When I think of professional ice hockey I think of tough men, strength, speed, and athletic passion.

I don’t think of diversity, equity, and inclusion. I always figured the National Hockey League would be the last holdout against wokeness. If the NHL goes snowflake all sense of sporting sense is lost. But that has happened.

From an October 18, 2022, statement by the league:

“The National Hockey League and its 32 teams today released their inaugural Diversity & Inclusion Report, a comprehensive document that both details accelerated efforts by the League and its teams in recent years and includes a groundbreaking demographic study of the NHL workforce at both the League and Club levels.

“The report is based on seven dimensions that the NHL is following to “build (diversity and inclusion) at every point where a player, fan, or employee might interact with the game, taking important steps to lay the foundation for progress,” according to its executive summary.

“The dimensions encompass leadership, education, marketing, employment, partnerships, participation and community engagement.”

You can read all about the wonder-woke works of the NHL on the league’s website. Although I’m writing about hockey today, you can find similar silliness on the websites of all professional sports. They all are virtue-signaling to prove how much they care about the trendy concerns of the woke.

As you can read in the league’s diversity report, the vast majority of professional hockey players are white men.  Frankly, I could have told you that without taking a survey. Maybe I’m just not thinking out of the box but I expect most hockey players come from northern countries that have lots of ice. You aren’t going to find many hockey players in jungles, deserts, or rainforests.

News flash: the population of every nation and region on earth does not have a perfect balance of ethnicity and different groups play different sports.  As a result, all sports reflect a lack of diversity and inclusion.

A few examples:

• About three-quarters of professional basketball players are black.  Most are tall, quick on their feet, and athletic.
• Most professional football players are large and strong.
• In most cases, Sumo wrestlers are big, fat, Japanese men.
• Most marathons are won by short, skinny, Africans.
• Irish Hurling is dominated by Irish men.
• Irish Camogie is dominated by Irish women.

I seriously doubt that any of these sports I have cited will ever be played by a perfect diversity of the human race. That is fine and dandy with me.

I think the hockey folks have lost their way.  Instead of diversity and inclusion, they need to worry about the excitement of the game and try to keep down the price of beer and pretzels at their various arenas.

But if they find a sumo wrestler who has quick reflexes and can skate, he might make a great goalie.