The past two days have been momentous in the sports world. Athletes are making the ultimate use of their platform to effect change, starting with the Milwaukee Bucks striking and deciding not to play their first-round playoff Game 5 against the Orlando Magic in protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
That led to the postponement of all NBA games through today, with a return to play at a to-be-determined date. The WNBA also postponed all of its games, with individual games in the MLB and MLS being postponed as players agreed to sit out as well.
Today, the NHL and NHLPA followed suit, postponing Thursday and Friday’s games as the players wish to take the time to reflect on the need for social change and combating racial injustice.
Statement from the National Hockey League Players’ Association and National Hockey League. https://t.co/uV1F5iDeUS pic.twitter.com/JS2t0MvUij
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) August 27, 2020
We at Canes Country feel it’s important to join in this effort, so our coverage will look different tomorrow until Saturday. We will not be “sticking to sports.” There will be no “strictly hockey-related” content on the site tomorrow.
Any information we share will be related to the movement in the form of any statements or social media posts from the team, and any quotes from Jaccob Slavin and Andrei Svechnikov in tomorrow’s scheduled media Zooms about the NHL’s pause and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Sports, and sports coverage, often serves as a distraction from the issues of the real world. But this is not the time for distraction. The issues of systemic racism and police brutality have been far too prevalent for far too long, and this is a time for focusing on those issues and the best ways to support marginalized communities.
Many view sports as an escape from the “horrors” of the “real world,” and that’s understandable. But for people of color and other marginalized communities, the luxury of an escape does not exist, because those “horrors” are their real world.
Black Lives Matter, and there are still far too many in our society, including many in positions of power, who don’t recognize that.
So, with all of that in mind, Canes Country will be taking this time to direct attention and awareness to this movement, and the larger, important issues at hand.