NHL players are reportedly talking about using Pride Tape on their hockey sticks on the ice this season, regardless of a league mandate that they don’t do any such thing.
The first player to talk about this publicly is Scott Laughton, an alternate captain with the Philadelphia Flyers, who apparently intends to use the Pride Tape anyway.
“you’ll probably see me with the pride tape on that night anyway,” Charlie O’Connor reported Laughton as saying. “If they want to say something, they can.”
It would be an important moment for NHL players to stand up and refuse the completely unnecessary ban on Pride Tape this season.
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As Laughton said, let’s see what the league would do. What if a dozen, two dozen, NHL players with LGBTQ family members and friends refused to abide by the ban and used Pride Tape anyway? Would the league fine every player? Suspend them?
Minnesota Wild player Jon Merrill echoed that.
“You don’t want to be a distraction for the team,” Merrill said, according to Joe Smith, “but I can’t see how that would be a distraction for anyone if you wear the tape for 15 minutes of warmups. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
Lost in all of this is the silence of the NHLPA, the union that represents the NHL players.
This story is developing.
