Pride nights have split open hockey's closed culture — and that's a good thing

This column is an opinion by Colin Walmsley , a Canadian teaching in Paris. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

On Monday, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said that NHL Pride nights would have to be re-evaluated in the offseason, the latest fallout from a controversy that has engulfed the NHL. 

As a rising number of players refuse to wear Pride jerseys, the last few months have been one of those rare and uncomfortable occasions when hockey's closed and insular culture is split open and revealed to the world. 

As NHL teams, players opt out of Pride Night events, concerns grow about league's commitment to change

With their players' opinions under the spotlight, some teams seem intent on avoiding the conversation at all costs: the New York Rangers, Minnesota Wild and Chicago Blackhawks all nixed previously announced plans for their entire teams to wear Pride sweaters, choosing to comply with an anti-LGBTQ+ law passed in a dictatorship half a world away rather than stand with the queer community.

Unfortunately, that instinct to turtle up and hope for problems to disappear is just a manifestation of the fortress mentality present throughout hockey culture at all levels of the game.

What happens in the locker-room stays in the locker-room; the team is everything; the locker-room is our stronghold. In my experience growing up as a closeted minor hockey player, hockey culture cultivates an insular, us-against-the-world mentality far stronger than that of most other sports.

Sometimes, this attitude can have positive outcomes: the friendships built during hours together in carpools and bus rides; the teamwork forged in early morning or late-night practices; the shared hockey culture. The