How Can Anyone Love the New York Rangers After This?

“Panarin and the woman, who was a regular part of the team’s traveling party, were at a postgame gathering at a hotel with about a dozen other players and staff members. Panarin allegedly took her phone and said he would only give it back if she retrieved it from his hotel room, the sources said. When she went to his hotel room to retrieve her device, Panarin pinned her down on the bed. She pushed him off, retrieved her phone and left the room.”

According to the report, both the Rangers organization and the victim told The Athletic that “the matter has been resolved,” while Panarin did not respond to a request for comment. The outlet further reported that the NHL was made aware of the incident at the time and said in an email that “the Club retained an outside law firm to conduct an independent investigation, which the League was fully apprised of. We consider the matter closed.”

Panarin and the Rangers organization reportedly reached a settlement with the woman in August, though employees noted how strange the ordeal was, saying she was placed on paid leave three months after the alleged incident, reportedly for giving a player anti-anxiety medication before a flight, which was when she told the team about what happened. While she was still on leave, “an executive for MSG Sports convened a virtual meeting that included multiple Rangers office staff members and a human resources representative,” during which “attendees were told not to talk to people about the woman’s situation.”

To make matters even more disconcerting, hours after this report was published, Panarin’s visage and season stats were emblazoned on Madison Square Garden screens ahead of the game. It felt, for many, like a slap in the face. Especially since NYR media had named Panarin the season’s MVP and the team’s “good guy” days earlier.

But alongside the outrage, there was a vocal group of people on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit alleging that the woman “cried wolf,” suggesting the reports of her giving a player anti-anxiety meds show she wasn’t “so innocent,” or maligning The Athletic reporter, Katie Strang. The denigration of women brave enough to speak out against harassment in male-dominated spaces is a tale as old and as derelict as many Rangers fans, but it still shook me.

It shook hockey journalist Avery Beaumont, as well. The two of us occasionally chat back and forth via Twitter DMs over our mutual love for the team, and when I asked him how he was feeling after this disappointing and upsetting season, he told me he was “taking a step back,” both in his reporting and elsewhere. “Maybe five or ten years down the road I can come back home,” he said.

Of course, Panarin isn’t the first hockey player—let alone athlete—accused of sexual assault: a trial centering five members of the Canadian hockey team began in London on April 22, based on an alleged sexual assault that took place during a 2018 Hockey Canada fundraising gala. In 2021, Joel Quenneville resigned as the Florida Panthers’ head coach after it was revealed that player Kyle Beach  filed a lawsuit against Quenneville’s former team, the Blackhawks, for “mishandling his sexual assault allegations in 2010.” And in 2023, former NYR forward Sean Avery (a player I grew up adoring because of his brash personality) was issued a temporary restraining order by his ex-wife, Hilary Rhoda, who accused him of both domestic and child abuse. 

But after these accusations against Panarin, the response from both the organization and fans, and a truly terrible season marked by an embarrassing playoff miss, questionable trades, and a still-technically-unanswered question as to why the social media team no longer travels with them, I can’t make excuses for the Rangers’ (and their fans’) bad behavior anymore.

Even though this team is inextricably tied to my late grandfather—and has long been a pillar of my family’s ideological structure—it’s impossible to justify supporting a league that’s sliced through with hate and a team whose fanbase has a soft, mealy, rotten part marring its skin. I need a Blueshirt break, and I hope the team uses this extra-long off-season to reevaluate. 

I’ll watch the PWHL instead.

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