The NHL Needs to Leave the Cottage Alone
File Photo: A person walks by a Blackhawks Pride Night display before the Blackhawks play the Vancouver Canucks at the United Center on Sunday, March 26, 2023, in Chicago. (L Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/TNS)
The NHL banned theme-night gear, including pride jerseys, in Oct. 2023. The ban initially included pride tape during warm-ups, but was reversed about a week later.
This year, Feb. 2 was the Blackhawks’ Pride Night. But how did that look?
The team did the bare minimum. No pride tape for warm-ups, no jerseys during walk-in, and not a whisper from the players. Last season, only a few players, including Connor Bedard, used pride tape.
This year had cookies, the Chicago Gay Men’s Choir, and a photo-op in the atrium of the United Center. Nothing more than that.
Highlighting an LGBTQ+ music group was a step in the right direction, but the team fell flat on all other fronts. The team continued to shy away from true LGBTQ+ support, just as they have in years past.
Other teams have worked with local artists to design jerseys for games. For their 2026 pride night, the Colorado Avalanche highlighted a queer Denver-based artist, who designed hats and jerseys for the game. The Seattle Kraken did something similar, showcasing the artist that designed walk-in jerseys.
Despite the Blackhawks’ glaring lack of pride and celebration of the LGBTQ+ community, the team did manage to make a reference to “Heated Rivalry,” posting a video of players during walk-in, stating, “headed to the game cottage.”
Fans praised this post at first, but the joy in this reference was quickly lost when online fans realized that no players partook in any recognition of pride before, during, or after the game.
Without a proper pride celebration, the team’s use of the cottage feels like a cheap shot, an empty attempt to connect to fans that also enjoy the show. In the show, the cottage is the only place that the couple, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, are able to find solace and freedom, despite being closeted in the league.
Since the show’s release and immediate popularity, teams across the league have been using “Heated Rivalry” to sell the game to fans. Some teams have sold Hollander and Rozanov jerseys. The Ottawa Senators sold jerseys through their team shop, donating some proceeds to Ottawa Queer Hockey, a league created in 2020. Other teams have referenced the show, played music from the soundtrack, and hosted one of the actors, François Arnaud, at a Pride Night game.
Even NHL Commissioner, Gary Bettman, has weighed in on the show. He told reporters after a game between the Sharks and Capitals that the league was “well aware of the show,” and that he believed that the league has “meaningfully embraced” the LGBTQ+ community.
Right, because banning pride jerseys and tape was definitely the way to “meaningfully embrace” the community.
If Bettman believes that teams and their pride nights are enough, he needs to reevaluate. Teams get away with doing the bare minimum for all theme nights, including pride.
The NHL wants to use “Heated Rivalry” to sell the sport to new fans, but they allow reports of homophobia and homophobic slurs in the locker rooms to slip under the rug. The league allowed a small group of players who didn’t want to participate in pride celebrations to lead to a full theme ban, and now fans run wild with homophobic comments and reactions any time a team attempts to celebrate pride.
Unless the NHL commits to truly celebrating the LGBTQ+ community in a meaningful way, they should leave Hollander, Rozanov, and the cottage out of their advertising.
