By Suzanne Bowdey
The Washington Stand
There’s only a week and a half left in the NHL’s regular season, and no one is happier about it than the league’s PR machine. The headaches continue at hockey headquarters, where two more teams — the St. Louis Blues and Toronto Maple Leafs — both dropped the hammer on player Pride jerseys ahead of Tuesday’s games. The addition of the Leafs is especially significant, since not only are they the first Canadian team to break with the mob, but Toronto also happens to be home to the league’s War Room and Hockey Hall of Fame. If pulling the plug in the sport’s capital doesn’t make a statement, I don’t know what will.
Like a lot of teams, the Leafs have held similar nights for years. But together with the New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Minnesota Wild, Chicago Blackhawks, and Blues, 2023 felt different. Thanks to Philadelphia Flyers’ defenseman Ivan Provorov, who ignited this pushback in mid-January with his heroic stand, players finally felt free to say no.
And they’ve been saying no across the league — individually, like Sharks’ goalie James Reimer and the Panthers’ Marc and Eric Staal, and collectively. In the last week alone, two more players refused to join the rainbow parade, the Buffalo Sabres’ Ilya Lyubushkin and Vancouver Canucks’ Andrei Kuzmenko, who called it “a family decision.” Now, the dam has truly broken, as half of the Original Six teams join a rebellion that conservatives pray spills over into other sports.
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