Stanley Cup Final Preview National Hockey League Address to American Sign Language In 2022, Brice Christianson first worried this would be a one-time thing and his only chance to open the doors of hockey for the deaf community.
Two years later, the league has taken another big step forward, and it's hard not to be excited.
The Stanley Cup Finals will be the first time a major sports league American Sign Languageevery game in the series Edmonton and Florida Featuring play-by-play and color analysis by a deaf announcer. The first game is Saturday.
Florida Panthers player Nick Cousins (21) and Edmonton Oilers player Matthias Ekholm (14) fight for the puck during an NHL first period game in Edmonton, Saturday, Dec. 16, 2023.
The Canadian Press/Jason Franson
“This is the first step in getting deaf people on screen and connecting the deaf community to people like them,” said Christiansen, founder and CEO of PXP, which oversees the telecasts that air on ESPN+ and Sportsnet+. “For the NHL to sign this agreement and believe in it is groundbreaking.
“It’s truly historic, and they’ve doubled down on it and expressed a desire to continue doing so.”
This is the next step in the NHL’s partnership with PXP, a company dedicated to making sports more inclusive through interpretation, and follows another historic moment: Last weekend, TNT broadcast the U.S. Women’s Deaf National Soccer Team’s game against Australia in ASL. Reporter Melissa Ortiz narrated the game on screen in ASL.
Third-generation Deaf people, Jason Altmann, PX-P COO, and Noah Blankenship of the Denver Office of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services will do just that during the Cup Finals. This kind of representation is more important than closed captioning because it directly serves the Deaf community, rather than having members read text about the game.
“We’re able to cover the games live and do the commentary directly in ASL, rather than having it translated, which is what the deaf and hard of hearing community really wants,” said Kim Davis, the NHL’s senior executive vice president of social impact, development initiatives and legislative affairs. “That’s what they deserve. It makes the game really meaningful to them. It’s not like you’re retranslating the game from another language.”
“They hear the game live, in their own language and in the way they understand best.”
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Getting to this point is another accomplishment for Christiansen, an American Sign Language interpreter whose parents are deaf, who has been trying to convince teams and the league to try something like this for years. The connection with the NHL began with a meeting in 2021 with Paul LaCaruba, vice president of youth strategy and hockey culture, which ended with Christiansen pleading with one person to take up his idea for the deaf community.
Brice Christianson poses for a photo after translating NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman's annual state of the league press conference from English to American Sign Language before Game 1 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final at Bauer Arena in Denver on June 15, 2022.
AP Photo/Stephen Whyno, File Photo
Christiansen said LaCarruba was that guy, who paved the way for commissioner Gary Bettman and vice president Bill Daly to translate two years ago. It was a press conference, but it was a chance to bring the season's most important game to an underserved population.
“We know there are millions of deaf and hard of hearing hockey fans, and there are many more who have yet to fall in love with the sport,” LaCarruba said.
“We are building access for and by the deaf community, and the Stanley Cup Finals is the perfect platform to gauge everyone’s response.”
Gauge the reaction, not celebrate the win. Christiansen said the NHL plans to continue doing that beyond this series, and that this path forward will make this a test that could be changed and improved next time.
“I think it’s very brave of the NHL to say, ‘We want to do this,’ ” Christiansen said. “We’re going to do our best, give it our best shot, and report back and try to get better every step of the way.”
This could end up being a blueprint for others. Davis has learned a lot about ASL and how to communicate with the deaf community, and he would be very happy if the NHL was the first but not the last organization to try something similar.
“We're doing something that no other major league has ever attempted, which is broadcasting and experiences provided by deaf people for deaf people,” Davis said. “We're proud of that. We just want to continue to support those communities that we want to be authentic to, and if another league wants to follow suit, we think imitation is the best form of flattery, so let's do that.”
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