Amid protests against racism and social injustice, the NHL is looking inward to make sure that racism within their own league and the sport of hockey at large is being rooted out.
Kim Davis, the NHL senior executive vice president of social impact, growth initiatives and legislative affairs, took to the league’s website with a powerful and contemplative essay on how the NHL can “root out all traces of systemic racism, reveal unconscious biases and lift our game to a new level of cultural availability.”
Davis discusses in deep detail the history of hockey, as well as certain unconscious biases that may have been ingrained in the game by way of its history, and the recent words of Akim Aliu as well as other Black alumni in hockey that are beginning to spur change.
She also discusses actions being taken by the league to confront racism at all levels of the game, both through new programs as well as reforms to existing ones such as Learn to Play. It’s a powerful essay, and well worth reading.
Hockey is for everyone, and the NHL has taken and continues to take steps to ensure that that vision can be the lived experience of everyone who participates in the game without exclusion.
Citing the poet Nikki Giovani, Davis writes, “‘Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to that error that counts.’ After all, learning to skate really means learning to get up after you fall. Over and over again.”
h/t NHL.com
