Where Were You When Ivan Provorov Stayed Silent on LGBT Pride?

I n the future, everyone will remember where they were on the day NHL player Ivan Provorov said nothing.

I was at home when the news first broke, and, like many others, I simply couldn’t believe what I wasn’t hearing. In my shock and my horror, my mind flitted chaotically between urgent questions. How does one write down what Provorov was conveying by declining to participate in a Philadelphia Flyers LGBT pride event? Is it “” or “. . .” or some even fouler third option? Can the punishments that have been floated for Provorov — including a million-dollar fine and deportation to Russia — really be considered sufficient given the unusual vacuousness of his crime? What will happen if, at some point in the future, another professional athlete stays quiet while others are affirming what they believe? The prospect is almost too terrifying to consider.

Desperate for clicks, and assiduously indifferent to my grief, a handful of commentators have shamefully chosen to downplay the crisis that Provorov has caused. Some have thrown around hateful buzzwords such as “pluralism,” “religious liberty,” “tolerance,” and “live and let live”; others have maintained that Provorov did nothing more dramatic than sit in a locker room on his own; more still have told me to “get a life.” If, at long last, we are to engender a respect for political difference in this country, these people must be widely shunned. What happened in the NHL on Tuesday night represented a vicious and pre-meditated attack on the unalienable right of sportswriters to have their convictions universally endorsed. Until that attack is repudiated, there can be no justice, no peace, and no hockey.

Alas, too many of us remain in a pre-Tuesday mentality. Commenting on the atrocity, the coach of the Philadelphia Flyers, John Tortorella, insisted that, while his franchise agreed corporately with Provorov’s critics, there was value in creating room for those who disagree. “With Provy,” Tortorella said, “he is being true to himself and to his religion. . . . That is one thing I respect about Provy, he is always true to himself.” The NHL, meanwhile, submitted that “players are free to decide which initiatives to support.” Both of these statements are too clever by half. Superficially, the notion of “respect” may sound attractive, but, if we desire to make real progress, it cannot be meaningfully applied here. At a moment such as this, “respect” is not a luxury to be accorded to those whose convictions run afoul of the majority, but the means by which such people must be sedulously brought into line. By demanding that people of different perspectives be treated cordially instead of as pariahs, Tortorella, Provorov, and the entire NHL have weaponized American forbearance against the most vulnerable members of our society. We will be paying for their mistake for years to come.

It should come as no surprise that Provorov has exhibited no contrition. Pressing his advantage, Provorov followed his silent onslaught with a panoply of divisive provocations. “I respect everybody’s choices,” he told the media after the game. “My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion. That’s all I’m going to say. If you have any hockey questions, I’ll answer those.” Presumably, this approach will soon become a blueprint for other political firebrands. “What Provorov is doing here,” explained Celina Makeduck, the Nina Jankowicz Professor of Hatred and Misinformation at Curtain Falls University in Maryland, “is engaging in what I like to call ‘the calculated agony of noiselessness.’ For decades, experts have worried that a sporting star would realize that they could just opt out of taking a stand. On Tuesday, our worst fears were realized.”