousands of employees across North America who make up the National Hockey League, we hoped to establish an accurate baseline of employee demographic data – with full consciousness of the pre-existing anecdotal evidence that increasing employee diversity needs to be a priority at all levels of hockey.”
“The results of the Study only reinforce the importance of this priority. In sharing the core results below, we hold ourselves accountable to generate significant improvement in all aspects of employee diversity, starting with the initiatives described in the ‘Employment’ section of this report, as we work to promote a strong and vibrant workforce culture,” the league declares.
The entire report smells of panic and malevolent corporate influence since these efforts mirror equally-woke companies, such as Amazon, Apple, and other official league sponsors.
And it earned a mockworthy post from BabylonBee.com, a satirical website.
Perhaps worse, the NHL is joining other professional sports leagues and jumping into public policy advocacy. Think of MLB moving its 2022 All-Star game from Atlanta to Denver over Georgia’s new voter integrity laws companies like Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines never read nor understood. The NHL now plans to be an advocate on “climate change” and the partisan and misbranded “Freedom to Vote” Act, which tramples on free speech and would undermine popular state voter identification laws.
The National Hockey League is one of the world’s most popular professional sports leagues, at least in attendance. When it comes to financial value, not so much, and perhaps that is driving their virtue signaling. The NHL has the world’s third-highest attendance in professional sports (as of 2019), behind Major League Baseball (MLB) and narrowly behind Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. It draws slightly more fans than the National Basketball Association, even though the NBA has a higher collective financial value. It helps that MLB has 161 regular season games compared to the NHL’s 81, and baseball stadiums are obviously larger.
The NFL draws lower overall attendance but only features a 16-game regular season. Their value is derived from their lucrative broadcasting and other commercial deals. The most valuable NFL franchise, the Dallas Cowboys, is worth about $8 billion. The NHL’s most valuable franchise is the New York Rangers at $2 billion. The league average is around $900 million. Television and broadcasting contracts have a lot to do with that. Superbowl Sunday, anyone?
Yes, racism has raised its ugly head in NHL. Fortunately, it is rare and not tolerated by teams, leagues, and fans. Nothing recently. And yes, of course, the NHL should continue to find ways to broaden its fan base and expand access to the sport to new communities and cultures without forcing players to violate their beliefs. But it doesn’t have to openly discriminate, trash America’s founding, or demand its current fan base to flagellate.
Sports at all levels should be a great unifier in our culture, not a great divider. Teaching people to apologize for whom they are and jumping into politics is a step in the wrong direction.
Disappointing, I really thought the NHL might forego all this wokeness, I no longer watch the NFL, MLB, and sadly even though we have a team here the NBA