EDITORIAL:

Reaves’ leadership on the ice, in the community is welcomed in Vegas

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Steve Marcus

Vegas Golden Knights right wing Ryan Reaves (75) stops to visit with his son during warmups before an NHL hockey game against the New Jersey Devils at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas Tuesday, March 3, 2020.

Fri, Aug 14, 2020 (2 a.m.)

Vegas Golden Knights right-winger Ryan Reaves is giving Las Vegas a reason to cheer even when he’s not on the ice.

Reaves, long a fan favorite with the Knights, has become a leader in a movement by the mostly white NHL to become more inclusive and to address social injustice.

Last week, Reaves showed his solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement when he and new teammate Robin Lehner knelt for the U.S. and Canadian national anthems before the team’s first Stanley Cup qualifier game. And before the playoffs began, Reaves took part in the first episode of a new NBC Sports broadcast — “Hockey Culture” — that addresses what the Associated Press described as “an awakening in hockey about systemic racism and its role in the majority white sport.”

Amid the Black Lives Matter protests, Reaves, one of a small number of Black players in the NHL, established himself as a thoughtful voice on social justice.

He comes at the issue of police reforms from a balanced perspective, as the son of a sheriff’s sergeant in Manitoba, Canada, and a descendant of the first Black deputy marshall in U.S. history. In the initial episode of “Hockey Culture,” he described how he could see problems in law enforcement while also recognizing that not all officers were abusive.

Reaves also explained to fans that player protests during the national anthem are not meant to disrespect the flag or veterans.

“Those people go across seas and they go to war, and families are torn apart in these wars for the freedom of this country, only to come back and find out this country isn’t free for everybody,” he said on the program. “I think that’s where I’m coming from. Not everybody is truly free in this country, and I think it’s starting to come to light a lot more right now.”

The NHL, to its credit, is recognizing the importance of growing beyond its origins as an exclusively white sport — and frankly, its racist past.

The league has established inclusion committees for players, executives, fans and youths, and partnered with a group of former and current Black players aimed at stamping out discrimination in the sport, the Hockey Diversity Alliance.

There’s a lot of room for improvement, no doubt. Former players describe facing racial epithets from coaches and being passed over for ice time or coaching positions because of systemic racism in the game.

But now comes a new generation of league administrators and players, including Reaves, who are striving for change. It may look like a small movement in some respects — only a handful of players across the league have knelt for the anthem, with a few more putting their hands of the shoulders of their kneeling teammates. But it’s a start, and Reaves deserves a great deal of credit for being a vanguard of the movement.

Reaves won over Las Vegas immediately after being traded to the Knights part-way through their inaugural season in 2017-18. And he returned the affection, not only by bragging up local hockey fans but by building a home here and starting a brewery business. His fan status grew with his appearance in humorous ads for the Southern Nevada Water District, which play on his role as the team’s lead enforcer by showing him doling out cartoonish hockey-style hits to people who violate watering restrictions.

But Reaves is no goon, as he’s shown with his respectful yet impassioned focus on social justice. It’s an honor for Las Vegas to have him representing our city.

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