Pride Tape Makers Upset NHL Is Banning Their Rainbow Product, While In Reality The League Deserves A Ton Of Credit
The NHL has elected to ban players from wrapping their sticks with Pride Tape this season, and the company that makes the rainbow-colored tape is "extremely disappointed" with the decision.
For most, this is a non-story. We're talking about tape on the end of a hockey stick.
For others, like ESPN and the extremely radical Outsports, this is an attack on the LGBTQ+. The latter website published a piece titled 'The NHL has banned Pride Tape, creating its own ‘Don’t Say Gay’ policy.
Again, we are talking about tape on a stick.
Pride Tape released a statement on Tuesday saying that it is "extremely disappointed" in the league's decision to eliminate its product while expressing that it one day hopes that the league and teams will "show commitment to this important symbol of combating homophobia."
A close-up of the Pride Night jersey during the warm-up period of the NHL regular season game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Washington Capitals. (Photo by Francois Lacasse/NHLI via Getty Images)
The ban on Pride Tape corresponds with the league's decision to also prohibit teams from wearing Pride-themed jerseys during warmups.
The Pride conversation as it pertains to the NHL came to a head last season when Ivan Provorov, then of the Philadelphia Flyers, opted out of wearing the Pride warmup jersey in January citing his Russian Orthodox religion.
“I respect everybody and I respect everybody’s choices, my choice is to stay true to myself and my religion,” Provorov said when asked why he didn’t participate in pre-game warmups with the Pride-themed jersey.
He was crucified by the woke mob and media for believing in something other than a forced-upon liberal agenda.
The NHL Deserves Credit For Appeasing To The Majority Instead Of The Minority
While the vocal minority is up in arms over the ban of rainbow tape and Pride-themed jerseys, the NHL deserves a ton of credit in this situation as it may be the lone professional sports league on the planet to not cater to this new-age world that caters to the 1% instead of the 99%.
The NBA and NFL, for example, went all out with Black Lives Matter and put social justice messages anywhere they could. This turned off plenty of fans as the focus of the sport quickly went from the sport itself to this politicized sideshow.
The NBA and NFL went all in with Black Lives Matter. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
The NHL recognizes that the majority of its fans don't want any of that while watching hockey and therefore have eliminated it from the conversation.
Some have claimed the Pride-themed ban is the NHL running away from a touchy subject, but at the end of the day, it's the NHL making a decision to appease the majority of its fans. The same fans who help pay the salary of the players and keep the lights on inside of the arenas.
The NHL has recognized something that other leagues haven't, and that is that most sports fans simply want sports.
This isn't to say that the majority of hockey fans don't care about the LGBTQ community, in fact I'd guess most very much do, but for a 60-minute hockey game most fans want to focus on hockey which isn't just understandable, but incredibly normal.
It's more than fine to separate sport from things outside of said sport.
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