Florida Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky (72) and defenseman Radko Gudas (7) warm up while wearing a Pride Night hockey jersey before playing against the Toronto Maple Leafs on March 23, 2023, in Sunrise, Florida. Bobrovsky, who is Russian, participated in warmups the night the Staal brothers declined and following several compatriots’ decision not to wear Pride jerseys. Associated Press
NHL teams will not wear special jerseys for pregame warmups at theme nights next season, the result of a handful of players refusing to wear rainbow-colored Pride jerseys -sky last season and causing unwanted distractions.
The league’s Board of Governors on Thursday agreed with Commissioner Gary Bettman that the denials have overshadowed teams’ efforts to hold pride nights that in some cases included auctioning off jerseys. warming up. The 32 teams organized Pride or Hockey is for Everyone evenings.
Teams will continue to celebrate Pride and other theme nights, including military appreciation and hockey to fight cancer. They are also expected to continue designing and producing jerseys that will be autographed and sold to raise funds, even though players will not skate with them during warm-ups.
Seven players, citing various reasons, decided not to participate in pregame warmups when their teams wore Pride jerseys before games. A few teams, including the Blackhawks, also decided not to let their players wear them after planning to do so.
Ivan Provorov, a Russian defenseman then in Philadelphia, was the first in January. Provorov cited his Russian Orthodox religion and was defended by coach John Tortorella.
San Jose goalie James Reimer and brothers Eric and Marc Staal of Florida, who are Canadian, also cited their religious beliefs. Russian players Ilya Lyubushkin of Buffalo, Denis Gurianov of Montreal and Andrei Kuzmenko of Vancouver also withdrew from their teams’ Pride Night warmups.
Lyubushkin cited a Kremlin anti-gay law as the reason, which also explains why the Blackhawks – whose roster includes Moscow native Nikita Zaitsev – decided not to wear Pride Night jerseys. The New York Rangers and Minnesota Wild previously opted against the jerseys after previously announcing they would have them.
Sergei Bobrovsky, who is Russian, participated in warmups the night the Staal brothers declined and following several compatriots’ decision not to wear Pride jerseys.
Bettman, in an interview with Sportsnet after the Board of Governors meeting in New York, said he suggested teams stop having special warm-up jerseys because the theme nights were being undermined by chatter about the refusal of certain players to participate.
“It further distracts us from the very essence of what these parties are about,” Bettman said. “We stay focused on the match. And on these specialized evenings, we will focus on the cause.”
Bettman, during the NHL’s All-Star Weekend in February, defended the way the league and teams handled the situation, saying tolerance for different viewpoints was part of an “open, welcoming” attitude. and inclusive”.
“You know what our goals and our values and our intentions are across the league, whether it’s at the league level or at the club level,” Bettman said at the time. “But we also need to respect some individual choices, and some people are more comfortable engaging in causes than others. And being diverse and welcoming requires understanding those differences.”
