NHL teams won’t wear special jerseys for pregame warmups during themed nights next season. This is because a handful of players refused to wear rainbow-colored Pride jerseys this past season.
The league’s Board of Governors agreed Thursday with Commissioner Gary Bettman’s view that the refusals overshadowed teams’ efforts to host Pride nights.
“I suggested that it would be appropriate for clubs not to change their jerseys in warm-ups because it’s become a distraction and taking away from the fact that all of our clubs in some form or another host nights in honor of various groups or causes, and we’d rather them continue to get the appropriate attention that they deserve and not be a distraction,” Bettman told SportsNet at the NHL Board of Governors meeting on Thursday.
Bettman, in an interview with Sportsnet following the Board of Governors meeting in New York, said he suggested teams stop having special warmup jerseys because themed nights were undermined by certain players talking about it among each other.
“That’s just become more of a distraction from really the essence of what the purpose of these nights are,” Bettman said. “We’re keeping the focus on the game. And on these specialty nights, we’re going to be focused on the cause.”
Teams will still celebrate Pride and other theme nights, including military appreciation and Hockey Fights Cancer.
They’re expected to still design and produce jerseys to be autographed and sold to raise money, even though players won’t skate around with them on during warmups.
Opinion
Pride is very overdone. It’s way too much making NHL players skate around with these jerseys if they don’t want to do it. Having a month of this is hurting them. A day with a parade should be enough. A month is just in-your-face aggression.
The left worries about micro-aggressions. This is a mega-aggression. They’re now hanging pedophile flags in my local Starbucks. The US flag lanks the Pride flag at the White House. And they’re sexualizing children. This is crazy town.
Subscribe to the Daily Newsletter
