The Rangers are a directionless, immoral mess

Covering up sexual misconduct is a line in the sand Ranger fans shouldn't tolerate

Professional sports are a weird cultural outgrowth of our collective humanity. We spend night after night tuned in watching the pinnacle of athletic competition perform at a level we mere mortals could only dream of. Spending so much time on these players gives us a level of familiarity, like we know them and they’re part of our lives. Some teams go above and beyond trying to peel back the curtain to try and give the public a deeper understanding of who these players are on a personal level.

But, the sports world isn’t real.

These players aren’t your friends. You don’t know them. They’re not in your life. Looking at sports through a para social lens creates the ultimate one way relationship. An individual invests time, money and emotions in hopes that maybe once or twice in their life they might see their favorite team climb the mountain top and capture a championship, to create a brief reprieve from the grind of the day to day for a few weeks. It creates fond memories to look back on and tell “remember when,” stories.

The pursuit of a championship by any means has a corrosive effect on the soul. There is a collective deification of those willing to put themselves at physical risk, who put their families and feelings aside to win. The ugly reality of such mindsets starts to seep in and dehumanizes all parties involved.

Waking up to the news Thursday morning that New York Rangers forward Artemi Panarin had been credibly accused of sexual misconduct and that both MSG (that owns the Rangers) and Panarin had paid out settlements to the accuser was just another reminder that as long as an athlete is good enough, the powers that be will always be glad to look the other way and try to pursue that championship.

In the wake of the Brad Aldrich Chicago Blackhawks scandal, which was coming on the heels of mass social unrest tied to both #MeToo and Black Lives Matter it really felt like there was something in the air to drive meaningful progress and improvement. Then, there was the 2018 Team Canada World Junior Championship team sexual assault case to serve as a sobering reminder that it’s ultimately upon stakeholders to want to make systems better.

But, this Panarin story is just the latest in a long line of reminders that owners, team presidents and GMs really don’t care about right or wrong. They care about winning in the way that they want to.

As of the time of this writing, the NHL does not have a unified sexual misconduct policy. Investigations and punishments are entirely at the discretion of commissioner Gary Bettman. As the trials and tribulations of Roger Goodell’s first decade as commissioner of the NFL proved, this left to much up to one person’s decision making, and people are fallible.

Without a uniform policy, each incident is treated differently by the league. According to The Athletic’s Katie Strang the Rangers and the NHL both declined to say whether Panarin was subject to any discipline.

In a sport obsessed with accountability, honor and character, it’s always quite the jarring juxtaposition to see real life not be held to the same standard. Mess up in a game? Stapled to the bench. Sexual misconduct? No comment.

It’s very important to note that this is at least the second documented case of sexual misconduct under James Dolan’s ownership of MSG. Back in 2007, then Knicks general manager Isiah Thomas was found liable in civil court for sexual harassment. Eight years later, Dolan made Thomas the president of the New York Liberty, MSG’s WNBA team.

The great irony of this situation is of course that Thomas was a miserable GM with the Knicks, but Dolan’s own personal feelings kept the former in the fold. Make no mistake about it, this MSG culture problem starts all the way at the top with Dolan, who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. As chairman of MSG who paid out the settlement to Panarin’s accuser, he was well aware of the allegation and okay with paying to make it go away.

As is proving the case with each passing day in the United States, crime is only for those without means. If someone can pay to make a problem go away, they don’t have to face the consequences of their actions.

Karmically, the Rangers are facing the most difficult season post 2004-2005 lockout. There is no direction. The president and GM has the unwavering loyalty of an owner who thinks sexual misconduct is just an inconvenience in the process of winning. Of course, by extension, that makes President/GM Chris Drury okay with all of this too.

So, when a team is willing to cover up real life horrors and make them go away with a check, it’s not exactly a wonder to see that lack of accountability bleed over into all aspects of the organization. The Rangers have sorely lacked leadership the last several years, but it wasn’t just on the ice, it goes to the very top. Drury’s culling of organizational staff down to a crew of just a few loyalists reflects the mindset of a paranoid, untrusting individual.

Now it seems pretty clear why Drury was operating like Donald Trump trying to flush out a leak.

The organization’s course of action upon learning an employee was a victim of sexual assault was to make the job harder to do as opposed to holding the accused accountable. The brilliant idea that MSG signed off on was limiting team employee access to players even if their job, like social media manager, required direct interaction to produce effective work. So instead of trying to protect future employees, MSG opted to defend the $11 million dollar man.

I make no equivocation. Panarin should be dismissed from the team for violating the morals clause of his contract. Drury should resign his dual roles of authority and MSG needs to conduct an independent audit to establish what organizational practices allowed such a culture to permeate and establish new protocols to protect vulnerable employees.

So much of my personal identity is wrapped up in sports. So many of the professional opportunities and great friends I’ve made in life are tied through this space. For me, hockey is my home, it is my community and I love it to death. It’s part of what makes me who I am. To once again be reminded of its shortcomings and how little its stakeholders care about right and wrong is haunting.

More likely than not, the Rangers will send Panarin home ahead of the regular season finale and get him out of town. The organization will defer to some word salad statement, probably threaten litigation against the victim for violating the terms of the NDA and Drury will fire Laviolette to jingle keys in front of a relatively docile fan base that has every right to demand change.

Every day that Dolan is allowed to stay as owner of the Rangers is a black stain on the game of hockey. Drury should be getting the same treatment as Stan Bowman who was “rehabilitated” so fast he got his next job in less than four years after being fired. So if Drury pays a couple thousand dollars to a consulting firm to say he’s learned from the error of his ways, he could be running his own shop before the end of the decade.

That’s what’s so galling about all of this. Panarin won’t be held accountable beyond writing a settlement check. Dolan will keep collecting revenue. Drury will fire Laviolette and say “I don’t wanna talk about the past.” The sports world has a pretty uniform playbook for burying a scandal and the Rangers will undoubtedly follow it to a tee.

Breaking that mental barrier between sports franchise and billion dollar corporation was a watershed moment for my psyche. For so long, I tried to hold those two conflicting positions with each other, that sports were a public institution and different from their contemporaries that worked in industries like energy or finance. It would take burying your head in the sand to the point that you wouldn’t even be living a life anymore, you’d just render yourself to the powers that be.

I didn’t exactly think Drury was a high character leader when he went out of his way to acquire one hipped Patrick Kane who has his own laundry list of scandals to account for, but I did think there would be some basic sense of right or wrong that would appeal to humanity.

Does Drury need to be a better general manager? Of course.

He should worry about being a person first