Montreal Canadiens' forward Nick Suzuki skates in a Pride Night jersey during a warmup before a game at the Bell Centre in Montreal on Apr. 6.Eric Bolte/USA TODAY Sports
While it hasn’t been a great few days for Russian President Vladimir Putin, he can still bathe in the glory of at least one recent victory: the NHL’s decision to ban specialty jerseys during pregame skates.
What would Mr. Putin have to do with the league’s decision to stop players from wearing jerseys promoting the military, Black history or the LGBTQ community in this way? Everything.
The league announced last week it was doing away with the practice because it had become a “distraction.” The news broke as organizations across North America are in the midst of Pride Month celebrations.
The NHL said teams could continue to promote various causes in other ways. But this was a decision incited by one factor: the discomfort that donning a rainbow-coloured jersey for a few minutes before a game caused for a small handful of players.
This became an issue in January when Philadelphia Flyers defenceman Ivan Provorov refused to wear a Pride jersey in a warm-up, citing his Russian Orthodox beliefs. The jerseys are usually signed by the players and then auctioned off to raise money for various organizations. But Mr. Provorov said no, and his team supported him.
The same night Mr. Provorov was refusing to take the ice in a Pride-themed jersey, NHL superstar Alexander Ovechkin skipped out on his team’s Pride Night celebration as well. The Washington Capitals forward is notably good friends with Mr. Putin, the butcher who started the unprovoked war in Ukraine that has led to the death of tens of thousands of people, including hundreds of innocent children. Mr. Ovechkin’s profile picture on his Instagram account is of him and Mr. Putin grinning for the camera.
This would be the same Mr. Putin who introduced a law in Russia late last year that makes it a crime to promote, in any fashion, “non-traditional sexual relations” or “LGBT propaganda,” which his government regards as abhorrent. Other NHL players of Russian nationality joined Mr. Provorov in refusing to don a pregame Pride Night jersey. So did a few others not of Russian descent who cited their Christian faith, the foundation of which is based on the notion of a man named Jesus who believed all were his children, without exception.
Seven individual NHL players in total refused to go along with their teams’ Pride Night events, but it had the knock-on effect of prompting entire teams to cancel their plans of having players wear Pride-themed jerseys during special pregame skates. The Chicago Blackhawks opted out of their Pride jersey plans in March, citing concerns for the safety of Russian players, many of whom return to their home country in the off-season.
The problem intensified as Pride Month arrived, so here we are. There is no way the NHL could have allowed players to wear themed jerseys in pregame skates in support of cancer research or the military while just dropping the Pride jerseys. That would have made the league really look homophobic. So it dropped them all.
The entire debacle amounts to a horribly gutless decision by a second-rank sports league. How hard would it have been to allow the theme nights to continue? If some players wanted to use Russia’s hateful law as an excuse not to participate, or the Bible, then so be it. Players from Russia made up less than 5 per cent of all players in the NHL last season, and yet the league is saying their position on this matter – along with a few “Christians” – are going to rule the day. And all this despite the fact there were plenty of Russian-born players, including superstar Evgeni Malkin, who had no problem throwing on a Pride jersey.
It is no secret that hockey suffers from an image problem, which includes a history of deep-seated homophobia that many believe is still a pervasive part of its culture. Some people may think that too much is being made of this decision. But I don’t.
That rainbow-coloured jersey stands for something. It is a bright, beautiful symbol of something that is important. It says: Look, your NHL heroes want you to know that their league, their arenas, are a welcoming, safe place for all, including the LGBTQ community.
Now the NHL has said it’s not worth the hassle. Because wearing rainbow-coloured jerseys for five minutes was making a few players uncomfortable. And you can’t forget the bigoted fans who complained to NHL teams about the practice. They have to be heard! Better to just ditch the jerseys entirely, apparently.
I hope the NHL wears this horrible, close-minded decision for a long, long time. What it did here was shameful. What it demonstrated is that when it comes to Pride, the NHL doesn’t have any.