04-11-2023, 04:43 PMDuff101 Wrote: I wonder if any other international flags and symbols in the IIHF are seen as symbols of imperialism…

This isn't really helping anything here. Obviously virtually every "civilized" nation on earth has a sordid past of oppression of indigenous people, bigoted politicians, and oppressive national policies. But there's a significant difference, in my mind, between countries where we largely have the freedom and constitutionally protected right to voice our discontentment and to be agents of change vs loudly and proudly cavorting about hyping up a nationalist attitude for a place run by a dictatorship that is actively engaging in state-sponsored genocide where "opposition" gets you suspiciously disappeared from the face of the earth. Of course systemic oppression happens here in the US. I'll be the first person to yell about that, (and I do, to the point of irritating people around me), and if you want to have a conversation about that, I'm totally willing to do that. It's not a "gotcha" though like people seem to think it is. If you're coming in here to argue that maybe we shouldn't go around shouting USA USA USA I'll be the first in line (I hate it here!) but all of this feels like really disingenuous attempts to detract from what is clearly a very sensitive issue by pointing in another direction.

I do not see what anybody is hoping to accomplish by coming in here and telling Darian "hey I get that your family is LITERALLY IN DANGER OF DEATH but sorry, suck it up because other nations do shitty stuff all the time so we're not going to bother to take your request seriously"

Like, what is the point you guys are trying to make here? That because all countries have done bad things we should just handwave all of it? I don't know where the line is between a nation being "too bad to pretend to be from there" or whatever, but I have to think there's a way to acknowledge the daily ongoing acts of state-sponsored violence and war crimes and set "SHL Russian players" apart from "HELL YEAH I LIVE AND DIE FOR PUTIN'S MOTHER RUSSIA" even if it's as simple as changing the name to reflect that it's about the Russian athletes themselves and not the flag they play under.