Wild goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury in mask issue shows he's better than NHL leadership

All Minnesota Wild goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury wanted to do was honor his Indigenous wife and her family's ancestry by wearing a specially designed mask. That's it. That's all. This is something a league like the NHL should instantly back. It's caring. It's honorable. It shows that players and the league respect different people and cultures. It should be impossible to screw up yet the NHL did just that.

While you were celebrating the holidays and watching bad football, an infuriating story was unfolding in the NHL. How it all went down says a lot about the sport and how it views diversity. There are lessons here not just for the NHL but for people who believe in a diverse world.

The NHL initially told Fleury he couldn't wear the mask, according to his agent. Not only was Fleury threatened with a fine, Allan Wash said, but the NHL said it would fine the Wild organization as well. Fleury wore the mask anyway on Friday night during warmups. One source told ESPN no punishment was expected for Fleury or the team for him having worn the mask.

It's impossible to know exactly but it seems that only after the story became public and the NHL was blasted for its heartlessness that the threat of a fine was rescinded. What the NHL apparently did in threatening both Fleury and the Wild was so over the top that it was heartless and cruel. It looked like a league run by robots that didn't understand its players are human. It didn't seem to realize, until it was forced to do so by being embarrassed, that it should make exceptions for acts of genuine kindness and support.

What happened with Fleury also isn't an isolated thing. This is also what happened when the league initially banned the use of Pride tape that players were using for sticks. It was only after a massive backlash that the league rescinded the ban.

Most of all, when the NHL does things like this, such as, initially at least, not allow one of its players to honor his Native wife on Native American Heritage Night, message sent and received. Let me repeat: Fleury wanted to honor his Native wife on Native American Heritage Night.

By handling this in an embarrassingly awkward way, it is telling certain communities, and certain people, that the NHL isn't for everyone. You and you and you, who look like the rest of us: cool, come on in. You and you and you, who don't, or who do not believe what the rest of us do, well, you or your beliefs are banned.

The NHL will say this is absurd. Defenders of the NHL will say the same. But look at what they've done. The Pride tape ban was one of the ugliest prohibitions any league has done in years and it took a gigantic, national outcry for the NHL to change.

It also needs to be said that there's a small part of the NHL wanting to control what appears on the equipment of its players, even if that control is over-the-top, that's understandable. What Fleury did was full of empathy. But what if you get a player who wants to wear a piece of equipment with "White Lives Matter?" on it?

In other words, some players would abuse the process, and it could potentially become ugly. That is a true dilemma the NHL and other leagues face. This is a part of the story we have to acknowledge.

The league, however, can easily make exceptions, and they can without being shamed into it.

The worst part of this story is the NHL initially not seeing an opportunity to show, at least a little bit, that it can broaden its appeal. The NHL has long had issues with welcoming diverse voices. A remarkable documentary called Black Ice examined hockey's history of racism and anti-Blackness in excruciating detail. While the movie looked at hockey in the past (and not just the NHL), it also showed what it's like for players in the sport now.

"The biggest takeaway from Black Ice is how hockey has been slow to properly address systemic racism," read one review. "The sport preaches that no one is above the team. But how does that apply to those individuals who are often a minority of one in their own locker rooms?"

Last year the NHL released a survey last year that showed the league's workforce was 83.6 percent white. On the ice, some 90 percent of the players and almost all the coaches and game officials are white. The racial makeup of the league isn't completely within the NHL's control but the league's attitude toward non-white players and others is.

Fleury's story started with wonderful intentions. Michael Russo of The Athletic reported Fleury had a new mask designed by a member of the Prairie Island Indian Community. The design honored his wife's ancestry and it also featured a quote from Fleury's father and the names of his kids.

The NHL could manage this situation fairly easily by taking each case singularly instead of a blanket ban. If a player wants to use Pride tape, let them apply, and if it's a noble cause like that, let them do it. If they apply to something incendiary or ugly, don't let them.

Most of the process wouldn't be as difficult as it sounds as long as the league was transparent. We know the NHL can shift tactics because they did with the Pride tape. They've apparently done it in other situations as well. ESPN reported on Friday that while Fleury's request was initially rejected, it allowed two goalies to wear specialty masks for Hockey Fights Cancer nights this season: Florida Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky and Seattle Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer. ESPN said a source familiar with that decision said those exemptions were because those players had worn cancer-awareness masks before the ban was enacted, and the league approved the nature of the cause they were supporting.

That says a great deal, doesn't it.

Yes, the NHL could make this process much easier if it wanted. Instead, it's sending the clear message that hockey isn't for everyone.