NHL continues diversity efforts during AS events
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Kim Davis sees a change in hockey from when she was a girl growing up in Chicago. Back then, she said, the sport didn’t seem like a place for Black girls like her.
“There were no intentional messages that said the sport was for me, or for us,” said Davis, the NHL’s executive vice president of social impact, growth and legislative affairs.
That is slowly changing, Davis said.
She was hired in 2017 to lead diversity and inclusion initiatives in a league that has been criticized for its efforts in those areas. As the NHL prepares for its All-Star celebration in South Florida, its attempts to increase diversity continue to attract attention, not all of it positive.
Some have questioned the NHL’s commitment to change, and others have resisted some of its diversity efforts. Davis said the league hopes to combat criticism by holding itself accountable and “proving people wrong.”
“We don’t mind the hard questions being asked,” Davis said, “as long as the assessment is fair.”
As the start of Black History Month coincided with the All-Star events, the NHL debuted a mobile museum that highlights minority and underrepresented contributors to the game, from Angela James, who was the first Black woman inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, to Kevin Weekes, the former NHL goalie who became the first Black former player to be a hockey analyst on national television.
“Inclusion is what’s most important because you can be diverse, but if you’re not inclusive, what’s the point of having diversity?” said Jeff Scott, the NHL’s vice president for community development and growth, who helped with the museum’s creation. “What we’re showing here with this experience is the representation of access and opportunities.”
Scott, who is Black, mentioned that hockey did not appear to be an option for him growing up. The goal of the museum, which is set up inside a bus that the league plans to bring to all 32 NHL markets, is to help eliminate some of the same barriers to entry into the sport that existed when he was young.
“Had I known that there was an option, or there were people out there that look like me,” Scott said, “I may have been more inclined to do that.”
The league in October released an internal demographic study of its staff and 32 teams. The report found that the NHL’s workforce is 83.6% white with men making up 62% of the total, based on the 4,200 people who participated in a voluntary and anonymous survey (about 67% of all employees). More than 90% of the league’s players and nearly all of its coaches and officials are white.
Davis said the league plans to update the survey every two years to mark its progress.
“We knew our demographics would be controversial at best,” Davis said, “but we wanted to be transparent because we are holding ourselves, first of all, accountable to the change.”
By the time the next report is released, Davis said she hopes both fans and employees feel more welcomed by the league.
“The word I like to use is ‘intentionality,'” Davis said. “We’re being intentional about making sure that people who otherwise have not seen the sport of hockey as something that was accessible to them, see it as accessible.”
One of those ways is through the NHL’s “Pathway to Hockey” summit, which encourages newcomers to learn about hockey and consider careers in the NHL by telling the stories of people who work for the league.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican and potential presidential candidate, criticized the league’s original advertisement of the summit, calling it discriminatory. The ad noted that participants must identify as female, Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+ and/or disabled.
“We do not abide by the woke notion that discrimination should be overlooked if applied in a politically popular manner or against a politically unpopular demographic,” Bryan Griffin, DeSantis’ press secretary, said in a statement. “We are fighting all discrimination in our schools and our workplaces, and we will fight it in publicly accessible places of meeting or activity. We call upon the National Hockey League to immediately remove and denounce the discriminatory prohibitions it has imposed on attendance to the 2023 ‘Pathway to Hockey’ summit.”
The NHL, after revising the post, held the summit in Fort Lauderdale as planned, with more than 120 attendees, Davis said. She estimated that the participants had an average age of 25.
As recently as five years ago, Davis added, the league likely wouldn’t have been able to attract a diverse pool of people in that age group.
“When you’re not visible, a lot of times you’re nonexistent,” Scott said. “We as a league are hyper-focused on what the future and growth of our game looks like while also sustaining and maintaining our current fan base.”
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Jorge Castillo, ESPN Staff Writer
The San Diego Padres have acquired second baseman Luis Arraez in a trade with the Miami Marlins for reliever Woo-Suk Go and prospects Dillon Head, Jakob Marsee and Nathan Martorella, the teams announced Saturday.
The Padres also received nearly $7.9 million in cash considerations, leaving them responsible only for the major league minimum salary for Arraez.
The transaction represents the first significant move for the Marlins since Peter Bendix took over as the team’s president of baseball operations in November after Kim Ng departed. It marks the beginning of the Marlins’ teardown of an underachieving roster that has produced the third-worst record in the majors at 9-25 with a minus-61 run differential after reaching the postseason in 2023.
On the other side, it’s another aggressive deal for A.J. Preller, the leader of the Padres’ front office since 2014. Arraez, one of the sport’s best contact hitters, will give the Padres a needed left-handed-hitting weapon after Juan Soto was sent to the New York Yankees in December. San Diego is 17-18 with a plus-6 run differential.
“It’s really amazing — that guy is a baller,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said about Arraez after the Padres’ win Friday night. “He’s probably the closest to Tony Gwynn right now, so looking forward to seeing him in our lineup. … The guy’s a pure hitter, and I can’t wait for him to help us.”
Miami is paying San Diego $7,898,602 of the $8,491,398 remaining for the final 149 days of Arraez’s $10.6 million salary. That left his cost to the Padres at $592,796 — exactly a prorated share of the $740,000 minimum.
Arraez, 27, was the Marlins’ best player, an All-Star and batting champion each of the past two seasons. This season, he is batting .299 with a .719 OPS in 33 games, all started at second base. He also has extensive experience at first base.
“When a guy like that is taken out of the lineup or potentially traded, you feel it, because he’s such a good kid and one of the leaders in that clubhouse,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said, “so there’s definitely a shock value.”
Arraez is expected to start games as the Padres’ designated hitter, but the club plans to cycle through the DH spot. Jake Cronenworth, Xander Bogaerts and Manny Machado could also get at-bats there. Bogaerts has been the club’s starting second baseman.
Go spent seven seasons in the Korean Baseball Organization before signing a two-year deal with a mutual option worth $4.5 million guaranteed during the offseason. The 25-year-old right-hander appeared in 10 games for Double-A San Antonio, posting a 4.38 ERA across 12⅓ innings after failing to make the Padres’ bullpen out of spring training.
Head was the Padres’ first-round pick (25th overall) last year out of high school. The 19-year-old center fielder is batting .237 with a .683 OPS and three stolen bases in 21 games in low-Class A.
Martorella is batting .294 with an .820 OPS in 23 games in San Antonio. The Padres selected the 23-year-old first baseman in the fifth round of the 2022 draft. Marsee, a 22-year-old outfielder, has spent the season in San Antonio batting .185 with two home runs. He was a sixth-round pick in 2022 out of Central Michigan.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Jorge Castillo, ESPN Staff Writer
NEW YORK — Yankees ace Gerrit Cole threw off a mound Saturday morning for the first time since being shut down in mid-March, checking off another box in his road back from an elbow injury.
Cole took the mound in the Yankees’ bullpen at 10:40 a.m., hours before New York took on the Detroit Tigers at Yankee Stadium. He said he threw 15 pitches, 13 for strikes and all fastballs. He said the pitches averaged 89 mph.
“It was exciting,” Cole said. “This was a good day for me. I was fired up.”
Cole, 33, started the season on the 60-day injured list after being diagnosed with nerve irritation and edema in his pitching elbow following one spring training outing. The reigning American League Cy Young Award winner is eligible to come off the injured list May 27, but the Yankees have declined to share a timetable for Cole’s return.
On a scale from 1 to 10 — 10 being game ready — Cole reported he is “somewhere between 1 and 5.” He said how his body responds over the next 48 hours will decide when he throws off a mound again.
Cole’s injury was a significant blow to a club with championship-or-bust aspirations, but the Yankees’ starting rotation has been one of the best in the majors and a primary reason for the team’s 21-13 start. The rotation’s 3.43 ERA through Friday ranked ninth in the majors. Its 183⅔ innings pitched ranked fourth.
Luis Gil, Cole’s rotation replacement, logged the best start of his young career Wednesday, holding the explosive Baltimore Orioles scoreless on two hits over a career-high 6⅓ innings. Gil, 25, has recorded a 3.19 ERA in 31 innings across six starts despite leading the American League with 20 walks.
Earlier this week, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said neither the team’s nor the rotation’s success will impact Cole’s timeline. Asked whether the overall success has made his absence more “palatable,” Cole was unsure.
“I don’t really have anything unpalatable to compare it to,” Cole said. “You know what I’m saying? So I’m just kind of like, just like everybody else, just glad we’re playing well.”
Also on Saturday, the Yankees reinstated infielder Jon Berti from the 10-day injured list and designated former first-round pick Taylor Trammell for assignment.
Berti, 34, has been out of the Yankees’ lineup since April 10 with a left groin strain. The Yankees had selected Trammell off waivers from the Los Angeles Dodgers on April 18, and he collected 1 hit, 1 walk and 2 runs in five games with New York.
Field Level Media contributed to this report.
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