Darryl Sutter says entire Calgary Flames team will wear Pride Night jerseys on Tuesday
While more and more players and teams have announced that they won’t be wearing Pride jerseys during their team’s Pride Night warmups, the Calgary Flames won’t be part of it.
Flames head coach Darryl Sutter said Monday morning that the entire team plans to wear Pride jerseys for warm-ups for Tuesday’s game against the Los Angeles Kings, which is their designated Pride Night.
While that might come as a bit surprising to some who see Sutter as an old-school hockey coach, he also previously said he would welcome an openly queer player to his team with the Kings, and said the same when speak to the media on Monday. He’s been pretty open about LGBTQ+ rights in general, as the conversation has grown over the years.
The Flames also revealed the jerseys they would be wearing for Tuesday’s Pride Night warmups on their social media. Those jerseys will also be signed and auctioned off, with proceeds going to the Flames’ CSEC inclusion program.
While this shouldn’t necessarily be an announcement, it’s in response to the recent flurry of players and teams announcing that they won’t be taking part in Pride Night warm-ups and wearing the shirts, usually due to their Christian religion or in response to the recent Russian law banning LGBTQ+ “propaganda”. The New York Rangers, Minnesota Wild and Chicago Blackhawks did not all wear the jerseys as a team, while Ivan Provorov, James Reimer and Eric and Marc Staal were absent from Pride Night warm-ups while the rest of their teams participated.
Buffalo Sabers defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin joined this group on Monday thus, stating that this is due to the safety of him and his family due to recent Russian laws. NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly has previously said players shouldn’t be worried about it, but some like Lyubushkin and Provorov think otherwise.
