‘Hockey is for Everyone’ has always been an NHL brand, with teams and organizations across the country, and boarders, encouraging any person interested to try the sport. Still, the NHL has had an image problem because hockey simply doesn’t appeal to Americans like football or basketball. But rather than make concrete their audience base, the NHL has decided to go in a different direction. In January, the ECHL Kalamazoo Wings painted their ice as a rainbow for ‘Hockey is for Everyone’ night. A few months later the NHL released their demographic report of workers, breaking down their workforce statistics of males, females, blacks, whites, and even heterosexuality. Kim David, Executive Vice President, said the report shows that the number of women working in the league is proportionate to the number of women who like hockey in the population; but, that isn’t enough and more progress can be made. In other words, the NHL was already diverse, but in the name of progress they can make it…. worse. In November, the NHL held a trans-hockey tournament with Madison, Wisconsin’s, Team Trans. The NHL tweeted: “Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Nonbinary identity is real.” Hockey’s image is now appealing to .07% (trans) and 6% (gay, etc.) of the U.S. population while ignoring its already tiny base. Hockey may be ‘for everyone’ but not everyone is going to enjoy hockey or play the sport; it’s violent, rough, and requires serious skill. Any notion that a biological woman could be put up against enormous men skating at 40mph is downright dangerous. Rather than keeping ‘pride’ where it belongs, alongside of ‘pink Jersey’ night for cancer, or military appreciate night, the NHL is making their entire image about something its fans don’t care about. Skill, talent, passing, shooting, skating, teamwork, and the reality that only one team can be crowned champion, has been broken down to categories of black, pride, gender, indigenous, pacific islander, asian, hispanic, latin American, etc. What is even stranger is that the Tampa Bay Lighting’s J.T. Brown, one of a handful of black NHL players, was reprehended in 2017 for putting his fist in the air during the national anthem. Somehow the NHL has gone from zero tolerance for perverting hockey with political messages to folding completely within five years to an ideology that has infested every other major sport. The NHL is now the NHLGBTQIA+


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