NHL diversity & inclusion report 2022

[daver]

The world is not populated by 83% whites.

To be more approachable for fans, sponsors, the league on and off ice, needs to better reflect reality of population in world.

Help combat racism/prejudice. Expand potential pool of athletes to play the sport.

Are the NBA and the NFL are hurt by on-field representation that is disproportionately overrepresented by blacks?

IMO, the vast amount of people could care less about someone's race or gender and do not like being told that they are contributing to racism/prejudice if they do not agree with the underlying narrative behind DEI.

Do you really think that a concerted effort is needed lest white men continue to oppress? If %'s are the measure of diversity and inclusiveness, shouldn't the decrease of white men over the past decade or two be a sign of progress that inevitably will get better?

 

[daver]

It's a winter sport and traditionally and primarily appeals to Canadians, the northern United States (and mainly New England, Michigan, and Minnesota), Sweden, Russia, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, etc. Those populations are still majority white for now. And the game and winter sports in general don't have as much appeal to Africa or South America by nature. Why is everyone shocked that the sport doesn't have as many black players as football and basketball? It's like if the people organizing beach volleyball got all worked up about how they need to recruit more Eskimos into their sport.

Because when you are looking for racism and prejudice in institutions, your ability to entertain logical explanations are ignored or are not allowed to get in the way of narcissistic compassion.

Noone is buying the need for DEI, likely even those hired to promote it. What people are buying is the violent rejection of it which ironically leads to some people being racist and prejudiced and gets in the way of society's move to being colour blind and less sexist.

Perhaps the OP can shed some light on what they personally are doing to combat racism and prejudice to set an example for everyone else. I am a lot more impressed with people who take actual action to back up their words.

 

[MrazeksVengeance]

There's so much diversity in the NHL. Look at how many shades of white we have!

Being serious, the league would benefit from having more Black or Latinx representation in its executive positions.

Are there actually Latin Americans who actually use Latinx?

 

[daver]

There's so much diversity in the NHL. Look at how many shades of white we have!

Being serious, the league would benefit from having more Black or Latinx representation in its executive positions.

So can an organization reject the notion that having more non-white executives at the cost of potentially excluding more experienced/more qualified white executives is in their best organizational interests?

The OP is making it sound like DEI goes beyond simply the business side of things? (and perhaps shouldn't be in the Business of Hockey Forum)

 

[Voight]

There's so much diversity in the NHL. Look at how many shades of white we have!

Being serious, the league would benefit from having more Black or Latinx representation in its executive positions.

Sure, if they are intelligent & qualified. No need to make hires based on virtue signaling.

17% of employees being non white is actually a good number when you think about it. Whats the percentage of players that are non white? I imagine its less than 10, maybe even less than 5. So havin a much higher number in management is actually pretty good IMO.

 

[Snaibberi]

First.. This is once again pure racism in modern standards. Someone says how NBA is too black and he is out of the job and rasist no matter what. But once again rules are different when talking about white people..

Second... Why again race matters? 10 Years ago everyone was saying that race doesnt matter and we all were the same big happy family?

third... Is it a surprise that mostly white people play and watch hockey? It is after all winter sport and winter sports are something that Europeans and European descendants enjoy to follow and those people are mostly white?

fourth... So skills dont matter anymore who gets to play? NHL thinks that is the way to get more money?

fifth... Demographics show that USA + Canada are still mostly white. Statistics show that 57% of people in USA are white. True number is higher because for some reason everyone with some spanish backround is considered to be non white? Friend of my is from spain and he consideres himself as white as it gets. But in USA he is considered latino in every official paper. 73% of Canadians are white. So what is the problem here?

 

[BKIslandersFan]

So can an organization reject the notion that having more non-white executives at the cost of potentially excluding more experienced/more qualified white executives is in their best organizational interests?

The OP is making it sound like DEI goes beyond simply the business side of things? (and perhaps shouldn't be in the Business of Hockey Forum)

This implies there is no people of color that has experience and are qualified.

 

[GQS]

I'm sorry, but why? Why is this a problem? Why is being white a problem? No one says that the overwhelming majorities seen in the NBA are a problem.

I think the short answer is that in the times that we live in now, anything that is majority cauasian is seen as being 'evil and wrong' and is a 'problem' that needs to be 'fixed'.

Can you imagine any organization/institution/sport etc. that is majority minority having to face some sort of 'diversity study' and then being told that they needed to be more diverse and inclusive? Yeah I'm pretty sure that wouldn't go over pretty well and there would be backlash, but somehow doing such studies/reviews for something that's predominately white is perfectly fine for some reason.

 

[GQS]

There's so much diversity in the NHL. Look at how many shades of white we have!

Being serious, the league would benefit from having more Black or Latinx representation in its executive positions.

Seriously who really uses the term 'Latinx'? It certainly doesn't seem like many latinos themselves enjoy using it.

However, for the population it is meant to describe, only 23% of U.S. adults who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino have heard of the term Latinx, and just 3% say they use it to describe themselves, according to a nationally representative, bilingual survey of U.S. Hispanic adults conducted in December 2019 by Pew Research Center.

About One-in-Four U.S. Hispanics Have Heard of Latinx, but Just 3% Use It

The term Latinx has emerged in recent years as a gender-neutral alternative to the pan-ethnic terms Latino, Latina and Hispanic. However, awareness of Latinx is relatively low among the population it is meant to describe.

www.pewresearch.org

Seems like its a term that SJWs created that latinos never asked for or cared about and its why so few use it.

Also there is a decent amount of diversity in the NHL, but I don't know why we usually define diversity mostly through skin color. Many people get offended when you lump together black people as one group, but somehow lumping all cauasians together as being the same is fine?

 

[daver]

This implies there is no people of color that has experience and are qualified.

No it doesn't. It implies that candidates will be vetted primarily by race and gender to make %'s look better, not primarily by their qualifications.

Perfect example of looking for racism when there isn't any to be found and/or establishing a personal higher moral standing by even trying to look for it.

 

[GQS]

That's not the issue, but rather why do non-white Canadians tend to prefer basketball and soccer over hockey? Going forward the country is only going to become less white, and this is a problem to hockey even if you don't attach any particular values to the question.

I've noticed that there's a good amount of non-white Canadians who are fans of hockey, but that it might not neccesarily translate into going further and getting involved directly with the sport whether it be as a player or in other parts of the game off ice.

Personally I've been watching hockey since I was a little kid and yet I've never felt the need to go and put on a pair of skates and actually play on the ice and ball hockey is as close to it as I've ever gotten and yet hockey still remains the sport that I follow the most.

 

[Fordy]

Aside from the obvious separate categories in GM/President/etc, I don't see any reason to believe the league office's hiring practices are any different from the hiring practices of teams around the league. Like, do you think the NBA marketing team would be *that* different from the average marketing team of any NBA team?

Either way, I'm simply saying there's a difference in demographics of the employees of the NBA versus the players of the NBA, which you stated was 73%. The former far outnumbers the number of NBA players so that statistic is a bit flawed when discussing the current report.

marketing is about the one thing i’d assume would be similar between league offices and actual franchises. how many equipment managers or personal chefs do you think work in a league office vs for a franchise?

 

[God]

marketing is about the one thing i’d assume would be similar between league offices and actual franchises. how many equipment managers or personal chefs do you think work in a league office vs for a franchise?

I think you're grasping at straws a bit here, no? Like if I just google NBA equipment manager, I get the association which seems to be mostly white dudes: National Basketball Equipment Manager Association

And if I google "demographics of chefs in america", I get 59% white (Chef Demographics and Statistics [2022]: Number Of Chefs In The US) which seems to track with the NBA numbers.

 

[BKIslandersFan]

No it doesn't. It implies that candidates will be vetted primarily by race and gender to make %'s look better, not primarily by their qualifications.

Perfect example of looking for racism when there isn't any to be found and/or establishing a personal higher moral standing by even trying to look for it.

It does not imply that at all. Qualification for the job is primary factor. And always has been.

I don’t know what you look like but I will say this as person of color. White peoole need to stop telling us racism doesn’t exist. You can’t tell me that when you never experience it ever.

 

[Voight]

It does not imply that at all. Qualification for the job is primary factor. And always has been.

I don’t know what you look like but I will say this as person of color. White peoole need to stop telling us racism doesn’t exist. You can’t tell me that when you never experience it ever.

Nobody is saying that......

 

[McGarnagle]

It may not be any any current employee loses job after this report. But, as new folks are hired (new positions, replacing retired folks), an organization may make an effort to be more diverse and inclusive in their hiring.

I recall hearing that all male orchestras started auditioning musicians behind a screen so that gender would not be taken into consideration, just the quality of performing. They started hiring women because they played better than other candidates.
Perhaps interviews need to look at all qualified candidates disregarding many qualities that may have eliminated them previously. If the only reason you are not hiring someone qualified is experience, how can a candidate get that experience without being hired?

Blind orchestra auditions actually had the opposite effect. On talent alone the orchestras surveyed ended up almost entirely white and mostly male, so now the thing the media grifters are pushing for is that now we have to end blind auditions in order to force inclusion and diversity.

 

[sr edler]

I think you're grasping at straws a bit here, no? Like if I just google NBA equipment manager, I get the association which seems to be mostly white dudes: National Basketball Equipment Manager Association

And if I google "demographics of chefs in america", I get 59% white (Chef Demographics and Statistics [2022]: Number Of Chefs In The US) which seems to track with the NBA numbers.

I'll give you an uncomfortable example here. Both commissioners of the NBA and NHL are Jewish. Yet the number of Jewish players in said leagues is very miniscule. Also regarding professional sports team owners the Jewish group is highly overrepresented in comparison to the numbers of athletes. So you could as easily go after that target, but you don't do that because that would be inappropriate. You wouldn't say "Jews being overrepresented in owner positions and as commissioners is a problem". You only go after the single target society gives you a free run at.

 

[Uncle Rotter]

There's so much diversity in the NHL. Look at how many shades of white we have!

Being serious, the league would benefit from having more Black or Latinx representation in its executive positions.

Why mention only those two groups?

 

[AcerComputer]

If only 15% of the population is black, why are people shocked that 83% is white? And as other people have mentioned cold whether sports appeal to the regions that are more populated with White people. Also in a free market and people's interest will dictate where people will work. If the idea is that qualified POC are being turned down for NHL jobs because of their skin colour then that is separate issue. It's never been more popular to say you have token -insert racial minority- on your team, so I would think most employers would jump at the chance to hire a POC in an effort to seem more diverse. And as other people have mentioned, in some sports, POC are over represented, but you don't hear anything about it. Kinda like the pay gap myth. There are industries where women are paid or earn more than men, simply because they are female, but there are no efforts to make sure men earn the same. Always goes one way.

 

[Yukon Joe]

No, but nearly 3/4 of the US is white. What's next? You gonna complain that there are too many Asians in Chinese sports leagues?

Nobody is stopping minorities from playing or getting involved in hockey. Teams need to hire the best people possible for the positions rather than having diversity quotas for no reason other than feels.

Thankfully, nearly every comment on this report on Twitter is getting near universal negative backlash.

So my 10 year old plays hockey in Canada. There's one black on his team. I've known this kid for years. He lives in the same neighbourhood as my kid, goes to the same school. I've coached him in both soccer and hockey over the years. He's also been the only black kid on every single team I've seen him play on.

Obviously as a middle-aged adult male I've never had an in-depth conversation about race with my kid's 10 year old friend. But just a couple of times he's hinted at the fact it's kind of awkward being the only black kid in, well, anything. He'a also said this might be his last year playing hockey - he might focus 100% on soccer instead (note: he never said this was because of race, but one can speculate)

Nobody has ever said this kid can't play hockey because he's black. As a coach I'd make damn well sure no kid ever said anything like that in the locker room (nobody ever has). But still - representation matters. I'm sure he'd feel more at home in hockey if he saw more people like him playing hockey and coaching hockey.

So it's surprising to see such hostility to the D&I report from the NHL. It literally had no particular recommendations. The league wants to increase it's "BIPOC" fans, but doesn't say that league or team staff have to be of a certain BIPOC percentage - in fact they specifically say they are not going to engage in "affirmative action". So what is the hostility in just getting numbers on how many people of colour are working in hockey?



p.s. to be fair I suppose I can be blasé about the topic of representation - everyone knows the best hockey player on the planet was Ukrainian-Canadian like me. By whom of course I mean Dale Hawerchuk.

 

[BKIslandersFan]

Nobody is saying that......

That’s exactly what Daver was doing.

 

[God]

I'll give you an uncomfortable example here. Both commissioners of the NBA and NHL are Jewish. Yet the number of Jewish players in said leagues are very miniscule. Also regarding professional sports teams owners the Jewish group is highly overrepresented in comparison to the the numbers of athletes. So you could as easily go after that target, but you don't do that because that would be inappropriate. You wouldn't say "Jews being overrepresented in owner positions and as commissioners is a problem". You only go after the single target society gives you a free run at.

This is completely not on-topic. The goal of the diversity and inclusion report was to highlight the current demographics of the NHL workforce and move towards diversifying the NHL fanbase.

The point of the report is not to:
- diversify one job (commissioner)
- diversify league owners, of which there are probably fewer than 5,000 people in the world who have the ability
- diversify the NHL player demographic

This doesn't even come close to the topic of being Jewish, which is a historically persecuted class yet more often than not, not a visible minority.

 

[Pittsburgh1776]

People like you that are so blinded by privilege willfully ignore the fact that just-as-well or better qualified minorities and women are systemically disenfranchised and prevented from being considered for executive/coaching/scouting roles in professional sports due to systemically bigoted hiring practices that favor nepotism and the status quo over choosing the best qualified candidates. Look at the failed re-treads the NHL constantly recycles and the common denominator between them. Immutable obsession indeed,

The fact that you are insinuating that non-white, non-male candidates are already accurately represented due to arbitrary qualifiers like "career advice, family traditions and culture" is hilariously ignorant. You're throwing out a bunch of words to imply that only a certain type of person is interested in being employed by the NHL but all it is is a thinly veiled dog whistle and an excuse to ignore that non traditional demographics simply have little chance of breaking through the old boys country club atmosphere that doesn't even pretend to resemble a meritocracy.

like all screeds that have replaced rational discussion, you have not one morsel of evidence for your claims. just word salad. apply your logic to the NBA and NFL and watch the world burn.

 

[Pittsburgh1776]

Because when you are looking for racism and prejudice in institutions, your ability to entertain logical explanations are ignored or are not allowed to get in the way of narcissistic compassion.

Noone is buying the need for DEI, likely even those hired to promote it. What people are buying is the violent rejection of it which ironically leads to some people being racist and prejudiced and gets in the way of society's move to being colour blind and less sexist.

Perhaps the OP can shed some light on what they personally are doing to combat racism and prejudice to set an example for everyone else. I am a lot more impressed with people who take actual action to back up their words.

no one advocating for the current moment believes in color blindness. they believe in amplifying color differences in every aspect of life. there are several reasons for it based in critical theory and post modernism but the result is the bifurcation of every societal structure along racial lines. this is many things but not progress and it is not about equality. this is why the word equity is used. equity is enforced discrimination to address perceived power differences and force equal outcomes along racial lines. probably some of the most toxic ideas that have been entertained in 50 years.

racial inequity in hockey only matters if POC are actively being shut out of the game for racial reasons. the inequity itself should not be an issue.

 

[Pittsburgh1776]

It does not imply that at all. Qualification for the job is primary factor. And always has been.

I don’t know what you look like but I will say this as person of color. White peoole need to stop telling us racism doesn’t exist. You can’t tell me that when you never experience it ever.

don't you think it's rather arrogant to tell white people that they never experience racism? I think a lot more white people than you think have experienced it. I certainly have.