A Walking Disaster

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no one is asking every nhl player to be an "activist" for the LGBTQ+ community. people are simply asking them to do the bare minimum and wear a pride jersey for twenty minutes during warmups.

contrary to subban's claim here, if a player can't put on a pride jersey for 20 minutes, they can't claim to support the community. almost every player who's backed out of wearing a jersey has attempted in their statement to claim something along the lines of "well, i still think that the LGBTQ+ community should feel welcome in hockey" but they fail to do anything to make them feel that way, and, not only that, actually make LGBTQ+ fans feel more unwelcome.

i'd love for subban to point to one instance where any of these players who have refused to wear the jersey have, in place of wearing it, done any concrete action to support the community (spoiler alert: they haven't).

framing nhl pride nights as transforming all players into "activists" for the LGBTQ+ community is ridiculous, and especially disappointing coming from pk.

what's clear to me is he made these statements without really trying to reach out to any queer fans about how the league's movement away from requiring players to wear the pride jerseys makes them feel. this last part of the article makes that abundantly clear:

pk has done amazing work to bring attention to the systemic nature of anti-Black racism in hockey. i wish he'd translate that experience and try to understand how queer fans really feel when they see the league abandoning initiatives that are meant to foster a feeling of inclusion.