The Blackhawks are the Chicago NHL team, I'm just now learning. And the "Pride-themed jerseys"...
... seem objectionable for some American reasons — Native American mascot, political brand stamped on a Native American brand, LGBTQ support imposed on players — but the Russians got the NHL organization to silence the political speech.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law in December that significantly expands restrictions on activities seen as promoting LGBTQ rights in the country.
Which country? I believe the law relates to Russia, not the U.S., but the extraterritorial reach occurs because people in the U.S. are choosing to impose Russia's repression here. The NHL characterizes its behavior as motivated by "security" concerns, presumably relating to persons who do live in Russia. We're told: "Chicago defenseman Nikita Zaitsev is a Moscow native, and there are other players with family in Russia or other connections to the country."
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Let's just start from the position that the story is from the Associated Press and is therefor just utter contrivance and poppycock.
Transgender spectrum and a pride parade, less the lions, to celebrate albinophobic symbols and rhetoric, people of black and brown excluded.
"but the extraterritorial reach occurs because people in the U.S. are choosing to impose Russia's repression here"
Not just Russia,
"but the extraterritorial reach occurs because people in the U.S. are choosing to impose Islam's repression [the Sharia] here"
First, the LBGTQ crowd wanted acceptance. Now they want you to be an advocate for them.
It’s like the old Texas legislator said: What you tolerate today, you endorse tomorrow and subsidize forever.”
The issue is not transgender spectrum rights, it's progress of the ethical religion (e.g. wicked solution), and dysfunctional choices (e.g. friends with "benefits", persons with wombs): trans/homosexuals and trans/neos considered separately, and socially distanced as has been processed in America by the politically congruent ("=").
Russian influence has a very long way to go to catch up with ChiCom influence.
I've often wondered how the Russian NHL players escaped the wrath of the US warmongers. Alec Ovechkin, the Washington Capitals star, is/ was a high level supporter of The Vlad. Most teams have one or more Russian players. It's all about the money. The NHL has foot on the boat, one foot on the dock. Sooner or later they will get wet.
On the LBTQ etc front, Kayleigh Scott was a highly promoted trans individual. He, then she, was in an United Airlines advertisement.
"Transgender flight attendant Kayleigh Scott — who gained fame after appearing in a United Airlines commercial — was found dead Monday in her Colorado home. She was 25.
Scott, who shared her transition story for a 2020 Trans Day of Visibility video produced by United ...
Scott committed suicide. These people need significant therapy, not surgery. Supporters of the scalpel are misguided.
https://nypost.com/2023/03/23/trans-flight-attendant-famed-for-united-ad-dies-by-suicied/
the extraterritorial reach occurs because people in the U.S. are choosing to impose Russia's repression here. The NHL characterizes its behavior as motivated by "security" concerns, presumably relating to persons who do live in Russia.
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was NHL allowing players freddom to or not to?
The picture you're citing is of the regular Blackhawks logo. I think the pride jerseys have the player numbers colored like the pride flag.
I think many hockey fans are tired of this "Hockey is for Everyone" promotion that the NHL has been forcing for the last few years. It's clearly just about promoting LGBTQ.
That was a hard to understand excerpt until the last sentence, which pulled it all together, but maybe should have been placed closer to the beginning.
I'm just pleased when I see a team still resisting the woke juggernaut of fake outrage. My team caved to the BS squad last year and now I feel like I don't have a team. (The Guardians are not the team I grew up with. They're not the team that signed my baseball when I was 13, not the team whose bleachers I got drunk in after ditching work on gloriously sunny summer afternoons at 19. I can't bring myself to care about them.)
It's a funny blog post, Althouse; kudos.
Tangentially related (you hinted at it, but I can tell you more) to the rainbow uniform patches is the much larger issue of certain NHL players. Starting with Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals.
Ovechkin has a long history of personal and public support for Putin. Support given, even as a highly privileged ultra-wealthy professional hockey player (thanks to the NHL, but perhaps also to Putin's largesse) with luxury homes in the US and elsewhere. Putin adores hockey; Putin knows how important professional/international hockey is to the Russian people; Putin craves the personal attention of pro hockey superstars.
Ovechkin is not alone as a notorious personal supporter of Putin. There are other professional athletes and stars who support Putin. But there are also courageous athletes and others who have spoken out against Putin and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Still, Ovechkin is a special case because he's now at the end of a preeminent scoring career in the NHL. He's independently, internationally wealthy, and while he has been given plenty of openings in which to distance himself from Putin, he hasn't done so. And he was unusually close to Putin. It's a big black eye for hockey and the NHL.
No "bullshit" stamp for this one?
It seems more likely that the Blackhawks management is trying to back out of making political statements and is using the Russian law as a rationale.
The Blackhawks are named after a specific Native American, Black Hawk. How many people have been honored like this?
This is also one of the original 6 NHL teams.
This again? Really?
If the NHL has a problem with either the Blackhawk's name or how they run their team, they should pay the owner twice what it's worth and run it themselves, or sell it to a liberal idiot who will re-name them the 'Queens' or some such nonsense.
As for Russian players, unless they are Jewish they are Orthodox. And Russian/Eastern Orthodox Christians don't put up with any gay stuff.
That is their actual religion.
If you have a problem with that, then don't support the team.
Then tell a 1.9B Muslims to go fuck themselves.
But you won't do that. Nobody does that.
"Security concerns" is very vague. Seems like the article went out of it's way not to tell readers what exactly are the potential consequences Russian players are concerned about?
Well apparently, the Russian players could be prevented from leaving Russia and returning to the US after visiting their families. Also their military deferments could be revoked or allowed to expire and they could wind up getting killed by Pride-themed, US-provided ordnance in Ukraine. In addition, their loved ones in Russia could suffer consequences.
Seems like the LGBTQ community could be a little understanding and show a little empathy under the circumstances. I mean, it's just a jersey for Pete's sake. And it's a jersey they don't want to wear in the first place. They were being forced to wear them by those with political power. IOW, their opinions about the issue were being censored...kinda like in Russia.
Hold on a second, a supposedly well-read supposed law professor supposedly living in Madison, Wisconsin, 147 miles from Chi-Town, isn't aware that there's a hockey team there called the Blackhawks?
I think I'm seeing a glitch in the Matrix....
I call BS.
San Jose already had a player skip a previous event, which caused a lot of negative PR for the league when he wasn't disciplined for not participating.
Sharks' James Reimer declines to wear Pride-themed jersey
The Russians may also have declined, and as the NHL cannot have even more people opting out, it's preemptively cancelling the events for "reasons beyond its control".
NHL teams or any other sports teams shouldn't be forcing their players to wear narrow special interest political symbols or slogans on their uniforms. It's a bad look. But pro sports has been taken over by brainwashed Ivy Leaguers, so it's not surprising they act like the tyrannical woke idiots they are.
"LGBTQ support"
Is there any evidence that any actual Blackhawks ever gave such support?
What exactly are these "LGBTQ+ rights" everyone is so exercised about? Nobody is stopping them from renting a room and doing whatever it is that they do instead of sex. Do they want something more? What? They don't need to worry about birth control, right? So what are they after? Bras they can burn? Babies they can rape? They have that in Georgia, I guess they want it everywhere else. I think I'm with Vlad on this one. Sorry, no rape-babies today.
Have to admit I still don't understand the desire to force hockey players to celebrate "Pride".
The logo Injun has for different color feathers. Isn't that enough of a rainbow?
Here's the thing. If an organization wants to pander to a special interest group, they can put up all the banners it wants, paint the field, arena, whatever. To force individuals in the organization to participate through some sort of activity or uniform is immoral. There is no reason to have special Jerseys. In baseball, I think that players choose their own pink clothing to celebrate mother's day, but the choice is theirs. That is how it should be.
You Must Wear The Ribbon.
The Blackhawks are not named for a tribe but for a specific person named Black Hawk. Learned that on YouTube.
The players don’t want to wear the stupid pandering political woke jerseys, and any port in a storm will do.
How do the Native Americans feel about this? Don’t they have a say?
nth-wave colonial Americans, indigenous by birth, alien by citizenship.
STFU and play hockey.
because people in the U.S. are choosing to impose Russia's repression here.
Not forcing people into compelled speech is not repression. It's the opposite.
And if you're so damn 'proud' about it, why do you need constant affirmation? Again, stfu and play hockey.
"I believe the law relates to Russia, not the U.S., but the extraterritorial reach occurs because people in the U.S. are choosing to impose Russia's repression here."
I'm no expert on this, but don't some countries assert the right to prosecute their citizens for crimes their citizens commit in foreign jurisdictions? If so, then might some Russian nationals playing for NHL teams be concerned that they will be prosecuted for participating in team-mandated events that Russian law? Most return home in the summer to visit their families.
Point isn't to disagree -- people in US are choosing not to do something they would have otherwise done because of Russian law. But if Russia exercises its criminal jurisdiction over its citizens for activities abroad, then its a far more complex situation than "adopting Russia's repression." Imposing a choice on a player -- participate in this event and face potential prosecution or decline to participate and suffer whatever consequences the team and/or society wishes to foist on you -- is a pretty sticky wicket. A hockey player probably didn't imagine that making the NHL carries with it these dilemmas. It is a dilemma being foisted upon the player by the player's country (whose government he can't control) and team (whose decision to participate in social issues he can't control).
This is why beliefs on social issues are generally best left to the individual to navigate -- whether to speak about those issues, whether to organize around those issues, whether to vote based on them, etc. -- and not given to the employer to require (or ban) or governments (to require or ban).
Half of me wants to believe that the team simply didn't want to do this nonsense and found any excuse.
I'm glad. This crap permeates everything these days. The NHL is run by the same toadies who populate the managerial ranks of other sports conglomerates. How many trans players are there in the NHL? Are they MTF or FTM?
These Russian players (and they're on many NHL teams) have permanent homes in Russia and return there in the off-season. They're thinking of their wives and children, not to mention the spectre of being arrested the moment they step onto Russian soil. Don't think for a minute that if one of these players dons a Pride-related sweater (they're not called jerseys in hockey) that image gets shot around the world in nanoseconds. They're choosing not to go-along-to-get-along because it will not benefit them in the least. If a club cuts them loose, they'll play elsewhere. Or they'll take their puck and go home. Win-Win.
Side benefit: their stand has helped other American-born players to go the same route. See San Jose Goalie who did the same thing this week.
The Blackhawks are the Chicago NHL team, I'm just now learning.
Wait...you live in Wisconsin, and you don't know Chicago has a hockey team...?!
Reminds me of the NBA bowing to Chinese pressure. Though I wonder if the Blackhawks are using this as an excuse to just not wear the jersey. Of the 4 major sports in America, Hockey Fans are probably the most conservative of the fan bases. Pride themed jerseys are probably fairly unpopular with the fanbase and perhaps the players as well.
All gay all the time.Thank God they can't reproduce (unless they buy a kid).
I don't care if some guy wants to ram his dick up another guy's ass. Don't ask me to celebrate it.
Do Native Americans give a shit about LGBTQ issues? Don't they have other issues to deal with on their reservations?
Dominic Cummings make a persuasive case that the identification of Russia/Putin with Trump is so great among progressives that they think they are striking a blow against Trump when they oppose Putin.
Geoff Matthews said...
The Blackhawks are named after a specific Native American, Black Hawk.
Actually, the Chicago Blackhawks was named after the US Army's 86th Infantry Division, which was known as the Blackhawk Division. The teams second owner Frederic McLaughlin named the team to honor the division he served in during World War I.
Do Native Americans give a shit about LGBTQ issues?
Many indigenous Americans believe in human rites a la Pro-Choice. In Africa, the transgender spectrum is replaced with albinophobia, which represents a fine symmetry across cultures.
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