As some sports leagues embarrass themselves with actions antithetical to American values, the National Hockey League followed the right path earlier this week.
Professional hockey, which planned to pause their season for three weeks in early 2022 to accommodate players traveling to Communist China, made a bold decision by announcing this week the league will not compete in the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics.
Some hockey fans may be disappointed, but they’re likely sentient enough to know it’s the right move.
The “Genocide and State-Sanctioned Kidnapping Games,” as they should be called, should of course have no American presence.
Related: Boycott the Beijing Olympics
A noxious country that spits on human rights, places ethnic minorities in concentration camps, and is a political enemy of the United States and the West should not be honored; it should be condemned.
We did it!!
Today @JoeBiden signed into law a bill which will ban imports from Xinjiang region to the U.S, unless they can prove it wasn’t made with slave labor.
This will finally stop the abuse of Uyghurs!
The bill will ultimately punish China’s economy.– Take that @Nike https://t.co/p8nF2gRF9P pic.twitter.com/5yP8IX7kvP
— Enes Kanter FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) December 23, 2021
The protocol Beijing has in place is also troubling. If an Olympic athlete tests positive for coronavirus, the player has to quarantine in China for three to five weeks. Being stuck in an authoritarian country thousands of miles from home for a month does not seem safe or appealing.
The NHL needs those three weeks to complete some of the postponed games. And on the business side, ticket sales from those games, as well as food, beverage, merchandise, and television revenue, need to be recouped from losses caused by the China virus. The league has already postponed 50 games this season.
Unless you’re Nike, LeBron James, or Google, you understand that rogue regimes don’t deserve respect from the rest of the world.
Lest we forget, despite what the vacuous vice president believes, China is responsible for a global pandemic that’s killed more than five million people.
Regardless of the ultimate rationale, actions like this from the NHL, women’s tennis, and the state of Florida are welcome. We have about five weeks to see if others follow.
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