Opinion | The LGBTQ community and Brian Burke deserved better from James Reimer

I feel bad for James Reimer. He’s had a decent NHL career, especially for someone from the tiny town of Morweena, Man. He was a sheltered evangelical Mennonite kid whose belief in Scripture was so profound that he would apologize to someone for saying unkind things about them in private; things that person would never have known about had Reimer not apologized. In his own words, Reimer believes in loving everyone. We should all aspire to that.

But Reimer can’t quite get there, and it’s a shame.

On Saturday, the San Jose Sharks goaltender — a Leafs goaltender all those years ago — became the latest data point in the NHL’s ongoing Rorschach test when he was the only player on his team who refused to wear a rainbow-themed jersey on Pride night.

Reimer talked about how it was a hard decision, but his religion was his guide. He said he believed everyone should be welcome at an NHL game and then eschewed the very basic gesture whose entire meaning, as Pittsburgh Penguins president Brian Burke put it, was showing LGBTQ people they were welcome at an NHL game. Which is Reimer’s right, sure.

“My faith said, like I said before, everyone has worth and value and I love them,” Reimer told reporters. “When a guy gets traded to a team, often I’ll ask the people in charge, what’s their number? So I can send them a text. Welcome to the team, ask if they need anything. I don’t do that based off what they believe or what they identify with. I do that because I’m taught to love and to care for people. That’s who I am.

“But the counter side, or the other side, is I just can’t publicly or personally endorse something that goes against my beliefs. That’s kind of where I’m at so far.”

Reimer may have been the only San Jose player not to wear the jersey — and that matters, that part — but he’s not alone. Philly’s Ivan Provorov was the first visible holdout in January, citing his Russian Orthodox faith. A couple of weeks later, the New York Rangers decided not to wear the planned Pride-themed jerseys for their night; the New York Islanders didn’t wear Pride jerseys for their night because the franchise only mandates pre-game jerseys for cancer, the military and the Irish, which is certainly a choice. The Minnesota Wild followed the Rangers and abandoned the jerseys on March 8, citing concern for Russian star Kirill Kaprizov.

Hockey is for everyone, they say, and in the NHL that includes bigots and it can’t be helped, or won’t, depending. The league itself often seems scared of the conservative movement, and there’s a reason Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has used the league as a punching bag. A men’s gay choir at the all-star skills contest aside, the league doesn’t do much in the way of punching back.

It’s a shame partly because the current storm over LGBTQ rights in the United States is a full-blown moral panic, with conservatives howling about drag shows, outlawing medical therapy for trans kids and more or less accusing anyone who preaches gay-positive ideas of being a pedophile, a groomer. We’ve seen a little of that here in Canada, too. The conservative movement has re-harnessed that old anger, fear and hatred. And real people, as always, get hurt.

James Reimer isn’t a part of that, or doesn’t think he is. He just decided his faith only extends so far. To their credit, the Sharks talked with Reimer, agreed to disagree, and 19 of the 20 players went out on the ice with rainbow-themed Sharks jerseys. Logan Couture — who once claimed he was sucker-punched in Toronto for talking about voting for Republicans and mentioning Donald Trump — said he thought a lot of players were excited to wear them. He said: I think hockey really is for everyone.

Which is a loving way to look at it. Religion has been used as a skirt for bigotry for an awfully long time, and if you want to selectively pick from Biblical teachings, you’re allowed. But as the writer and priest Michael Coren put it on a recent podcast about gay rights, “When did this become the test of my faith? It’s actually heretical. I don’t use that term very often, but it’s a form of heresy, to reduce Christianity to this question of: Where do you stand on this issue? And it’s an issue of love, so you should say: I stand with love, which is the teaching of Jesus.”

Jesus, of course, never mentioned homosexuality and preferred to hang out with society’s marginalized people, but some people choose a different version of their faith. Again, that’s their right.

What bothers me is this: I accept that Reimer is indeed someone who cares about other people, reaches out and asks what he can do to help. Well, it was 13 years ago now that Burke marched in his first Pride parade in Toronto; he marched with his son Brendan, who had come out publicly as gay. That year, Blackhawks defenceman Brent Sopel took the Stanley Cup to the Chicago Pride parade to honour the Burkes. Burke marched again the next year, after Brendan’s death; he wore sunglasses to hide the tears, and had trouble talking. He still marches.

One of the goalies Burke had as general manager of the Leafs at the time, and for several years after, was Reimer. Boy, did Burke defend Reimer, in public and in private. He went to the wall for that kid.

And all these years later, the best lesson of Brian Burke doesn’t seem to have quite reached James Reimer. Indeed, Reimer’s confused explanation of how he couldn’t wear an Islamic-themed jersey despite being a friend of former Leafs teammate Nazem Kadri showed a man who has chosen a fundamental and fundamentalist insularity.

And that’s why I feel bad for him. That is a gap in humanity that Reimer could have bridged, you’d hope, and been better for it. Maybe one day.

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