LGBTQ Pride Night Tonight At Jets

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JetsUK

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I get the cynacism behind this being a money maker for some or it being exploitative. But raising awareness is raising awareness, if it manages to change a few minds or force people to think about the issue, it's a good thing.

Yeah -- I think it's been covered in this thread, but promoting an inclusive atmosphere within sport(s) that have not been so traditionally can help in terms of reaching new markets and responds to players' and fans' evolving (sometimes) sense of themselves and the worlds they inhabit. I don't see an LGBTQ night as "affirming while excluding" other groups so much as an act of recognition towards an increasingly diverse set of fans and players, and helping to expand and grow the game as per Jet's post above seems long past due to me. Why shouldn't sport reflect its world? Why shouldn't we expect it to? Don't take these steps, and be left behind, and rightly so, IMO. No-brainer for me.
 
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Kaako Kappo

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Has any NHL player ever come out as gay?

I wonder if we'll see that in the near future, with the younger and maybe more liberal generation slowly taking over.
 

sting13

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Jul 30, 2011
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The comments on the Jets FB post for this night was a perfect reminder as to why we need this night.
Homophobia still runs rampant in sports culture. We have to beat it out
I know many women in soccer and hockey have come out openly as gay. Are men more reluctant or is it possible not as many gay men are actually playing professional sports?
 

HannuJ

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I know many women in soccer and hockey have come out openly as gay. Are men more reluctant or is it possible not as many gay men are actually playing professional sports?
seeing that the latest statistics show that 2oish percent of the population is gay, then the odds of zero hockey players being gay is almost impossible. same in all professional sports.

Look at the Olympics. canada's ice dancing pair won gold. the male dancer was the first openly gay athlete to win a medal at the games. that's statistically impossible.

in sports, you still have a old school locker room mentality. there definitely would be a perceived stigma in being gay and in a locker room. i can see some gay athletes not wanting to come out for fear of negatively affecting team dynamics, fear of not being drafted, etc.

you still have hockey players being fined for using derrogatory and homophobic language. since a good % of hockey players are from smaller towns, you can also apply the stereotype of less liberal mindsets in smaller towns and, therefore, there being more of a chance of homophobia.

hey, i'm still from the generation where we used to bully gay or straight kids with homophobic insults. i feel like my generation turned a new leaf in the mid to late 1990s, and my friends and I are quite liberal. it will take 1-2 more generations for homophobia to really drop off. having Right to Play is so incredibly important and I'm proud that the NHL's taken the lead of all pro-sports and embraced it. I hate Bryan Burke but this is his and his children's greatest contribution to hockey. Very proud of Mr Burke for what he's done and doing. if only football, basketball and baseball, which arguably has the highest amount of homophobia, would step up.

also really proud to read the responses by most people on here. there's 1 poster's posts which really upset (read: disgusted) me and there were a lot of mature and eloquent responses countering what he said. you guys did a hell of a lot better than i could have.
 

HannuJ

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It's why the post(s) (and responses countering it) were left standing.
i remember when Black Lives Matter started getting steam in toronto. and i was one of the ignorant people who said "but wait...all lives matter. why just black lives?" and then i read up on it and it's not saying "hey, black lives matter and we're ignoring everyone else," but it's saying "can we at least ackowledge that black lives matter, because society's acting like they don't!"
and it's the same thing with Right To Play. This isn't saying that no other causes matter. But homophobia was clearly a large issue in hockey rinks and dressing rooms that it needed to be actively addressed.

i play beer league. once or twice a year, there has been homophobic stuff said and, as a straight white male, i no longer want to sit silently and let bigots be bigots. So i speak up. seeing that 1 of the frequent offenders is a high-rolling lawyer, i like to remind them of the consequences of their actions and how their society would likely frown upon what they're saying.
 

AlphaLackey

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The message is "hockey is for everyone", not "cisgendered straight people are trash and need to atone for a never-ending litany of presupposed bigotry in a Kafka-esque ritual". So it's easy to support. In this specific case the message is being targeted to the LGBTQQIP2SAA community because they have been historic targets for denigration and historically had their identity used as a slur in and of itself. But the message remains "hockey is for everyone". That's a message I can get behind, and many of us can too.

As for the "equality is not equity" mentality being used as justification for this event, be very careful, as that exact same mentality is also being used AGAINST "Hockey Is For Everyone" month by members of the African-American community that level the same manner of criticism to the NHL holding this month on February, for obvious reasons. This same reasoning now butting against itself is exactly where Oppression Olympics spring forth, and that is completely counterproductive.

In other words, don't underestimate the support of people you have who support movements like this along a vector of equality for its own sake. And as long as the social messages are along lines of all-inclusion, you can count on it.
 

AlphaLackey

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i remember when Black Lives Matter started getting steam in toronto. and i was one of the ignorant people who said "but wait...all lives matter. why just black lives?

It is an exceedingly deleterious myth that supporting specific advocacy means you automatically therefore oppose other related advocacy and automatically therefore hate the other people helped by said advocacy.
 

AlphaLackey

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It's why the post(s) (and responses countering it) were left standing.

It is to your (or all y'all's; depending on how many people in the decision!) credit that you allowed us to counter speech that would be unpopular and unpleasant to a large chunk of the population here, with more and better speech.
 
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nobody important

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It is to your (or all y'all's; depending on how many people in the decision!) credit that you allowed us to counter speech that would be unpopular and unpleasant to a large chunk of the population here, with more and better speech.

Does this mean we can finally talk openly about the faked moon landings?
 
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buggs

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It is an exceedingly deleterious myth that supporting specific advocacy means you automatically therefore oppose other related advocacy and automatically therefore hate the other people helped by said advocacy.

That's one of the odd things I observe in the U.S. (not to say it doesn't happen in Canada but seems to be a much lesser extent) with regards to their political issues, of which this is one. Everything is argued from a bi-polar aspect and it's an either this or that with no gray area whatsoever. Very strange really in that you can't seemingly have a rational discussion anymore. And lest anyone think I'm villifying once side or the other I see it about equally from the left and the right, just on different issues.

Can't imagine there aren't gay players in the NHL. I also really don't think this league or other professional leagues are ready for it just yet. We're moving in the right direction in terms of acceptance but I think we're still a very long way off before it is truly openly accepted.
 
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AlphaLackey

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That's one of the odd things I observe in the U.S. (not to say it doesn't happen in Canada but seems to be a much lesser extent) with regards to their political issues, of which this is one. Everything is argued from a bi-polar aspect and it's an either this or that with no gray area whatsoever. Very strange really in that you can't seemingly have a rational discussion anymore.

To use a specific example: on balance, I support research and funding into men's cancers with my dollars and my advocacy, both for sociopolitical and personal reasons. Does that mean I therefore hate women and therefore relish the thought of them dying from cancer? Of course not! Yet, I've lost track of the number of times this very thing has been alleged -- by a hateful fringe, to be fair.

"Ally" used to mean two people of a generally similar mindset who agree on enough things that their advocacy overlaps. Now, it means "someone who thinks exactly how I think and jumps exactly when I tell them how to jump". It's f***ing crazy, pardon my French. But it really has boiled down to "if you're not with us, you're against us". Neutrality, nuance, or even full support but just from a different vector -- more and more, these are "obvious" signs of being literally Hitler / literally Stalin. The political compass's needle flops more frantically than my old clunker's speedometer.

Can't imagine there aren't gay players in the NHL.

For sure. Even going with the 2% figure quoted above in the thread, even only among the 23 man rosters of 31 teams, the probability of 100% straight players in the NHL is 98% ^ 713, or about 1 in 1.8 million. Gonna say that's close enough to jack point shit percent for me to realize at least one active NHL player is secretly much more grateful for this night than most of us could imagine.

I also really don't think this league or other professional leagues are ready for it just yet. We're moving in the right direction in terms of acceptance but I think we're still a very long way off before it is truly openly accepted.

I might disagree with "very long" there. And even if it's not as close as we want, the time is nigh. Righteous change may be slow but it is also inexorable.
 
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TheGovernment

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i remember when Black Lives Matter started getting steam in toronto. and i was one of the ignorant people who said "but wait...all lives matter. why just black lives?" and then i read up on it and it's not saying "hey, black lives matter and we're ignoring everyone else," but it's saying "can we at least ackowledge that black lives matter, because society's acting like they don't!"
and it's the same thing with Right To Play. This isn't saying that no other causes matter. But homophobia was clearly a large issue in hockey rinks and dressing rooms that it needed to be actively addressed.

i play beer league. once or twice a year, there has been homophobic stuff said and, as a straight white male, i no longer want to sit silently and let bigots be bigots. So i speak up. seeing that 1 of the frequent offenders is a high-rolling lawyer, i like to remind them of the consequences of their actions and how their society would likely frown upon what they're saying.

I dont buy that for a second. You play beer league once or twice a year and feel its your right to tell others what they should or shouldnt say? Ok man.....

The fact is, most people just dont care if people are gay, there will always be some far right or left that dont. I dont agree or disagree with whatever night they want to promote at a game for whatever group.
With the way social media has so much infulance on our lives, a night of whatever wont make a difference one way or the other.
Im sure there are lots of gay hockey players and im sure their entire teams know they are gay and dont give a flying crap that they are.
 
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HannuJ

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I dont buy that for a second. You play beer league once or twice a year and feel its your right to tell others what they should or shouldnt say? Ok man.....
there's something called the Charter of Rights and Freedom.
if someone says something that is hateful towards a person based on their sexual orientation, skin colour or religion, then yes, i speak up. otherwise, being silent is akin to saying the insult yourself.
don't "buy" what i have to say if you don't want to. something tells me that we don't shop at the same stores.
 

JetsUK

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AlphaLackey said: I might disagree with "very long" there. And even if it's not as close as we want, the time is nigh. Righteous change may be slow but it is also inexorable.

Male and female players in most of the major sports have come out over the last 20 years, and while it hasn't always been roses (e.g., Justin Fashanu, who killed himself, and others who have had difficulty finding work afterwards), I suspect and hope that we'll see it become more and more of a non-issue as the years go by, as with race and ethnicity, despite the homophobia and race-baiting still seen in some sports and some places.

Once again, I view such policies as being affirmative, in the direction of tolerance, and not exclusive or preferential. And having spent years going to Habs games where non-pur laine MTL players (and Stéphane Richer) were routinely subjected to sustained racist or homophobic rants game after game after game in the seats we were able to afford, I am happy to not have my kids (or anyone else) endure that kind of abuse as spectators, let alone players.
 
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