There were three ways to handle U.S. President Donald Trump's recent incursion into sports fantasyland – the NBA way, the NFL way and, least advisable of all, the NHL way.
Faced with a direct challenge from the commander-in-chief, the NBA made dissent its leaguewide rationale. Everyone, from the commissioner to the clubhouse attendants, appears of one mind on this.
Basketball will be the cultural centrepiece of the Trump resistance. That serves its audience, which is largely urban, coastal, racially diverse and desperate for some Steph Curry-adjacent credibility.
Whether you think it's right or wrong, it's smart business: "Let's make some positive change together! By selling T-shirts at an 1,800-per-cent markup."
The NFL co-opted and corporatized the protest. After putting its minds to it for a week, football decided this whole thing wasn't about police tactics. It was about unity.
Kneeling was no longer a blow to the system. It was a way of demonstrating love of country and each other. The NFL became a big rainbow nation and got all "Hands Across America." Even the players seemed to have lost track of what the whole thing was about. The anthem? The military? Trump?
Within days, they'd begun bickering among themselves about semiotics.
You have to hand it to the NFL's marketing goons. It could have turned the Hindenburg into a Hallmark moment.
Faced with a crisis they couldn't "no comment" their way out of, the NBA and NFL had a strategy. They were two very different approaches, but each served a business interest.
The NHL also had a plan, but it was more of the auto-destruct variety.
As Trump's rhetorical missiles began landing on Sunday, the NHL wandered out of its bunker, where it would have been relatively safe, into open ground.
On Sunday, why did the Pittsburgh Penguins announce, unprompted, they were going to the White House? Why did the league allow itself to become Trump's clearest win in all of this? What was its percentage in that?
Why was hockey's most bankable star allowed to tangle himself in a media thicket without any apparent clue how to handle it? Did no one think to sit down with Sidney Crosby for five minutes and role-play the exchange?
This might all have turned out differently had Crosby followed his "great honour to be invited" (to the White House) comments with an "… and let me tell you why I think that … ."
Instead, it was popped off with no context. Everybody rushed to fill that part in for themselves.
Overnight, Crosby went from being seen as the nicest guy in hockey to a robotic company man.
(The truth is, he's always been both things.)
Didn't it cross anyone's mind that Crosby's PR problem might be an opportunity, if handled with some finesse? Demonstrably not.
A day later, why did every hockey player seem surprised by questions about Trump, the White House and anthems?
Toronto's Auston Matthews looked as if reporters had him in thumbscrews. He's the best young American in the game, playing on the most over-observed hockey team on the planet. Didn't they see this coming?
You can tell when pros have been group-briefed on a subject. They hit the same beats and use the same metaphors. The NHL players clearly didn't receive this favour. They were all over the place on the topic, rambling and dissembling. Many came off looking completely out of touch with the world they live in. Like they were just hearing about it for the first time.
It wasn't the politics, per se. Hockey is a white sport played in the U.S. by Canadian farmers and European contract workers. These are not going to be the first people up the barricades, and it's foolish to be disappointed when they aren't.
These guys want to go the rink, be with the boys, have a kegger, collect a cheque and do it all over again. No cultural flare-up is going to turn them into philosopher kings.
What put the NHL in such a poor light was not its stand – since nobody took one – but the lack of nuance and coherence in its approach.
Most NBA players could articulate their position in a powerful, human way. No NHL player could come anywhere close.
That flowed from the top.
Gary Bettman is a lawyer by trade, and more so by disposition. He isn't looking to say the right thing. He's trying to find a collection of words that have the least chance of coming back to bite him in the ass.
Here's Bettman's idea of a clear stand: "I have great respect for our players, and there are so many matters, particularly on social issues, that are a matter of individual belief and individual choice. And I respect everybody's views on it. In the final analysis, people are going to have to decide what makes them comfortable."
Well, what the hell does that mean?
All "social issues" are a matter of "individual belief." No one respects "everybody's views." And what does comfort have to do with any of this?
This isn't a statement. It's the boilerplate printed on a pill bottle. It's designed to limit liability.
(One wonders how much Bettman respects all views in Calgary. He may be a little more selective in that case.)
Just as much as southern expansion and new TV deals, this week was a huge opportunity for the NHL. For once, its people got up on the American stage with the big boys. Everybody was anxious to hear what they would say.
It was a chance to stand out, one way or the other. At the very least, to stand alongside the NFL and NBA looking just as polished and prepared.
Hockey might have won some new fans, or bulwarked its existing base, or – had it been really clever – done both.
Instead, the NHL did what it usually does in these crucial moments. Stood there with its mouth hanging open, wondering why no one listens to it.
Cathal Kelly