The NHL sends social conservatives to the penalty box
by David Atkins
I’ve always loved the sport of hockey–played it a great deal on rollerblades when I was younger, and I’m learning to ice skate better so that I can eventually play on the real thing. Not a fan of the fights and all that ugliness, but the sport itself, when kept clean, is exciting to play and fun to watch. This just makes it even better.
Maybe it really is as simple as it sounds.
That for the NHL and its players, establishing a partnership with the You Can Play project — which fights homophobia and advocates for the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual athletes in sports — was born of fairness and logic and isn’t really a big deal.
“In talking to the guys and all the rest of it, I think the basic feeling was this is the right thing to do, so we oughta go do it. And that’s the motivation,” Donald Fehr, executive director of the NHL Players’ Assn., said Thursday.
“You do it because it’s the right thing to do.”
It was. Yet, the agreement announced Thursday between the league, the union and You Can Play is a big deal and should be recognized as that.
It’s the first time a major men’s professional sports league has made inclusion its official policy and will back its words with deeds that include educational seminars for rookies and confidential outreach resources for players. When coaches like Rutgers’ Mike Rice can sling homophobic slurs at players without being fired until ESPN airs a video of the tirades, it’s exemplary for the NHL and its players to fight intolerance at every level.
“This isn’t, ‘OK, we’ll tolerate a gay fan,’ or ‘We’ll tolerate a gay player, we’ll tolerate a gay coach.’ We invite you. We’ll welcome you into the hockey community,” said Patrick Burke, who founded You Can Play just over a year ago in tribute to his brother, Brendan, who came out as gay while serving as the student manager of the hockey team at Miami University of Ohio and died in a car crash in 2010.
“We want you to be a part of this and to feel safe. It’s really historic.”
Good for them, good for hockey, good for pro sports, and good for society in general. One by one the barriers keep coming down. Sure, it doesn’t threaten the big money boys and the established economic order. But it’s worth celebrating nonetheless.
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