NHL extends commitments to focus on inclusion, education, diversity

MANALAPAN, Fla. --The NHL is partnering with two organizations that are leaders in their fields that focus on inclusion, education and awareness to advance and strengthen its efforts in preventing discrimination and harassment, and diversifying its workforce.

The League announced at the Board of Governors meeting on Thursday partnerships with the Respect Group, an anti-harassment organization co-founded by former NHL player Sheldon Kennedy, and Jopwell, an industry pacesetter in recruiting from diverse communities.
Kim Davis, the NHL's senior executive vice president of social impact, growth initiatives and legislative affairs, made the announcement following her presentation to the Board titled "Respect Hockey -- Committing Ourselves to the Game's Greatest Values" that was focused on the pillars of prevention, reporting, counseling and accountability.
"The NHL's commitment to advancing positive cultural changes in our sport have been continuous, they've been focused and they've been unrelenting for some time," Davis said. "Yet I think we all understand that there is a need both as a business and as a moral imperative to accelerate our efforts around respect, equity and inclusion and that's what this program's initiative is about."
The partnership with the Respect Group, which was founded in 2004, will focus on assisting the League in establishing an online training program focused on anti-bullying, abuse, harassment and discrimination that will be mandatory for all NHL personnel.
"We at Respect Group have full confidence in Kim Davis and her team and in the leadership and support (NHL) Commissioner (Gary) Bettman is providing," Kennedy said. "I believe the League has a very comprehensive strategy to continue to address all forms of maltreatment and we are grateful to be a part of the culture change as it continues to unfold."
Davis said the Respect Group will work with the NHL to create a 90-minute online training program with messaging customized by each team.
She said the NHL Players' Association is aligned with the 90-minute training being mandatory for all players.
The goal is for the customized messaging to be available to each team by the end of the first quarter of the 2022 fiscal year and for every NHL and team employee, including players, coaches and executives, to be certified in the training program by June 30, 2022.
Davis said the League will then turn its attention to expanding the training program to all non-NHL leagues, associations and governing bodies.
All League staff and on-ice officials have undergone mandatory diversity and inclusion training programs in the past two years.
Davis said 25 percent of the League's 32 teams have already partnered with a third party for inclusive learning experiences and another 35 percent are scheduled to do so this season.
"Sheldon has been an amazing partner thus far in this journey," Davis said. "To be able to work with Sheldon to create this consistency, and Sheldon having the credibility in the hockey system to be able to manifest this in a way that will help accelerate it. He's an amazing partner. He's humble. I think we'll be able to move very quickly because of our work with him."
The League's partnership with Jopwell will focus on diversifying its hiring practices and opening doors to potential employees who otherwise would not have been on the radar of the League and its 32 teams.
"We will have access their professional sourcing portal, a database of over 100,000 professionals; African American, Black, Latino, Native American and Asian professionals that primarily fit within the job categories of manager to senior director," Davis said. "These professionals have qualifications to fill important roles within the NHL -- sales, sponsorship, partnership marketing, HR, finance, social media -- key areas where we can build a future pipeline of diverse talent.
"This is a partnership that is important to us. It's another tangible step in our efforts to build a more diverse and inclusive organization."
Davis said Jopwell currently works with American Express, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, Johnson & Johnson, Google and the Boston Consulting Group.
"I am beyond thrilled about the recent partnership between Jopwell and the NHL," said Porter Braswell, Jopwell's CEO and co-founder. "The League's initiative to diversify the industry is critical, and we're looking forward to making strides in increasing representation in the NHL and across the sports industry."
Davis said the NHL will organize what a "Respect Hockey Summit" within the next year to bring together the leaders of various hockey entities to talk about culture in the workplace, challenges they face and best practices for fostering greater inclusion and diversity.
The NHLPA, American Hockey League, Canadian Hockey League, ECHL, Greater Toronto Hockey League, Hockey Canada, Professional Women's Hockey Players' Association, Premier Hockey Federation, USA Hockey, United States Hockey League and U.S. College Hockey have all committed to participate in the summit.
The NHL will also provide support for those organizations when they are forced to deal with reports of abuse and/or misconduct.
"We manifest accountability by providing adequate tools and resources to leadership across the hockey ecosystem to learn, to improve and to build their competence in creating this culture of inclusion," Davis said. "The first step of that is we are calling the annual hockey culture summit. CEOs and leaders of all hockey organizations together with the best thinkers and practitioners in culture and workplace practices will come together to discuss challenges and opportunities, and at that summit each organization will report out on the work they have done and the progress they have made across the four facets."
Davis said the NHL is in also the process of establishing a hotline reporting system to provide anyone affiliated with non-NHL organizations and governing bodies the ability to confidentially report incidents of abuse, harassment and misconduct.
The League has had a confidential reporting system in place since 2019 that Davis said is functioning as it should with multiple reports coming in each month with the majority stemming from previously unreported incidents.
The NHL is also creating a digital portal that will organize and make available all of its private and public resources for counseling programs, including the employee assistance program, sexual abuse resources, mental health resources and drug and alcohol abuse counseling.
This League will provide non-NHL hockey entities a team of professionals that can direct people to the public and private resources in the digital portal.
"We believe that using our platforms, using the influence that we have in the hockey world, particularly our players, we can set the stage for hockey at all levels to have a positive cultural change that is inclusive, welcoming, diverse and most importantly safe," Commissioner Bettman said. "The work we're doing and our desire to be involved with supporting another hotline and creating platforms for resources is to make sure that you know that whoever you are, wherever you are and how old you are, and how you're playing hockey, you can be comfortable that you always have a place to go."