NHL Anti-Thread: Bad Business Decision Aggregator

[sky1324]

I was always curious to see if the NHL would at least pretend to have good values by properly defending their "Hockey is for Everyone" campaign. Even if it is performative, I still appreciate being told that I belong. They can't even keep that up. Disappointing but not surprising.

[DTConcepts]

 

[AFirestormToPurify]

[The_Admiral]

More than other sports, politics and hockey have always been a bad mix. There's a lot going on here with messaging, doing something because you want to and not because you have to, the commodification of gay rights, but the NHL managed to botch this one as usual.

[The_Admiral]

Well, they botched it again: the Rangers advertised a Pride Night and then pulled back on it. 

 

At this point, it's almost better not to try. Part of the whole idea of hockey, more than any other sport, is that the big rickety machine does not work unless the individuals subsume themselves to the group. That goes back to the Catholics and Protestants agreeing not to hate each other if they found themselves on the same team. That team-over-everything-and-we-mean-everything concept just doesn't map to modern identity politics well, which is all about atomizing people and then specifically marketing to them. (The other problem is that hockey, being Canadian, never really mapped to American politics all that well to begin with; that changed in 2020 when the American culture war truly went hegemonic.)

 

So what if you just didn't? What if you didn't have We're Fine With The Gays Night Presented By Chase? How do you still make sure everyone can derive a sense of belonging, or at least not a sense of not belonging, without dressing people up in rainbows if they don't particularly want to be dressed in rainbows? No Chinese night, no Irish night, no fragmentation of any type. Do you just take your game-night promotional budget and reallocate it to grassroots stuff? What do you do to stop faceplanting on this stuff?

[spartacat_12]

On 1/30/2023 at 7:54 PM, the admiral said:

Well, they botched it again: the Rangers advertised a Pride Night and then pulled back on it. 

 

At this point, it's almost better not to try. Part of the whole idea of hockey, more than any other sport, is that the big rickety machine does not work unless the individuals subsume themselves to the group. That goes back to the Catholics and Protestants agreeing not to hate each other if they found themselves on the same team. That team-over-everything-and-we-mean-everything concept just doesn't map to modern identity politics well, which is all about atomizing people and then specifically marketing to them. (The other problem is that hockey, being Canadian, never really mapped to American politics all that well to begin with; that changed in 2020 when the American culture war truly went hegemonic.)

 

So what if you just didn't? What if you didn't have We're Fine With The Gays Night Presented By Chase? How do you still make sure everyone can derive a sense of belonging, or at least not a sense of not belonging, without dressing people up in rainbows if they don't particularly want to be dressed in rainbows? No Chinese night, no Irish night, no fragmentation of any type. Do you just take your game-night promotional budget and reallocate it to grassroots stuff? What do you do to stop faceplanting on this stuff?

 

So your solution is to just give up and let the bigots win? If the NHL is actually serious about this stuff it would have thorough diversity & inclusion policies that would allow them to punish players who choose not to participate in something like a pride warmup jersey night. Unfortunately the majority of influential executives around the league are still conservative, white men, so it's clear that the "hockey is for everyone" slogan is nothing more than a ploy to try and make some extra money.

 

The interesting thing is that while men's professional sports seem to be behind the rest of the world when it comes to this stuff, women's pro sports are some of the safest spaces for members of the LGBTQ+ community.

[gosioux76]

14 hours ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

So your solution is to just give up and let the bigots win? If the NHL is actually serious about this stuff it would have thorough diversity & inclusion policies that would allow them to punish players who choose not to participate in something like a pride warmup jersey night. Unfortunately the majority of influential executives around the league are still conservative, white men, so it's clear that the "hockey is for everyone" slogan is nothing more than a ploy to try and make some extra money.

 

The interesting thing is that while men's professional sports seem to be behind the rest of the world when it comes to this stuff, women's pro sports are some of the safest spaces for members of the LGBTQ+ community.

 

I agree with you. But if players continue to make a public issue of being against it, forcing it would appear to be doing the teams more harm than good. It ends up shifting the narrative not to LGBTQ+ inclusion but to one of players' rights to have beliefs of their own. You end up making martyrs of them and deflect from the cause. 

 

Rather than giving up, the smarter move would be to play up LGBTQ+ inclusion in every other part of the gameday experience other than the players themselves. Show that the organization is investing in the community outside the rink. They're not responsible if their players end up being bigots. But that doesn't mean the organization can't go the extra mile. 

 

That's the real issue here. Send the message that your players may not be on board, but we are. 

[The_Admiral]

20 hours ago, spartacat_12 said:

If the NHL is actually serious about this stuff it would have thorough diversity & inclusion policies that would allow them to punish players who choose not to participate in something like a pride warmup jersey night.

spartacat_12 taking the side of middle management over organized labor with a collective bargaining agreement. Sad! Maybe there's a better solution than "report talent to HR."

[GDAWG]

 

[The_Admiral]

On 2/2/2023 at 8:59 AM, gosioux76 said:

Rather than giving up, the smarter move would be to play up LGBTQ+ inclusion in every other part of the gameday experience other than the players themselves. Show that the organization is investing in the community outside the rink. They're not responsible if their players end up being bigots. But that doesn't mean the organization can't go the extra mile. 

I agree. Community investment is a better path, and I think it will have better long-term effects than the head-pats of warmup jerseys. I think players should support causes if they want to, and they should want to, but shouldn't be made to partake in empty gestures under penalty of DEI administrators if they don't want to. I'd even say that players can go out and express whatever they want in warmups, maybe that's rainbow tape every night, but then it's just about the team once the real game starts. I just don't think Black Night and Gay Night are good culture fits.

[spartacat_12]

2 hours ago, the admiral said:

I agree. Community investment is a better path, and I think it will have better long-term effects than the head-pats of warmup jerseys. I think players should support causes if they want to, and they should want to, but shouldn't be made to partake in empty gestures under penalty of DEI administrators if they don't want to. I'd even say that players can go out and express whatever they want in warmups, maybe that's rainbow tape every night, but then it's just about the team once the real game starts. I just don't think Black Night and Gay Night are good culture fits.

 

So what would happen if an MLB player said they didn't want to wear 42 on their jersey for Jackie Robinson Day because of their "beliefs"? At the end of the day these athletes are employees of the league, and you forgo certain rights when you show up to work. If you don't want to be involved than you should lose the privilege of playing that night.

 

Obviously there needs to be a holistic approach that includes educational elements rather that pure punishment, but the optics of dropping these nights altogether is just as bad as one or two players declining to participate.

[The_Admiral]

43 minutes ago, spartacat_12 said:

At the end of the day these athletes are employees of the league, and you forgo certain rights when you show up to work. If you don't want to be involved than you should lose the privilege of playing that night.

 

At the actual end of the day, there's a players' union that wouldn't stand idly by while new administrators invent new fines and suspensions to impose on its members. This isn't a normal email job where HR can just do whatever it wants to at-will employees. Morally speaking, players shouldn't be opting out of participation, but legally speaking, they shouldn't be punished for not doing so, and practically speaking, trying to weave social change into a sponsored promotional calendar is gauche anyway.

 

 

[spartacat_12]

15 minutes ago, the admiral said:

At the actual end of the day, there's a players' union that wouldn't stand idly by while new administrators invent new fines and suspensions to impose on its members. This isn't a normal email job where HR can just do whatever it wants to at-will employees. Morally speaking, players shouldn't be opting out of participation, but legally speaking, they shouldn't be punished for not doing so, and practically speaking, trying to weave social change into a sponsored promotional calendar is gauche anyway.

 

Kyrie Irving got suspended for anti-Semitism, and while the NBPA didn't necessarily agree they weren't able to do anything about it. And the NBA players have much more influence over how their league is run compared to the NHL.

 

There is also a literal Declaration of Principles that the NHL & NHLPA agreed to put in place a few years back.

 

https://www.nhl.com/info/nhl-declaration-of-principles

 

One of these principles is "All hockey programs should provide a safe, positive and inclusive environment for players and families regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation and socio-economic status. Simply put, hockey is for everyone."

 

I'd say there is just cause to suspend or at least fine any player who's behaviour does not adhere with this principle. 

[The_Admiral]

Is "I'd prefer not to wear a rainbow shirt today" an unsafe environment for gay people? Do you really think that's equivalent to Kyrie Irving's deranged antisemitism? You don't, you just like the idea of managers punishing people.

[dont care]

1 hour ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

Kyrie Irving got suspended for anti-Semitism, and while the NBPA didn't necessarily agree they weren't able to do anything about it. And the NBA players have much more influence over how their league is run compared to the NHL.

 

There is also a literal Declaration of Principles that the NHL & NHLPA agreed to put in place a few years back.

 

https://www.nhl.com/info/nhl-declaration-of-principles

 

One of these principles is "All hockey programs should provide a safe, positive and inclusive environment for players and families regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation and socio-economic status. Simply put, hockey is for everyone."

 

I'd say there is just cause to suspend or at least fine any player who's behaviour does not adhere with this principle. 

Kyrie being an antisemitic dickhead is different than a guy saying “yea I don’t want to wear that jersey, y’all can warm up without me” you are comparing apples and oranges. It doesn’t help that kyrie is one of the most egotistical asshats on the planet and has been suspended before by the same team for his conspiracy theories.

[spartacat_12]

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

Is "I'd prefer not to wear a rainbow shirt today" an unsafe environment for gay people? Do you really think that's equivalent to Kyrie Irving's deranged antisemitism? You don't, you just like the idea of managers punishing people.

 

I don't like the idea of managers punishing people. I just think that if a player or team's actions go directly against the league's inclusion policies then there should be consequences. I gave a previous example of a white player saying "I'd prefer not to wear Jackie Robinson's number" in MLB, which is more comparable than Kyrie. You don't think MLB would suspend that player?

 

If a player says "I'd prefer not to wear a rainbow shirt" what they are actually saying is "gay people make me uncomfortable". There's no other logical explanation for it. If I were a member of the LGBTQ+ community that wouldn't exactly give off the message that I'm welcome at games, especially if the team did nothing about it.

 

For all we know there could be closeted gay players on the Flyers or Rangers who are dealing with even more anxiety about their identity because of these situations.

[The_Admiral]

6 hours ago, spartacat_12 said:

If a player says "I'd prefer not to wear a rainbow shirt" what they are actually saying is "gay people make me uncomfortable".

 

I don't think this is what they're saying but I cannot say what I think they really think. 

[GDAWG]

 

[SailorOfSilence102]

It's not hockey, but just this year Anthony Edwards posted a video of himself insulting gay men for really 0 reason. I, as a q/ueer person, basically know a vast majority of players in male sports, more likely then not, are not tolerated of who I am, so I kind of just have to accept it, but I do think having a pride night here and there can help members of the LGBTQ+ community not feel so damn unwelcomed by sports. Is punishing players for not wanting to participate the best idea ? I honestly don't know, but I don't think getting rid of them just because some players are vocal about their intolerance is the solution either.

 

There are so many reasons people in general, but specifically men in sports are q/ueerphobic, having pride nights isn't gonna fix that, I know that, but I think it helps normalize LGBTQ+ people among others who don't have strong feelings, and it's a small, if somewhat hallow, gesture of goodwill from a medium that has told me, for basically my entire life, it doesn't want me to be a fan and doesn't respect who I am.

[sky1324]

Exactly, I don't expect the homophobes and xenophobes of the league to suddenly be paragons of the LGBTQ+ cause, but I do believe in normalization and gestures of goodwill - provided they get backed up. Personally? I don't care if players don't like gay people, they should wear the damn rainbow shirt for an hour before a game because that's the uniform for the day and every player on the team should wear the same uniform.