Ukrainians decry NHL team Blue Jackets’ collaboration with pro-Russian group

The Ukrainian community in Ohio has expressed strong outrage over their National Hockey League (NHL) Columbus Blue Jackets team’s collaboration with Russian Heritage Network (RHN), a group that purports to celebrate the contribution that Russians have made toward the growth of hockey. 

However, according to the United Ukrainian Organizations of Ohio (UUOO), the Russian group actually “serves as a covert mechanism through which the Russian Federation attempts to bypass Western sanctions.”

The Ukrainian community is particularly denouncing the upcoming Russian Heritage Night that RHN is promoting and which the Blue Jackets is hosting on Dec. 12 when the team plays the visiting Washington Capitals.

The latter team’s star player, Russian Alex Ovechkin, is an unabashedly avowed supporter of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin. 

The RHN has a controversial reputation in the Ukrainian community due to its activities, which include supporting businesses in Russia and other countries that once were part of the Soviet Union while international sanctions are in place. 

In this context and amid Russia’s ongoing genocidal war against Ukraine, the UUOO sent a letter of protest to Ian Wilkinson, the manager of group sales for the Columbus Blue Jackets hockey team. 

Hosting the event would be deeply insensitive, morally unjustified, and unacceptable, the Ohio Ukrainian group believes. 

“For one 1,000 days, the Russian Federation has been flouting international law by prosecuting its genocidal war of aggression against Ukraine. For one thousand days it has wantonly engaged in the bombing of hospitals, kidnapping of children, torture, rape and plunder of its peaceful neighbor,” the statement emphasizes.

The Ukrainian-American community of Ohio and its allies urge the Blue Jackets to reevaluate “the propriety of your promotion, to consider the interests of the citizens of Ohio, the stated policy of the government of the State of Ohio, the reputations of the CBJ as well as of the NHL and to come to a belated but correct decision.“