I’m still shocked that things have changed so quickly from last Monday, when there was a glimmer of hope for the sport after Luke Prokop bravely came out as the first gay NHL player, to the horrible series of events that have occurred in the past 5 days. The author of this fantastic article wrote that the Canadiens’ 1st round selection was “an insult to ... every female NHL fan who has ever experienced sexual assault or harassment.” As a survivor of sexual harassment and stalking at the hands of a star athlete at my high school, I agree with that statement, but it needs to be taken further:
The Canadiens’ selection and the NHL’s subsequent non-response, and everything else that has happened thus far in 2021—the D**ngelo incident, the V*rtanen investigation & its evolution, the Blackhawks scandal, and today, the Hurricanes taking interest in both V*rtanen & D**angelo—have made it crystal clear that hockey is not for everyone. Hockey is not for women. Hockey is not for members of the LGBTQ+ community. Hockey is not for survivors of sexual assault or harassment. Hockey is for nobody except privileged, white, cisgender, heterosexual males. That is a goddamn shame because hockey is an amazing sport. But the cancer is so embedded within the culture that I’m not sure even the most extraordinary of measures would fix it.
