NHL Team Says NO To ‘Pride Night’, Liberals Freak Out

The progressive movement has been mostly successful in advancing its Godless agenda which includes trying to enforce the acceptance of LGBTQ ideology via corporations, educational institutions, and entertainment entities.

The National Football, Baseball, and Basketball Leagues have been universally promoting PRIDE causes, even during their sporting events.

But when it comes to the high testosterone-driven sport that includes bare fight fighting as part of their game, the National Hockey League has seen some defections in 2023.

The New York Rangers hockey team rejected Wokeism before their game in Madison Square Garden on Friday evening.

Even though the organization promoted the event weeks in advance saying that “the Rangers will be showing their support by donning pride-themed warm-up jerseys and tape in solidarity with those who continue to advocate for inclusivity,” the team decided to reject the pressure being applied by social justice radicals and did not warm in the PRIDE event uniforms, instead emerging from the locker room wearing their Reverse Retro Liberty jerseys.

Their decision to not wear the promised rainbow-colored jerseys and stick tape meant to show deference to the so-called “LGBTQ+” community, causing outrage among left-leaning media outlets and activists.

The team’s decision to not participate in the “Pride Night” follows Philadelphia Flyer’s defenseman Ivan Provorov’s decision to not participate in his team’s annual PRIDE pregame warmups on Jan. 17, citing his Russian Orthodox religion as the reason.

For the past six seasons, the Rangers have hosted “Pride Night Friday” at Madison Square Garden, and that tradition continued this year.

On January 27, Michael James Scott, a Broadway star who identifies as gay, performed the national anthem. Andre Thomas, the co-chair of NYC Pride and Heritage of Pride, participated in the ceremonial, pre-game puck drop. The arena, especially the jumbotron, was emblazoned in “rainbow colors,” and members of the Rangers Blue Crew, the people responsible for inciting fan engagement, still carried rainbow-colored flags.

But the Ranger players themselves did not don any gear making reference, either by word or by symbol, to sexual relationships of any kind. Instead, they wore Reverse Retro jerseys, which depict the face of the Statue of Liberty.

This year, the Rangers did make a contribution to the Ali Forney Center, an agency dedicated to LGBTQ+ homeless youths in the U.S.

But they declined requests to explain the changes in their Pride Night plans, making Friday feel like a slight to LGBTQ+ fans who support the team.

Instead, after this story was initially published, they issued the following statement:

“Our organization respects the LGBTQ+ community and we are proud to bring attention to important local community organizations as part of another great Pride Night. In keeping with our organization’s core values, we support everyone’s individual right to respectfully express their beliefs.”

The Rangers were lambasted by a handful of radical reporters and new organizations for allowing their players to reject being forced into participating in the PRIDE celebration that promoted a controversial social issue.

• “New York Rangers … FAIL to explain why they backtrack on promise,” a Daily Mail headline.
• Mollie Walker, the New York Post beat writer for the Rangers, complained that the team took an “otherwise a beautiful celebration of inclusivity” and turned it into a “slight” against “members of the LGBTQ+ community.”

In addition, David Kilmnick, the president of the LGBT Network in Queens, called the decision “a slap in the face.”

“If the Rangers are saying they’re going to be celebrating Pride Night, everybody needs to, for lack of a better term, ‘come out’ and celebrate,” Kilmnick insisted. “To give the OK to these hockey players to be homophobic is not celebrating pride. It’s the opposite of it.”

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