Why Major Sports Leagues, And The NHL In Particular, Should Make Climate Change Their Top Issue

Let’s start with the recent NHL Winter Classic held last Friday in Miami, Florida at the home of the Marlins, LoanDepot Park. Back when the location was originally announced, I had feelings of great disappointment. After the fact, those feelings remain strong.

The sport of hockey is being directly impacted by climate change right now, with warmer temperatures shrinking cold weather seasons that generations of players relied on for their beloved outdoor pastime. Instead of embracing climate change as an issue to stand up to and put their influence behind, the NHL decided to do the most egregious thing they could. They made an ice rink where one could not and should not exist simply because they can.

To do this, they used double the normal amount of planet-warming refrigerants, several generators, 20,000 gallons of water, and cranked the air conditioning inside the host ballpark with the roof closed to keep the ice as stable as possible until retracting it for puck drop. Continually pumping a baseball stadium-sized venue full of air conditioning for show is difficult to justify by any standard.

By choosing spectacle over special, the NHL stripped the Winter Classic of its soul. From years of hearing players talk about past Winter Classics, what they seem to love most is how playing outdoors takes them back to childhood, when many of them played in the freezing cold and snow. That spirit was missing. The cold weather elements that give the Winter Classic its meaning were removed, and the result fell flat.

This game was a symbol of a league choosing to manufacture conditions rather than confront the reason those conditions no longer reliably exist. That reason is climate change. And sports leagues, especially the NHL, have the cultural power to depoliticize climate change. They should use this power now because the issue directly threatens the future of sport itself.

Climate change is a multifaceted social, environmental, and economic issue that affects every human and living thing on Earth. As temperatures rise and the number of days with extreme heat increases, it becomes dangerous to spend time outside, let alone exert yourself in high heat. The very nature we rely on to enjoy outdoor activities is being compromised in ways that will not support some sports in certain parts of the world, especially snow and ice sports.

We will see more games, matches, and competitions canceled as leagues adopt formal protocols for heat management, recognizing that heat is dangerous for both athletes and fans. We will see more ski resorts shutter as seasons shrink and snowpack becomes unreliable. These scenarios are already happening.

Climate change is shaping the future of sports, and the trickle-down effect will reach future generations of athletes whose dreams are lost or never inspired to begin with due to loss of environment and opportunity. Human-caused climate change is impacting human-created activities that have brought us joy in modern times. It is without a doubt the fault of business and political decisions, most notably and consistently over the past thirty crucial years. It was absolutely within our control to stop it. But we didn’t. We haven’t.

Eventually, professional leagues will be forced to confront climate change as it impacts their bottom lines. I argue they should do it now. Sports leagues have enormous platforms with the ability to influence culture quickly and at scale. With that influence comes responsibility, especially at a moment as existential as this one.

Instead, the Big Four American leagues largely choose to play it safe. The clearest example is their duplicative embrace of cancer as a marquee cause. Cancer awareness is already high. Cancer is a disease that requires scientific breakthroughs, not mass cultural advocacy. It is not a social issue in the way climate change is. (Climate change is an everything issue, for which we already have the majority of solutions. What it needs is the will to deploy them across all levels of society.) And look, I’m not saying the leagues can’t choose their own adventures. They absolutely can, and it’s great for them to raise money and awareness for many ‘personal’ causes and cures. But let’s be honest – “standing up to cancer” is unlikely to fracture a fan base, and that is precisely why it remains a blanket cause. It’s safe.

But with platforms this powerful, leagues should also take on issues where public awareness, normalization, and collective action can move the needle toward systemic change. Ending hatred is one. Normalizing mental health care is one. Climate change is one.

The NBA has demonstrated that leagues can take risks. By listening to players and allowing social justice messaging across jerseys and courts during the height of Black Lives Matter, the league showed that influence can be used without playing it safe. And the other leagues followed with iterations of their own allowing for more player-level activism. This is progress and proof that sports can help shape culture when they choose to.

Outside of the major American leagues, athletes have already begun organizing around climate. As with most movements, change starts on the fringe. Skiers and snowboarders are among the first to speak up because they are closest to the impact. Their playgrounds and livelihoods are already suffering from a warming planet. This mirrors what we see globally at the country-level, where small island nations will see their homelands swallowed by rising sea levels. And they are fighting relentlessly for larger countries to listen and act.

The climate crisis is the largest and most existential challenge we face. It impacts social systems, ecosystems, and economies. It has been politicized and polarized because solving it threatens entrenched power structures. Decades of public misconception have allowed this manipulation to succeed. Yet climate change is the issue that most demands togetherness, normalization, urgency, funding, innovation, and action.

Every sports league will feel the effects of climate change. But the NHL feels it most directly and most immediately.

Love for hockey begins young. It starts on frozen ponds and lakes where neighborhood kids gather to skate and shoot pucks in the winter cold. Generations of players learned the game this way. Cold weather is foundational to hockey’s identity.

As the sport expanded, especially into the United States, hockey experienced a reverse climate migration. Southern states that rarely experience freezing temperatures now host elite programs and Stanley Cup-winning franchises. Expanding access to the game so more people can fall in love with it is a positive. But climate change is simultaneously stealing the sport away from communities that relied on winter itself as their rink.

In parts of Canada and the northern United States, naturally formed ice is all some towns have. Indoor rinks are not always accessible or affordable. As the number of days cold enough to sustain outdoor ice decreases, the time and possibility for pond hockey disappears. This threatens the very development system that historically produced the best players in the world.

The NHL had an opportunity to use this reality as a wake-up call. Instead, it chose to manufacture winter in Miami.

This is why the NHL should embrace climate change as its marquee issue. The league can stand up for pond hockey. It can stand up for access, for tradition, for the environments that made the sport what it is. Climate change is not an abstract issue for hockey. It is an immediate threat to its future.

There is also enormous marketing opportunity here. The storytelling. The partnerships. The fan engagement. The education around ice, temperature, and science. The ability to help communities adapt and become more resilient. Climate change is a chance for real leadership.

Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle is a franchise-level example of this. By putting the word “climate” in its name and operating as a testing ground for sustainable entertainment, it serves as a constant reminder of what influence for good can look like, and that influence extends beyond just one market.

Climate change is the greatest opportunity for collaboration in human history. We can individually make choices and changes, and we can collectively as institutions, enterprises, and organizations. Players can lead by example and influence. Teams can focus on local impacts. The league can fund nonprofit work, invest in solutions and deploy them across its properties. And crucially, the NHL can market the hell out of their choice to firmly put their skate down to say: this is an urgent social and environmental issue that impacts us all, and we at the NHL are unwavering in our commitment to reversing climate change and preserving the future of our sport and the communities who love it. Note to the NHL’s PR team: you have my permission to use that verbatim.

The NHL is uniquely positioned to lead. I hope it chooses to. And I hope the rest of the leagues rise with it to influence mass climate action. The impact would be nothing short of game-changing.