While football is the usual sport of choice for our panelists on The Editors, the recent imbroglio around Ivan Provorov has made them shift to hockey.

Maddy finds the whole controversy absurd and asks, “Why do we have to politicize everything? One of the joys of sports, one of the joys of music, or any of these other leisure activities is that it gets away from politics. You focus on things that bring people together instead of things that divide people. . . . It’s something you can bring your kids to — that’s the point of it. That’s why leisure is the basis of culture, and culture is bigger than politics.”

The hypocrisy is also frustrating and, as Maddy says, “It’s also gaslighting because they politicize something, and then when somebody wants to opt out and say ‘Listen, I’d actually rather not’ . . . it’s like ‘This is insulting to the gay community, you’re the one who’s politicizing things.’”

Charlie reflects on the episode and points out that what Provorov did is actually diversity: “Provorov dealt with this perfectly. . . . It’s not an attack on diversity. It doesn’t undermine diversity. . . . If you truly have a diverse country, then you’re going to have people who have different religious beliefs. You might not like them. Perhaps you love them. Irrespective, you are going to have people who think things that you don’t, who opt out of the mainstream, who are not on board with the rest of their teammates . . . the prevailing culture — perhaps every single other person in the country, and if those people choose to quietly sit on the sidelines, they should be left alone for it.”

Do the panelists think Provorov’s stance will inject some steel into others’ spines? Michael, while he does cite evidence of a wave of anonymous support for the hockey player, doesn’t think so. “I think on the whole, people are going to be scared. I think all of these incidents are demonstrations meant to intimidate and that they do have an effect.” Listen to the whole conversation here.