McFeely: Controversy arises after Bismarck's Britta Curl drafted by Minnesota women's hockey team – InForum

FARGO Whatever momentum the Minnesota team had after winning its first Professional Women's Hockey League championship has been blown away by the early summer winds. Bismarck, Britta Curl from North Dakota plays an unintentional role.

Curl, a college hockey standout in Wisconsin, was selected with the ninth pick in this week's PWHL draft. When her selection was announced, a portion of the online women's hockey community immediately and loudly denounced it due to Curl's “open support of transphobia and racism through social media posts and likes,” according to Hockey News.

This comes days after Minnesota native and popular general manager Natalie Darwitz was ousted after losing an apparent power struggle with head coach Ken Klee and star player Kendall Coyne Schofield shortly after winning the title.

This would be a lesson in how not to handle public relations after winning a championship.

A women's sports and LGBTQ+ advocate on X called Curl “an openly bigoted player.”

Some background.

The PWHL is a six-team newcomer, formed to fill a vacuum left when previous women's professional hockey leagues folded. The teams are owned by the league itself. The PWHL was founded in August 2023 and played its first 72-game schedule from January through May. The Minnesota team defeated Boston in a decisive Game 5 to win the first Walter Cup.

Key to our discussion: The Minnesota team and league have broad support among the LGBTQ community. Many athletes and employees of the PWHL are openly homosexual. Two of the key people in the league's founding were former tennis champion and equality advocate Billie Jean King and her wife Ilana Kloss. Both are board members of PWHL.

The league markets itself as “inclusive” and says it is committed to ensuring a “safe and welcoming environment” for players, staff and fans. The LGBTQ rainbow is regularly touted and at some games a “Rainbow Pledge” is displayed and read aloud on the arena scoreboards.

So when Minnesota announced it would take Curl in the second round Monday night, quite a few PWHL fans lost out in the thousands, according to a story at Hockey News, online. The league was forced to issue a statement soon after saying that some individuals will have “differing opinions.”

Curl's cheered. University of North Dakota star Jocelyne Lamoureux for speaking out against transgender women in competition.

Curl reposted a video of far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has praised Mussolini and condemned gay marriage in the past. She liked a tweet from conservative pundit Candace Owens, which said Minnesota-based retailer Target “has been an openly perverse company for a long time” and is “worth boycotting” over its gay pride displays in its stores .

According to Hockey News, “Curl also liked posts that shared conspiracy theories and highlighted the not guilty verdict against Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two people and shot another during protests in which the police shot Jacob Blake, a black man. Curl also found a another post about police killing a black man.”

Curl doesn't appear to be Riley Gaines, the former college swimmer who has made a career out of political activism against transgender athletes. Curl is still an active athlete. But she's unlikely to make many friends with her new team.

I spoke with Kat Rohn, executive director of OutFront Minnesota, a leading advocacy organization for LGBTQ people in the state. Rohn said that while Curl has the right to freedom of speech and the right to express her opinions, some of Curl's social media activity is “concerning.”

“My hope is that since Britta is a young player, she can learn about the importance of inclusivity,” Rohn said. “I hope the league will be clear about its position on inclusion, that it can express the value of inclusion and why it is important.”

Rohn said Curl isn't the first professional athlete from Minnesota to not have an enlightened view of LGBTQ people. Former Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins ​​was a strong supporter of Focus on the Family, an outspoken anti-LGBTQ organization. Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards was fined $40,000 by the NBA for anti-gay comments he made in an online video, for which he later apologized.

The PWHL team doesn't come close to those teams in terms of attention or scrutiny, so it's unlikely much will come from Curl's missteps. But the PWHL sells itself as a safe space for the LGBTQ community and Minneapolis-St. Paul is a very LGBTQ-friendly market. For these reasons, Curl's selection has not been well received so far.

Mike McFeely is a columnist for The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. He started working for The Forum in the 1980s while studying journalism at Minnesota State University Moorhead. He has worked full-time at The Forum since 1990, minus a six-year hiatus when he hosted a local radio talk show.