How Can Anyone Love the New York Rangers After This?
In light of the recent sexual assault allegations against Artemi Panarin, the team’s response, and an utterly disappointing season, I can no longer make excuses for the Rangers or their fans’ behavior.
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My entire life, I’ve been a diehard New York Rangers fan, thanks largely to my late grandfather, who swore that he only survived his 1994 quadruple bypass because he watched the Rangers win the Stanley Cup from his recovery bed. I’ve been to close to 30 games, have chirped with opposing teams’ fans during mid-season bouts (one of which turned into an all-out brawl during a Rangers/Islanders Valentine’s Day game), and I own limited-edition merch from several streetwear collabs, as well as multiple jerseys and a signed 1994 framed picture. When my grandfather fell gravely ill in 2008, I got a tattoo for the team, and he lived another 15 years.
Loving hockey as a queer, left-leaning woman has always felt incongruous—hockey is still predominantly white and marked by a kind of racism that’s frustratingly dated. In June 2023, there were only 34 Black hockey players in the NHL. In 2020, when then-rookie Rangers defenseman K’Andre Miller (who is biracial) took part in a Zoom to introduce himself to the fans, the chat was spammed with the N-word before someone closed the comments.
Teams’ attempts to hold Pride-themed nights have been met with pushback from players, some of whom refuse to participate. When I attended the 2024 Stadium Series game, I got in an altercation with a New York Islanders fan who was screaming the F-slur after his team lost. Just this past February, American players praised President Donald Trump’s support for them during the Four Nations tournament, a month after Washington Capitals’ star TJ Oshie praised Trump on social media.
So on April 17, when the final whistle blew on the New York Rangers’ 2024-2025 season, it felt like a shrill marker of the end of something else: my fandom.
That same day, not long before the puck dropped, The Athletic reported that, in 2024, the New York Rangers organization and its star forward, Artemi Panarin, had settled with a female employee who had accused him of sexual assault. According to two sources, the alleged assault happened during a December 2023 Rangers road trip. The Athletic writes: