#gary bettman die and rot in hell pls & thank you

[rathockey]

Hi Atlas. I really like your blog, and was hoping to ask your perspective on the NHL situation around their pride ban.

It seems like you're a big hockey fan, and obviously you aren't responsible for their decisions, it's just been disheartening seeing the organization seem to be openly homophobic.

I'm not really into sports so I thought you may have a better idea what's going on and if the ban is representative of the culture of the league as a whole

hey! thanks for asking i'm happy to provide some more context for the situation. (this got long so i'm putting it under a read more - most of it is context as to what actually happened, but my personal thoughts on it and how it represents the culture of the league as a whole is at the bottom if that's what you're most interested in haha)

for a while, NHL teams have done "special initiatives" nights, things like "hockey fights cancer" night or "military appreciation" night, where they wear special warm up jerseys in line with the theme (among other things, but the jersey thing is the relevant thing here).

one of these special initiatives was "hockey is for everyone" night - a de facto "pride night", with a focus on broadening hockey and showing that all are welcome as fans and players of the sport. so for warm ups, players would wear cool pride themed jerseys and often tape their sticks with pride tape instead of the regular black or white tape.

have some examples of cool pride jerseys:

now. the jerseys (ALL jerseys, regular, hockey fights cancer, etc) were mandatory for pre-game on-ice warmups, since its a uniform! but pride tape was always 100% optional (this will be important later).

last year, some shitty asshole players refused to wear the warm-up jersey, and was therefore not on the ice during warm-ups - which is absolutely their right. they still got to play the game, they just couldn't be out on the ice for warm ups bc they were out of uniform.

but that wasn't enough. they made a BIG STINK about how TERRIBLE it was to be FORCED to wear a jersey with a rainbow on it. (keep in mind this is like. 7 total players in the whole NHL and it snowballed from like. one dude who sucks so hard)

so the NHL banned special initiative jerseys. ALL of them. this was quite an outrage among fans and players. big names like Connor McDavid (Oiler's golden boy and top scorer in the league) expressed disappointment (a lot of statements are kind of cookie cutter statements but thats kind of par for the course with athletes lol).

then things got worse. a memo was issued banning pride tape and included this statement:

“Players shall not be put in the position of having to demonstrate (or where they may be appearing to demonstrate) personal support for any Special Initiatives. A factor that may be considered in this regard includes, for example, whether a Player (or Players) is required to be in close proximity to any groups or individuals visibly or otherwise clearly associated with such Special Initiative(s).”

i've bolded the most concerning part - this basically says players can't be required to be NEAR people associated with special initiatives. now. other special initiative nights have included things like black history celebrations or indigenous nights. so you can see how this statement kind of makes it so you cant make players be near queer people, bipoc people, etc. obviously a problem for a LOT of reasons, but a big one was that there's a lot of like. queer and bipoc people working in hockey. the anaheim duck's organist is trans!

this caused a HUGE outrage, even bigger than the jersey's (at least it seemed so to me). to ban the tape (which even goes against the NHL's own policy on tape - players can use any color tape) along with that statement was called the nhl's own "don't say gay policy"

TONS of people spoke out about this (and every big name in hockey was asked about it at the time) and hockey players across the league expressed some level of disappointment about it, from cookie cutter statements about how its disappointing to scott laughlin, jon merril, and travis dermott stating they would simply continue using it (they have all been long time staunch supporters and allies on and off the ice)

it all came to a head when travis dermott DID put pride tape on his stick (as he often does, this wasn't new or different for him) and used it during a game. everyone pointed it out and waited to see what the NHL would do. and well. they didn't do anything! in fact, they rescinded the ban. all bark and no bite (i am curious if anyone will challenge the special initiative jersey thing, though i highly doubt it)

MY THOUGHTS: I'm still relatively new to hockey, living in the south for so long i wasn't near a big hockey team so i fell off of it until recently. but i do NOT feel as though the NHL's actions are representative of the culture as a whole. i think these actions are several steps back for the league (which has plenty of issues already) because it did seem like there were some big steps being taken forward! and they basically walked them back and did a lot of damage while doing it (doing something positive and then taking it back feels kinda worse than them not doing anything in the first place). but the OUTRAGE among fans AND players speaks more to the culture of hockey than the NHL's actions. the NHL took action because of SEVEN players who refused to wear the jersey. there are so many good hockey players out there who do care and who speak up and not only talk the talk but walk the walk!

there's definitely a lot of shitty players and fans, and you can find a free block list under any hockey tweet thats positive towards queer people ("hockeys gone woke!" 🙄) but that's pretty common on twitter in general especially with the blue checks getting pushed to the top. in general i feel pretty positive about hockey culture - i've felt very welcomed into the sport by fans. i think theres still a lot of work to be done, across the entire sport (blackhawks are a terrible organization who've covered up nasty things, for example, or the team canada situation which i won't even get into here) and it can definitely feel like loving a sport that doesn't always love you back. but then there are days where it does! the travis dermotts and scott laughlins are out there! the bruins captain patrice bergeron (hes retired now but he'll always be captain in my heart) issued a statement back in 2016 supporting a transgender rights bill in massachusetts and when i found that after becoming a bruins fan i almost WEPT. and our current captain brad marchand has been our hockey is for everyone ambassador for years and always taped his stick for pride nights.

so i guess the tldr is. yeah. there's a homophobia problem at a management level in the nhl. gary bettman (commissioner of the nhl) can be blamed for a lot of that. but as a sport i think there's more love than hate.