All Minnesota Wild goaltender Marc-André Fleury wanted to do was honor his Indigenous wife and his family’s ancestors by wear a specially designed mask. That’s it. That’s all. This is something a league like the NHL should immediately support. That’s thoughtful. It’s honorable. This shows that the players and the league respect different people and cultures. It should be impossible to get it wrong, but that’s exactly what the NHL did.
While you were celebrating the holidays and watching bad football, an infuriating story was unfolding in the NHL. The way this all happened says a lot about the sport and how it views diversity. There are lessons here not only for the NHL, but also for people who believe in a diverse world.
The NHL initially told Fleury he couldn’t wear the mask, according to his agent. Not only was Fleury threatened with a fine, Allan Wash said, but the NHL said it would also fine the Wild organization. Fleury still wore the mask Friday evening during warm-ups. A source told ESPN no punishment was planned for Fleury or the team for wearing the mask.
It’s impossible to know exactly, but it appears it wasn’t until the story became public and the NHL was criticized for being heartless that the threat of fines was lifted. What the NHL apparently did in threatening Fleury and the Wild was so over the top that it was heartless and cruel. It seemed like a league run by robots who didn’t understand that its players were human. He didn’t seem to realize, until he was forced to do so by embarrassment, that he had to make exceptions for acts of genuine kindness and support.
What happened to Fleury is not an isolated case either. This is also what happened when the league initially prohibits the use of the Pride band which the players used as sticks. It was only after a huge backlash that the the league overturned the ban.
Especially, when the NHL does things like these, like, at least initially, not allowing one of its players to honor his Indigenous wife on Native American Heritage Evening, message sent and received. I repeat: Fleury wanted to pay tribute to his Indigenous wife during Native American Heritage Evening.
By handling this in an embarrassing and clumsy way, he is telling certain communities and individuals that the NHL is not for everyone. You and you and you, who looks like all of us: cool, come in. You and you and you, who do not believe, or who do not believe what we do, well, you or your beliefs are banished.
The NHL will say this is absurd. NHL defensemen will say the same thing. But look what they did. The Pride videotape ban was one of the ugliest bans a league has imposed in years and it took a gigantic national outcry for the NHL to change.
It must also be said that there is a small part of the NHL that wants to control what appears on its players’ equipment, even if this control is exaggerated, it is understandable. What Fleury did was full of empathy. But what happens if you come across a player who wants to wear gear with “White Lives Matter” on it? above?
In other words, some players would abuse the process, and it could potentially get ugly. This is a real dilemma facing the NHL and other leagues. This is a part of history that we must recognize.
The league, however, can easily make exceptions, and it can do so without being ashamed of it.
The worst part of this story is that the NHL initially does not see the opportunity to show, at least a little, that it can broaden its appeal. The NHL has long struggled to accommodate diverse voices. A remarkable documentary entitled Black ice examined the history of racism and anti-blackness in hockey in excruciating detail. While the film looks at hockey in the past (and not just the NHL), it also shows what the situation is like for players in the sport today.
“The biggest takeaway from Black ice This is how slow hockey has been to properly address systemic racism,” read a review. “Sport preaches that no one is above the team. But how does this apply to individuals who are often a minority in their own locker room?”
Last year, the NHL released a survey that showed the league’s roster was 83.6 percent white. On the ice, about 90 percent of the players and almost all of the coaches and game officials are white. The racial makeup of the league is not entirely within the NHL’s control, but the league’s attitude toward non-white players and others is.
Fleury’s story began with wonderful intentions. Michael Russo of The Athletic reported that Fleury had a new mask designed by a member of the Prairie Island Indian community. The drawing paid homage to his wife’s ancestors and also featured a quote from Fleury’s father and the names of his children.
The NHL could handle this situation quite easily by taking each case individually instead of a blanket ban. If a player wants to use the Pride tape, let them apply, and if it’s a noble cause like that, let them do it. If they apply to something inflammatory or ugly, don’t let them.
Most of the process wouldn’t be as difficult as it seems as long as the league was transparent. We know the NHL can change tactics because they did so with the Pride tape. They apparently did this in other situations as well. ESPN reported Friday that while Fleury’s request was initially denied, it allowed two goalies to wear special masks for Hockey Fights Cancer nights this season: Florida Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky and Seattle Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer. ESPN said a source familiar with the decision said the exemptions were because those players had worn cancer awareness masks before the ban was enacted, and that the league had approved the nature of the ban. cause they supported.
That says a lot, doesn’t it.
Yes, the NHL could make this process a lot easier if it wanted to. Instead, it sends the clear message that hockey is not for everyone.
