NHL's Pride tape fiasco is disappointing. Predictable, but disappointing

By banning the colour of tape a player can use, even in practices, the league has once again proven that it is utterly incapable of staying out of its own way

It’s comforting to know that there is no shortage of things in this world upon which people can rely without fail. The swallows returning to Capistrano is one of them. Really bad David Cronenberg movies, folks asking you in the fall whether you’ve noticed that it’s getting dark out earlier these days and the fact that the toast will always, always fall on the floor jam-side down are but a few others.

And, unfortunately for those of us who believe hockey is the greatest game in the world presided over by the worst league in the world, the NHL will always manage to find a solution begging for a problem, then consequently fail to read the room and make itself look petty, backward, inflexible and as though it’s mired in the Stone Age. The NHL under commissioner Gary Bettman is very good at a lot of positive things, but nothing matches its uncanny inability to get out of its own way.

As the unbearable pre-season came to an end and the NHL was just days from dropping the puck for real on what should be a compelling season, the league office felt compelled to “clarify” its position on special initiatives such as Pride Nights. It decreed that not only are teams banned from wearing rainbow-coloured Pride sweaters in warm-ups or morning skates, it went a step further by revoking the players’ right to choose whether or not they’d want to apply Pride tape to their sticks, even for practices.

So here we are. And the person who should be most upset by this actually occupies a space in the NHL’s office. His name is Steve Hatze Petros and he’s the NHL’s senior vice-president, scheduling and broadcast business, the person who assembles the regular-season schedule. Back in the summer when he was putting together the world’s most complex jigsaw puzzle, he thought it would be a good idea to open the season with generational phenom Connor Bedard starting his NHL career by going head-to-head with Sidney Crosby, who was in Bedard’s exact position 18 years ago and has forged a career as a top-five player in NHL history.

But as the season opens tonight, instead of talking about Bedard vs. Crosby, rather than discussing whether or not the Edmonton Oilers can finally fulfill their promise and win a Stanley Cup, in lieu of pondering how much closer Alex Ovechkin will come to breaking the league’s all-time goals record in 2023-24, the discourse is derailed by a league that is so myopic that it has decided to dictate the colour of tape players apply to their sticks.

If you subscribe to the theory that there is no such thing as bad press, well, the NHL knocked it out of the park on this one. (As an aside, I’ve said many times that I believe the NHL actually wears its outlier status as a badge of honour. Everybody zigs, it zags. Then those who run the league puff out their chests as though they’re the only ones who really understand.) But if you were looking for leadership from a professional sports league in the LGBTQ space and to continue to do the right thing is the face of uncertainty and controversy, you were undoubtedly once again let down by the NHL.

You see, this is a league that is all for things such as diversity and inclusion…right up until the moment things get a little uncomfortable. And that occurred last season when seven players refused to take part in pre-game warm-ups if they were compelled to wear Pride sweaters. It created a very, very uncomfortable conversation and once again called into question whether Hockey is for Everyone, which it clearly is not. It’s funny, though, isn’t it that when the players stepped out of line because of their so-called religious beliefs, the league and its players’ association were fully on board with their right to choose? But by banning the use of Pride tape, the league is OK with taking away the same rights it granted to the outliers just months ago. And where is the NHL Players’ Association on this issue? Where is the strongly worded condemnation from new executive director Marty Walsh? It may yet be forthcoming, but it should have been swift and decisive, and even confrontational.

Because that’s what this issue needs. Rather than continue the discourse around this issue, as uncomfortable and ugly as it can get sometimes, the league has chosen to close it altogether. You could argue, as many do, that this is all the media’s fault, that its stubborn insistence on pointing out the players who refused to participate and condemning their actions put the league in a position where Pride Nights turned from a really good thing to a really bad thing, that it had no choice but to turtle on the issue. That would conveniently ignore the facts that the league did not only not anticipate the problems that might arise from this, but that it has also abdicated any of its leadership responsibilities on this issue.

Until recently, the NHL had actually been doing a pretty good job on this file. But as it continues to destroy programs that make a marginalized group feel more welcome in its space, it’s doing the same thing to its credibility. It proves, once again, that beyond the news conference and the window dressing, the league doesn’t really care about making more than its core fan base feel welcomed. It’s safe, of course, except if you happen to be part of a group that doesn’t sleep with the right people.