Gary Bettman reveals that NHL teams will not wear any specialty jerseys in warmups next season
The NHL Board of Governors met this week and league commissioner Gary Bettman was in attendance. Bettman spoke with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman about his takeaways from the meetings and what specific changes were discussed and will be implemented moving forward.
The primary issue that the two spoke about was the decision to have teams no longer wear any specialty jerseys during warmups next season and for the foreseeable future. Bettman indicated that will be the NHL’s official policy moving forward, starting with the 2023-24 campaign.
“I’ve suggested that it would be appropriate for clubs not to change their jerseys in warmups because it’s become a distraction and taking away from the fact that all of our clubs in some form or other host nights in honor of various groups or causes,” Bettman said. “We’d rather those continue to get the appropriate attention that they deserve and not be a distraction.”
Bettman wasn’t exactly specific with his answer but it’s a commonly known fact that Pride Nights in the NHL, benefitting the LGBTQ+ community, regularly came under fire this past season as a rash of players and teams opted out of participating.
The controversy began when Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov refused to wear the Flyers’ Pride Night jersey, citing his Russian Orthodoxy. The New York Rangers, New York Islanders, and Minnesota Wild later all announced they would not wear Pride jerseys, despite earlier promises from the Rangers and Wild to do so. Sharks goaltender James Reimer cited objections stemming from Christian values when he sat out of warmups for the San Jose Sharks, as did the Florida Panthers’ Marc and Eric Staal.
The Chicago Blackhawks canceled plans to wear Pride jerseys over concerns for the safety of Russian players and their families. The Sabres’ Ilya Lybushkin similarly expressed concerns of retaliation from Russia when he chose not to participate. The Leafs’ Ilya Samsonov did the same with similar justification.
This decision and Bettman’s chat about it with Friedman comes right in the middle of June, Pride Month. That’s a fact that Friedman did not let Bettman forget and asked him to address.
“I agree those are legitimate concerns but in the final analysis all of the efforts and emphasis on the importance of these various causes have been undermined by the distraction in terms of which teams, which players,” Bettman replied. “This way we’re keeping the focus on the game and on these specialty nights we’re going to be focused on the cause.”
A change of this magnitude surely puts to question whether some teams will go forward with even having Pride Nights at all. Friedman asked Bettman if Pride Nights would continue despite the decision to bar the special warmup sweaters.
“Absolutely,” Bettman said. “32 of our clubs did Pride nights. Some do heritage nights. Everybody does Hockey Fights Cancer. Some do military nights. All of those nights will continue. The only difference will be we’re not going to change jerseys for warmup because that’s just become more of a distraction from really the essence of what the purpose of these nights are.”
The commissioner also added that the new policy will just affect warmups. Players that support particular causes (Pride, Hockey Fights Cancer, Military Appreciation, etc.) will still be free to model specialty jerseys but will just not be permitted to do so on the ice.
The jerseys will still also be auctioned off and sold to support relative causes.
In 2022 alone, the Capitals’ Pride Night Auction raised over $25,000 to benefit SMYAL, a DC-based organization that supports LGBTQ+ youth, but the team did not create or wear Pride jerseys.
Headline photo used with permission: @shatteredlenstx
Source: Russian Machine Never Breaks
