The NHL was the only American league that plowed ahead full speed on Wednesday after the Milwaukee Bucks refused to play in the NBA playoffs. Belatedly, the league has decided to suspend play after the Hockey Diversity Alliance, a group of players, asked for it.
"It's incredibly insulting as a Black man in hockey the lack of action and acknowledgement from the NHL, just straight up insulting," Sharks wing Evander Kane said Wednesday.
Kane is a co-leader of the Diversity Alliance. Two second-round playoff games were scheduled for Thursday night: Flyers-Islanders and Canucks-Golden Knights.
Both coaches in the Eastern Conference series expressed or feigned cluelessness before their game was postponed. "I really have no idea what's going on in the outside world," Flyers coach Alain Vigneault said Thursday. "We're in this bubble right now."
"I think all the sports should play," Islanders coach Barry Trotz said. "I think all the sports should play because I think the athletes in every sport have a great platform."
That was the original thinking used to quiet critics of the NBA's bubble as it was being planned. It was always tendentious, but it completely fell apart after police shot Jacob Blake in Wisconsin.
After the NBA players briefly shut down their bubble _ games will resume this weekend _ players and teams in MLB, MLS and the WNBA decided to sit out on Wednesday evening, with some cancellations spilling over into Thursday. But the NHL played all three games on Wednesday, including two that began after the Bucks walked out. Players on the Bruins and Lightning said they found out too close to the start of their game to sit out.
Non-white players in the league said their frustrations went far beyond the lack of a players' strike. Kane criticized the league for not mentioning the Blake case as of Wednesday. "It's another instance, unfortunately, that still hasn't been acknowledged ... It's not just my responsibility as a minority player in the NHL to be talking about these issues," he said. "It's everybody's."
"The NHL, we're always late to the party, especially on these topics," Wild defender Matt Dumba said. "So it's sorta sad and disheartening for me and other members of the (Hockey Diversity Alliance) ... The white players in our league need to have answers for what they're seeing in society right now, and where they stand." Dumba's Wild teammate, J.T. Brown, said the league was "Listening and learning about as good as my 1 year old."
Kane and nine other players founded the Hockey Diversity Alliance in June. As the league began its two-bubble return, Kane said the NHL was "hostile" in a call with the organization. "The NHL can put 'Black Lives Matter' all over the rink, shout 'Black Lives Matter' from the mountains," Kane said in July. "No matter what they do or say, it's all going to fall on deaf ears with me and every other person in the HDA because the league has made no effort to support its own Black players."
