Media MonsterNHL

Some Writer Has A Real Problem With Hockey Being Okay With The Gays

Meet Lenny Palumbo. He writes for the Niagara Falls Reporter, a weekly paper in western New York. Despite the name, the Niagara Falls Reporter does not just report on what is happening at the natural wonder of Niagara Falls itself (it’s more focused onthe actual city of Niagara Falls), though when we hear the name we can’t shake the mental image of this happening:

Reporter who is all the entire staff of the Niagara Falls Reporter : So, we’re back at the Falls. And… there’s a bunch of water falling today. [beat] Okay, we’re done here.

Anyway. Palumbo’s in some hot water – at least in the corner of the internet concerned with hockey – today. The reason? He wrote a story about the Buffalo Sabres’ acquisition of enforcer John Scott, and why it’s a good thing for the Sabres and that fighters like Scott still need to have a place in the game. The story had something of an “In MY day, hockey was a REAL sport, a TOUGH sport” feel to it, but overall, nothing especially out of the ordinary.

Until the end. And at the end, things got bad. Because there, Palumbo said:

[T]he league is determined to reduce fighting as much as possible. Meanwhile, the NHL’s abominable, “You Can Play” promotion, which all but endorses homosexuality in hockey, is among its top priorities.
Thanks to Gary Bettman and his ilk, enforcers are out, but gays are in. So why don’t they just hire Elton John as commissioner and be done with it?

Fortunately for Sabres fans, the team has not come out of the closet and the signing of tough guy, John Scott is an indication there might be some shred of manliness left in an otherwise emasculated organization that has much to prove in 2012-13.

There are endless things to pick apart in the above – which people have done here, here, and here, to name three. There’s the fact that the You Can Play initiative (we wouldn’t call it a “promotion,” but let’s face it, that’s the least of Palumbo’s problems here) was started by Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke and his son Patrick Burke (a Flyers scout), not the NHL itself. There’s the fact that the Burkes started the project to honor the memory of their 21-year-old family member who died in a car crash, so this might not be the kind of project you want to criticize.

There’s also the fact that that family member, Brendan Burke, who came out as gay shortly before he died, played hockey himself growing up, which Palumbo seems to regard as an impossibility. There’s the odiously-phrased “gays are in” (they’re coming for us, they’re coming for us!). There’s the equally-odiously-phrased “all but endorses homosexuality in hockey,” which is terrible because again, he apparently fears that the scary gays, newly accepted by hockey culture, are going to sneak into the NHL’s arenas under the cover of darkness and program every video board to show an endless loop of RuPaul’s Drag Race reruns.

Because mostly, there’s the fact that all You Can Play is about is: there are gay guys in hockey. There were, there are, and there will be more in the future – probably even some of those enforcers Palumbo can’t get enough of. They ought to feel like they can be gay and play hockey. Oh, and that Elton-John-as-commissioner idea: hey, Palumbo doesn’t seem to like how Gary Bettman’s doing, so what could it hurt? And of you want someone who’s alright with fighting, shouldn’t he really be your guy, anyway?

Getty photo, by Jeff Gross