As the National Hockey League considers whether teams should host more LGBTQ+ “Pride Night” events, most coverage focuses on Christian players who decline to participate. Yet fear of offending Russia is emerging as the real problem, with another Western corporation seeking to appease regimes hostile to gay rights.
“I think it’s something that we’re going to have to evaluate in the offseason,” the NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman, told CTV News. Like the NBA and Disney, the NHL will now have to decide whether it only supports LGBTQ+ rights when there’s no real pushback.
Disney, which touts LGBTQ+ content at home and virtue signaled against Florida’s Republican governor, Ronald DeSantis, over the issue, edited “overtly gay affection” from four recent films to avoid losing access to markets in Russia, Communist China, and the Middle East.
Communist China bans depictions of gay people on television and its kangaroo courts have ruled that homosexuality can be considered “a mental disorder.” This didn’t stop the NBA’s partnership or the NHL from staging the “China Games” in Beijing and Shanghai.
When the general manager of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey, tweeted, “Fight For Freedom. Stand With Hong Kong,” during pro-democracy protests there, the NBA forced him to apologize to Communist China. So much for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s statement, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Of the handful of hockey players who have demurred, all have stressed their tolerance. “We carry no judgment on how people choose to live their lives,” a pair of brothers on the Florida Panthers, Eric and Marc Staal, said in a statement, and “all people should be welcome in all aspects of the game of hockey.”
“I am choosing not to endorse something,” a goalie for the San Jose Sharks, James Reimer, said, “that is counter to my personal convictions, which are based on the Bible, the highest authority in life.” He also stressed that he “always strived to treat everyone with respect.”
Mr. Reimer said that LGBTQ+ individuals ought to be welcome in hockey, as did a Russian-born defenseman for the Philadelphia Flyers, Ivan Provorov. “I respect everybody,” he said, “and I respect everybody’s choices. My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion.”
“Players are free to decide which initiatives to support,” the NHL said when Mr. Provorov declined to don a rainbow jersey, and Mr. Bettman cited “a distinction between respecting something and endorsing it,” saying that “this league and our clubs have been overwhelmingly supportive of the LBGTQ+ community.”
Since the concept of LGBTQ+ rights is that the majority should not have the power to impose behavior on a minority, the NHL kerfuffle was put on ice by the league’s p.r. team and players, if not to the satisfaction of every last fan and member of the press.
What changed is that, with 57 Russian players on NHL rosters, concerns arose about a new law — signed by its president, Vladimir Putin, in December — targeting not just LBGTQ+ individuals but those who promote them.
In 2013, Russia outlawed “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” to minors. The new law expands that, according to the AP, prohibiting “advertising, media, and online resources — books, films, and theater productions — deemed to contain such ‘propaganda.’”
The Chicago Blackhawks, fearing for its two Russian players and their families back home, canceled their LGBTQ+ night. “I don’t think we can control the world issues,” their coach, Luke Richardson, said, “so that takes it out of our hands.” Well, no. It puts that puck right on your stick.
While nobody wants to see retaliation against Russian players, is the solution for the NHL — which suspended its relationship with Russia’s KHL after the invasion of Ukraine — to allow Mr. Putin to dictate who and what it can celebrate and define its commitment to justice?
The NHL chose to involve itself in “world issues.” Now that there’s a price to pay for it, the league can drop the gloves and fight or join the ranks of the NBA and Disney, demonstrating that they back causes only so long as it doesn’t cost them anything, and their support stops at the water’s edge.
