Nearly seven months ago, I wrote an article about my life as a transgender woman in the world of hockey. In the second to last section of that article, I talked about the current state of the NHL in regard to Pride Night. I stated, “The league is making progress, but it’s clear there are still enough homophobic and transphobic people out there not just in the fanbase, but on the teams as well, that impact an entire organization’s decisions.” It turns out, the league wasn’t making progress and is taking a step backward. Yesterday, it was revealed that the NHL has created a policy banning pride tape from being used by any players in games, warm-ups, or practices.
In the year 2023, the NHL created its own “Don’t say gay” rule for its players. It’s a disgusting decision to cave in to the bigotry of a few players and some of its fans. This goes far beyond allowing players to skip out on wearing pride warmup jerseys. It goes beyond scrapping the use of pride warmup jerseys that the NHL announced as part of their removal of all special jerseys. They’re no longer allowing players to show support for a marginalized community that has very frequently felt unwelcome around its sport. They have told the players who want to show support by wearing rainbow tape that because there are other people who don’t like the LGBTQ+ community, they can’t visually show their support.
The only remaining piece of progress that the NHL has remaining is that they haven’t completely removed Pride Night, which honestly feels like it could be taken away at any time. On top of that, with the visuals of Pride Night now being taken away with both the warmup jerseys and pride tape being scrapped, it takes away pretty much all of what makes the night special to begin with. Teams will just slap the name “Pride Night” on the tickets and the first couple thousand people who go to the game can walk away with a special rainbow hat and there are no visuals for the fans at home whatsoever.
The NHL made a statement with this move. A statement that they will cave in to hate and exclusion. They care about money and they don’t give a fuck about the LGBTQ+ community who loves their game. I love hockey. I’ve been on skates since I was three years old and have been watching the Red Wings since I could open my eyes. This sport is so much of my life and the biggest league for that sport in the world just told me they don’t want rainbows in their game because it’ll hurt the feelings of hateful people who think that my existence is a disgusting abomination. Being queer isn’t about an opinion. My existence isn’t someone’s opinion. The ability to be myself and to marry my wife is not something anyone else should have an opinion on and anyone who thinks I’m not allowed to be and have those things is a bigot and those are the types of people the NHL is caving to.
The NHL needs to reverse course. They made a decision that has negatively impacted their image and has proven to thousands of fans that they don’t care about them. The league has to allow the tape to come back and be a part of pride night festivities or possibly even more nights than that. There are players who are extremely outspoken on LGBTQ+ rights and they will want something done. I hope the NHLPA fights for the ability to use the rainbow tape and if they can’t get it done, I hope there are players who do it anyway. Players who make a statement and use the tape, showing their solidarity with a community that needs it so much at the moment. Create controversy and get people pointing fingers even more at a league that needs to be shown what a stupid decision they have made.
The fans should do the same. Fans should make statements. If you’re coming to the games, wear rainbows regardless of whether it’s Pride Night. If you’re not going to the games out of protest, make your voice heard on social media or wherever. Make your voice matter and show the league how much they have screwed up. However, this can all be avoided if the NHL just changes course and fixes its decision. It won’t fix the relationship they’ve damaged but it’ll at least put a bandage on it for now.
