Inclusion more than lip service
There was the kiss between Doug Gilmour and Don Cherry on Hockey Night in Canada.
There was the on-ice kiss Brad Marchand planted on an unamused Leo Komarov.
There was the long ago kiss-cam smooch upon Martin Lapointe by Stevie Yzerman, with a much-amused Brendan Shanahan sitting alongside on the Detroit bench.
Actually, we were certain there was also a full-on buss — Brett Hull laying a wet one on Shanahan — during the kiss-cam thing, way back in the day. It was an LSD flashback apparently because the Leaf president assures us via email that never happened. “Acid or mushrooms. Did not kiss Brett.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with it.
Just saying that hockey, often derided as the most conservative and manlyman skewed of sports, Neanderthal even, was the first professional sports league (and players association) to align itself with the LGBTQ community and the first to formally partner, in 2013, with You Can Play, a social activism campaign dedicated to the obliteration of homophobia in sports.
True, there has sometimes been an undercurrent of mockery to the lip service. On Coach’s Corner, Cherry has delivered mincing comment, parodying the gay lisp stereotype, just as he used to sneer at effete European players. Swede equals limp, you know.
Still, hockey has pulled on its big-boy pants to take an influential role in expanding the conversation surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity, promoting equality and respect through all ranks of the game.
“I think about the leadership we’ve had on this at the league office level,” noted Shanahan. “I’m so glad that the NHL got involved. But there’s still a feeling we can always do more.”
Monday, the Maple Leafs beat the Bufalo Sabres 5-3 on You Can Play Night, an annual event that is part of this month’s “Hockey is for Everyone” NHL-wide celebrations.
Among that sold-out crowd at Scotiabank Arena were 50 members of You Can Play and the Toronto Gay Hockey Association, watching from the Fan Deck. The jumbotron showed public service announcements featuring Leafs throughout the game, shared on the team’s digital media channels, along with “Hockey is for Everyone” stories.
Players used rainbow-flag tape on their sticks at the morning skate and the pre-game warm-up. In the dressing room, they pulled rainbow decal ball caps over their heads.
As did coach Mike Babcock in the a.m. media confab: “We live in a city, one of the greatest cities in the world, to say the least. Everybody here is welcome. Everybody here is a part. It doesn’t matter what you think, or what you believe, it’s an equal opportunity place, like no place I’ve ever seen. The Leafs are that way as well. I think it’s a fantastic thing.” Zach Hyman, a hometown Leaf from a family of five boys, is the team’s Hockey is for Everyone ambassador, the successor to the departed James van Riemsdyk as point man for the You Can Play alliance.
“It was something I believe in — a no-brainer,” Hyman said.
Coming up through the ranks of minor hockey in Toronto, Hyman witnessed the in- clusivity of the sport, be it for gays, girls or immigrant Canadians who embrace the sport with first-generation enthusiasm. The global organization, Right to Play, founded by Norwegian Olympic speedskating god Johann Olav Koss, empowers kids the world over, via sports. But You Can Play is closely, intimately entwined with sexual identity.
“Not just in hockey but in society in general, there’s been a movement in the direction of common sense,” Hyman said. “That it doesn’t matter what your sexual orientation is or how you identify yourself. If you want to do something, go out and do it. You shouldn’t be restricted by how you feel and you how you identify yourself. Hockey has really come a long way in that. Being a hockey player, I think it’s important that the league recognized how important this movement is, and they do. The guys in this locker room do. It’s not just one night, it’s an every night thing.”
Hyman salutes the Burke clan for gay awareness and inclusive advocacy — former Leafs GM Brian Burke, who sits on the advisory board of You Can Play; his son Patrick, who co-founded the organization following the tragic death in a 2010 highway car accident of his brother Brendan; and Brendan, the 21-year-old student manager for the Miami U RedHawks who came out to a supportive family in 2009, using his own story to inspire and encourage.
You Can Play memorializes Brendan Burke, taking an educational rather than punishing approach toward expunging the casual homophobia that can infect all sports.
“There’s definitely a persona of the macho guy in hockey,” Hyman agreed. “You see that with the grizzly beards at playoff time. Maybe we don’t look what people expect of somebody who’s accepting. But everybody, guys in this locker room too, has somebody in their life who’s gay, family members or friends. It’s just a part of life and shouldn’t re- strict you in any way.
“To me, it was always just common sense. Growing up, there wasn’t any negativity or stigma against being gay.”
Although he heard the slurs, the f-word, here and there, a long time ago.
“A lot of it was unconscious, not even realizing that those were slurs. I don’t think that guys grew up being homophobic. People now are more sensitive to those words, how hurtful they are. Not just in hockey, not just in sports, but on social media, everywhere. Just like racial slurs. They hurt.
Hyman, who is Jewish, has been exposed to anti-Semitic bile, though never in the NHL. He shrugged it off.
“There’s always going to be hate. But if enough good people come together, you can eradicate it.”