Diversity and Marketing Issues In Today's Game of Hockey:

Unfortunately throughout the world, hockey has always been known as a white-dominant sport. Throughout the history of the game itself, the NHL has struggled to maintain relevancy in the prominent black and minority communities. Sadly, this has been a trend since the game was created in 1917. The game needs to improve its involvement in the monitory communities in both the short and long term. There needs to be a growth of minority communities in the game of hockey, as only five percent of the league is made up of non-whites. Not only would this help the diversity of a game, but it would also enhance the brand of the game and its well-known struggle with marketing. Even in the US, one of the main criticisms of the sport relates to its lack of success in marketing. Many people have questioned the NHL's lack of growth in recent years. Why hasn’t the NHL grown as much as the NBA has in the past five years? At one point in time, the NHL was more popular than the NBA. Why hasn’t the NHL taken the next step?

One of the answers is the league's lack of diversity. Hopefully, with the recent social issues globally, the NHL will increase its priorities regarding this issue. Mitigating these issues will be a large challenge for the league. However, the NHL needs to get more involved in youth hockey communities, specifically the ones that have aspiring minority hockey players starting at a young age. Disappointingly, it is more difficult for a black man to strive as a young child in the NHL world. This has been justified by both current and former NHL players. The opportunities and distribution of playing time between all types of people need to be more evenly distributed. It's not like the NHL has done nothing regarding these imperative issues, however. They have recently organized the Hockey Is For Everyone program during black history month which is definitely a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, even minority players in the NHL have publicly spoken about the lack of action and involvement from the league.

Just in the past few days, black players in the hockey community such as Wayne Simmonds and Matt Dumba have spoken on these issues. Although there are usually no racial issues within the NHL and the melting pots of the locker room, there still seems to be somewhat of a barrier in the league. Black players tend to mention "hockey culture" as one portrayal of the lack of action from the league. These players look at the NBA and ask themselves, "Why can't we wear I CAN'T BREATHE t-shirts like the NBA players did during warmups?". Unlike the other major sports leagues in North America, the NHL is definitely behind these current issues. As a result, the viewership in some parts of the US struggles. Viewership in America should be and needs to be a lot higher. If the league, with expanding their involvement in marketing and racism throughout the game, can expand their interest in middle America and within Black communities around the country, they can easily enhance their brand. 

Luckily, this current movement has provoked the aforementioned players of Wayne Simmonds and Matt Dumba to help create the new Hockey Diversity Alliance. This should have been created a long time ago. It is saddening that the league has not expanded their involvement on the issue considering the fact that it is inhibiting their financial capabilities as a league. However, this alliance with the involvement of white players can potentially have an everlasting effect on the game.

Considering the excitement in the NHL playoffs, the parody it includes, and the excitement it evokes within fans, there is no reason why the NHL should not be as popular as the NBA or NFL in North America. This will not become a reality until they fix these outstanding issues.  In fact, the NHL had a great opportunity to make a change a few months ago when the former head coach of the Calgary Flames was fired for exclaiming a racial slur as the minor hockey head coach of a former black NHL player in Akim Alui. This sitaution provided the NHL with a great opportunity to take the next step. Unfortunately, they failed. With immediate action and this new alliance, however, it is not too late to make a change. While saying this, the Akim Alui situation was the quintessential example of the shortages in hockey culture. In today's modern world of sports, these types of actions are nearly unheard of, even if the situation was over a decade ago. As a result, players need to be encouraged to show their personalities in the NHL. They cannot be afraid anymore to stand out as outliers, specifically on public issues like these.

For some reason, there has always been a narrative that NHL players are all polished and made the same. This should not be the case anymore and players should not be afraid to express their voices. Luckily, this narrative has changed in the past few years, specifically seen with PK Subban, a black player with a phenomenal personality. Other players should strive to express themselves like PK. In this society, with the platform that some of these players have, people should be speaking out. It becomes their responsibility as icons in our society to get involved. Additionally, it would also help enhance the interest in the game, especially with the young fans. As a child, one can resonate with the players more if they express themselves and get more involved off of the ice. Young children also need to have more access to the game of hockey. One of the reasons it is so behind the NBA is because of the lack of accessibility. If the game is more accessible to young children, it would be a large boost to the sport. Even if people have the financial ability to pay for the sport, it is hard for parents to commit the time, effort, and money towards sports. With the help of the new HDA hopefully, they will promote the charity to allow more young children to help pay and enhance the involvement and familiarity with the sport of hockey. This will easily help struggling parents as well who sometimes struggle to commit to the effort of allowing their children to play hockey.

Although many players have recently posted on the racial issues in the game of hockey, I hope that this does not just become a moment. Instead, globally and in hockey, this must become a long-standing movement, rather than a short term fad. It is already harder for fans to interact with players considering that they are separated by the glass during the game and wearing helmets. As a result, the league has multiple reasons to convince players to get more involved off the ice. This will help enhance the diversity, financial stability of the game, individual recognition, and fan interest in the game. 

Lastly, the game of hockey needs to continue to grow. With outliers like Evander Kane at the forefront of the Hockey Diversity Alliance, the NHL should be able to take the next step. Also, with the NHL’s TV deal with NBC expiring next year, hopefully, the NHL considers singing with ESPN long term to enhance the brand of the game. Currently, even people who work for this company are ignorant of the game on national TV. As the main sports platform in the world, signing with ESPN could prevent people from within the organization from disregarding the sport. More specifically maybe it will prevent one of the faces of their brand, analyst Max Kellerman from saying that “no one cares about the NHL in America”.  The same has been said about black lives for countless years.

As an alternative, creating free ice hockey teams through the public school systems throughout America in both lower and middle schools could help the game overall. Rather than only having ice hockey teams in high school, public school systems should get children involved at a younger age. The younger they are affiliated with the sport, the more lifelong fans.

Although these initiatives should have taken place a long time ago, with the NHL’s new association, involvement in minority youth hockey communities, and promotion of player’s personalities, the NHL has the opportunity to take a large step, especially in the United States. Time will tell whether the league is serious about changing hockey culture in order to expand their brand across the world.