Yet another NHL team declines to wear pride warmups
This seems to becoming a trend.
HockeyFeed
There is another National Hockey League team who has made the organizational decision to not wear LGBT-themed pride warmup jerseys. Earlier this year, it was the New York Rangers; that followed up the controversial story involving Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov weeks earlier to sit out warmups in which his other teammates wore the pride-themed warmups owing to his religious beliefs.
The Minnesota Wild, who were reportedly going to be wearing them during their warmup session prior to last night's game at XCel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul against the visiting Calgary Flames, reversed course and declined to do so. However, the pride uniforms that were going to be worn are still scheduled to be auctioned off.
“Part of the themed game programming includes custom-designed Wild Pride jerseys worn by the team during pre-game warmups,” the post on the Minnesota Wild auction site said before it was removed. “The custom warmup jerseys will be signed and auctioned off starting March 7.”
The Wild would then release the following statement:
“The Minnesota Wild organization is proud to continue our support of the LGBTQIA+ community by hosting our second annual Pride Night tonight, which we are celebrating in many ways. It is important to host nights like this to show all players, fans, and the LGBTQIA+ community that hockey is for everyone. We will continue to utilize our platform to strengthen our community and create a greater state of hockey.”
There is no official word on why the Wild made this call as a team, but just as many suspected with the Rangers, it could very well be the case that there were enough players who privately voiced a similar sentiment as Provorov did in January.
In order to avoid controversies like this in the future, would you be comfortable with the NHL simply scrapping all "theme" nights?
