Victor Penney:
Sports and smut. I’m not a fan of the combination. In general, mixing anything with sexual perversion is a horrible idea, but not everyone feels the same way, at least on the surface.
On Jan. 15th, for example, Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the National Hockey League, was asked about his opinion of Heated Rivalry, the sexually explicit hit series on the HBO Max and Crave streaming services. It’s about two elite-level male hockey players who engage in morally illicit acts together while keeping their behaviour closeted.
Bettman’s initial response sounded like a page straight out of a public relations playbook. First, he highlighted the NHL’s ongoing commitment to the rainbow crowd. “I think we’ve meaningfully embraced the LBGTQ+ (sic) community,” he told reporters at the Capital One Arena in Washington. Bettman was taking questions on the same day he visited the White House with the Florida Panthers, last season’s Stanley Cup champions. In terms of the program itself, he described it as a “wonderful” and “compelling” story, but admitted the content “may be a little spicy” for young people. (That line got a good chuckle from reporters.)
When Bettman was finally asked if he had seen the show, he claimed to have watched all six episodes. “I binged it in one night.”
That’s a lot of raunchy TV all at once when you consider the material. Heated Rivalry, which is adapted from the Game Changers book series by Nova Scotia-based author Rachel Reid, has become famous for its excessive graphic content. Out of respect for Christian decency, I won’t go into the details. To put it mildly: it’s bad.
The timing of Bettman’s revelation was interesting. The Washington Capitals were hosting their annual “Pride” Night celebrations that weekend. Team captain Alexander Ovechkin and a handful of his teammates made headlines for not using rainbow tape on his stick during the game. The Toronto Maple Leafs, meanwhile, held their own “Pride” Night back in November and brought in a legendary hockey hero for the festivities. In a brief interview the Leafs posted on their X account, Darryl Sittler, one of the iconic faces of the franchise, made the following statement: “We’ve been doing this the last few years and it’s an exciting night, obviously. It’s important for everybody to realize that equality and those sorts of things in our life are important. It’s important to talk about things, get it out in the open so to speak, and it’s important for the National Hockey League to support these sorts of things.”
It’s not even June, I know, and the Leafs probably won’t be playing by then, but still–it’s not even June! I guess the league can’t help itself, which is a shame, because the message they’re peddling is rife with spiritual peril and, wouldn’t you know it, one of the Doctors of the Catholic Church agrees with me.
St. Peter Damian, a central figure in the Gregorian Reform movement of the 11th Century, found himself on the front lines of a battle against sexual corruption among the clergy. He also wrote The Book of Gomorrah, one of the most eloquent works you’ll ever find from a Saint denouncing sexual perversions. Here’s an excerpt from his chapter condemning sodomitic indecency: “Certainly, this vice, which surpasses the savagery of all other vices, is to be compared to no other. For this vice is the death of bodies, the destruction of souls, pollutes the flesh, extinguishes the light of the intellect, expels the Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart, introduces the diabolical inciter of lust, throws into confusion, and removes the truth completely from the deceived mind.”
The Saint doesn’t mince his words, and while that paragraph may be difficult for some to read, the quote is precisely the kind of wake-up call our culture needs. It’s a blunt assessment on the consequences of certain acts and a reminder that the heated rivalry we should be concerned with is our spiritual battle against sin and the devil.
The goal for any of us in this moment is not to shy away from the current onslaught against Christian sexual morals, it’s to confront the promotion of savage vices through humility, purity, and prayer. Where does all this leave me and pro-hockey? We’re not so good right now. I still love the sport, but the good old hockey game is not the best game I can name anymore, at least not in the interim.
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