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Here at the sports desk located somewhere below decks of the Good Pirate Ship RedState, we can’t help but notice the January 17 “incident” involving Philadelphia Flyers forward Ivan Provorov refusing to wear a Pride Night warmup jersey not invoking his immediate banishment from the NHL, if not the planet, continuing to reverberate across the woke waves of wimphood that is today’s motley lot of sportswriters. Amplification via outrageously outrageous outrage over former Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy speaking at the 2023 March for Life, and the New York Rangers not wearing rainbow-covered warmup jerseys during their January 27 Pride Night, confirms the observation. We now have the latest installment of the frenzied froth-flecked foam flickers brigade chiming in on This Week’s Ultimate EEEEEVIL …

… Jordan Peterson publicly speaking at a hockey arena.

The Hockey News writer Ian Kennedy, he of the pronouns in his Twitter bio lest one read his feed and automatically assume his actual gender is neuter, has penned a philippic railing against the Ottawa Senators for allowing Jordan Peterson to speak at the Canadian Tire Centre, the Senators’ home arena. Not during a game or a team-sponsored event, mind you. Peterson is appearing at the arena because someone rented it for the occasion. Kind of like how you see concerts and stuff at a sports arena. Someone rents the place for the evening and puts on a show. The arena takes either a flat fee or a fee plus part of the gate and concessions sales. It happens pretty often.

Now, the people running the arena aren’t endorsing whoever is playing or speaking in their facility for the evening. Their sole concern is how much money they will make and making as sure as possible they are not allowing an act drawing a crowd likely to break stuff. Since the chances of either a mosh pit or a chair-throwing, window-smashing spree breaking out at a Jordan Peterson lecture are distinctly remote, the chances are incredibly high the arena operators said “eh, whatever” to the event. Or, since this is Canada, perhaps they said, “whatever, eh?”

Anyway, Kennedy’s screed, with a listed reading time of 13 minutes, although slogging through it feels more like 13 hours of life you’ll never get back, is titled, “Jordan Peterson’s Ottawa event directly opposes NHL’s diversity and inclusion efforts, experts say.” Get that, your knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing flyover country inbred rubes? EXPERTS!!! All of whom, doubtless to everyone’s wondrous amazement, agree with every word of Kennedy‘s sniveling simpery.

Because here at RedState we like our readers, there will be minimal subjection to quotes from the story. Suffice it to say that Kennedy’s main thrust is that Peterson is a Bad Man who says Mean Things that Hurt People’s Feelings.

Peterson himself has stated his distaste for terms like “equity” and “diversity.” In a blog post titled “Equity: When the Left Goes Too Far,” Peterson claimed that of diversity, equity and inclusion, “equity is the most egregious, self-righteous, historically-ignorant and dangerous.” In a separate post, Peterson wrote that diversity “masquerades as something positive,” and what the term truly means is “let’s aim for fewer white men in positions of authority.”

The nerve of this guy, calling out progressive buzzwords for the steaming piles of steer manure they are. Note Kennedy doesn’t attempt to defend equity. Apparently, in his clenched little mind, Kennedy believes it’s not the emperor parading around in his underwear that’s the problem. It’s the little boy at the parade’s end saying the truth out loud.

Kennedy asserts that allowing Peterson to speak at the Senators’ arena implies the team’s, and the NHL’s, agreement with Peterson’s views. One, so what. It’s called free speech, something progressives abhor. Two, how stupid do you have to be to believe that? If Ozzy Osborne plays a show at the Canadian Tire Centre, does that mean the Senators and the NHL are all in on biting off bat heads?

Growing up, my favorite sportswriter was Jim Murray from the Los Angeles Times, whose syndicated column ran in the local paper. I have no idea what his politics were, but I read every word because he was genuinely funny. Later on, I discovered Frank Deford. Again, I have no idea what his politics might have been. I read every word because he was a fiercely creative storyteller who used his tremendous writing skill to focus entirely on his story’s subject matter. Both Murray and Deford have passed away. Based on Kennedy’s bleatings, so has quality sportswriting at mainstream publications.