Starting next year, the National Hockey League will no longer allow teams to wear "Pride Night" rainbow jerseys during their warmups.
This comes after controversy when Philadelphia Flyers player Ivan Provorov refused to wear the rainbow jersey resulting in sports commentators calling him a bigot and telling him to go back to Russia.
Teams had already begun to opt out of Pride Night this year because Provorov took his bold stand and the NHL has now officially decided that it's done with the pride jersey.
Here's the NHL Commissioner explaining the decision:
Because one man – just one – stood up and refused to go along with the madness, the entire league has changed its policy and banned the special Pride Night jerseys.
That's all it took: One courageous dude who didn't care what people thought. He valued his faith over other people's feelings and opinions.
I really need you guys to see how big of a deal this is. Take it away, JP!
Pride Nights will, unfortunately, continue. But the players aren't going to be forced to participate in the celebrations under threat of losing playing time or their position with the team.
