The NHL stumbles with Pride Night celebrations
The GIST: The NHL is NHL-ing once again. For the third time this season, a team and/or player fumbled a Pride Night celebration. Seems like a clear message that hockey is, in fact, not for everyone.
The latest: Unlike other NHL teams, the NY Islanders did not wear rainbow warmups during their own Pride Night yesterday, citing an organizational policy against wearing special jerseys that aren’t produced by the league. They also did not use pregame rainbow tape, bucking a standard Pride Night practice across the NHL. Hmm.
- Though they stuck to their blue and orange sweaters, the Isles are making donations to the LGBT Network and the New York Gay Hockey Association, and they added a rainbow background to their Twitter logo. It’s giving…the bare minimum.
The trend: Unfortunately, this is just the latest NHL Pride Night slip up that’s made headlines. The NY Rangers promoted rainbow warmup jerseys ahead of their Pride Night in late January, but those jerseys never saw the light of day. Days before that, Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov refused to wear his team’s Pride jersey, citing religious beliefs.
- TL;DR? Men’s hockey culture is trash.
