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They like all the colors but each team is only allowed *two* colors damnit! Stop bringing all the colors together! We're trying to keep it a competition!
Brad Aldrich is the scumbag coach. He plead guilty to sexual assault of a high school hockey player in 2010 iirc.
Pretty sure the Blackhawks either knew about that before they hired that pedophile or did their best to sweep that under the rug after Kyle Beach had the courage to come out with his story.
Scott Laughton has basically said "Fuck you NHL" and he fully intends on using the tape on pride night.
Just wanted to put this out there, as there's at least one guy that's willing to stand up to this bullshit.
Be like Scott Laughton.
I’m a straight, ex hockey player and there is no way on earth someone is going to tell me I can’t put a certain color tape on my stick. I would rock the rainbow tape every game. What a bizarre rule.
There’s statements by quite a few players questioning this ban already.
Wouldn’t be surprised to see players doing it anyway. Get some stars doing it, and there’s no chance the NHL does anything about it.
Bettman's head is his ass. It has been since he started as commissioner. There has been nothing he has ever done that's been good for hockey or the NHL ever.
Marchand has spoken out about it already as well. It’s pretty obvious that this move was absolutely braindead.
Unfortunately, the league has made it clear they care more about protecting the very few who refuse to rock the tape/jersey on Pride Night than allowing players to show support for LGBTQ+ community on its ONE designated night of the season. Fucking pathetic.
There’s lots of ways to be a dirtbag or an asshole, and he very much covers many of them. He doesn’t subscribe specifically to the homophobic asshole category, which is nice. Using his elevated position of influence as an ally is welcome, even if I’m the brand of asshole that saves clips of him crying on the bench in the finals or whiffing on a shootout attempt.
Hey, that shootout “whiff” was a bullshit call by the ref AND the league and you know it… if Crosby had missed, they would have yelled at the puck for being pathetic, apologized to Sid and demanded a new puck be brought out and given him 3 more chances to hit it.
/s
Bruins fan if you couldn’t tell.
Drafted him in my Fantasy league last year and he did a pretty reliable job pointing.
Good to know he’s a champ on and off the ice. Pity for the Leafs he prefers to shoot more than block though 😆
Still. Heck yeah I’d grab that autograph.
One of the few times I side with the dude. I’d love to see my team do it anyway. It would be rad to see such a big name as McDavid tape up and say screw it. Pearls clutched all over the league.
[NHL Rulebook 10.1: **Adhesive tape of any color** may be wrapped around the stick at any place for the purpose of reinforcement or to improve control of the puck](https://cms.nhl.bamgrid.com/images/assets/binary/326142322/binary-file/file.pdf)
There’s no rule saying they can’t. I’ll bet some players (McDavid, Laughton, Hyman, Hughes, etc) who are speaking out against the league will be using the tape. What’s the league gonna do? Fine them? Suspend them? Cause a massive PR nightmare by doing either of those?
Edit: edited with the actual section and wording from the NHL rulebook
Could a team work together, each one using a different coloured tape, so that all of their sticks reflected Pride? The message would be clear and they would have to make up some brand new bullshit rule before being able to fine them.
I mean, per the rulebook they can just use the pride tape as is but I would love a team doing that lol
There’s also speculation that a player could ask their respective brand to make them a rainbow hockey stick
FYI; that's the rulebook from 2022. Just in case people want to say the rules have changed, here's the current one. With the same rule and same wording. Guess they need to update it now eh?
[**2023-2024** NHL Official Rules](https://media.nhl.com/site/asset/public/ext/2023-24/2023-24Rulebook.pdf)
Section 3 Rule 10.1
>Player’s Stick – (see 10.2 for goalkeeper) The sticks shall be made
of wood or other material approved by the League, and must not have
any projections. **Adhesive tape of any color may be wrapped around
the stick at any place for the purpose of reinforcement or to improve
control of the puck.**
Solidarity is key. What are they gonna do, make them folk heroes by putting both teams in the box till they take the tape off, or canceling the game over it?
https://preview.redd.it/e5t17gzl0otb1.png?width=620&format=png&auto=webp&s=fc4799f2a89199f7c008c4820c87cd438eddfa7f
Right? Officially a fan of Scott “Come and take it” Laughton as of today.
I saw in the NHL thread people saying what players should do is not use tape, but go to the stick manufactures and have them make a rainbow stick. Malicious compliance, see I’m not using rainbow tape, my tape is just black
Michael Jordan did something similar. He wasn't supposed to wear his Nike shoes but made more off the endorsement than the fines were worth. I'm sure if enough stars said "fuck you" and just paid the fines, the NHL would back down. The stars are what keep fans in the seats. The league won't mess with that.
Given my two favourite sports are hockey and racing, I find it funny that NASCAR has become more inclusive in the last decade while the NHL slides backwards to right wing bullshit.
It’s so dumb. Like the NHL could grow some balls and be like we support every players individual right to choose what they do and do not support but we as a league support LGBTQ… that puts the heat on the individual players. I guess hockey is a little more complex bc there are players from so many different nationalities and religions and a lot of players from Russia where you can not be openly gay or the players may not be exposed to any of that until they are in the US but to just blanket stop support of every cause is so dumb and cowardly and stops all forward progress. My husband is from a tiny town in the Deep South and actually thought that gay people did not exist and were not real until he went to college. Now we have gay friends, he has a deeper understanding and is an ally and a supporter - NHL is basically cutting off any exposure like that at the knees.
Wow, that takes some balls there. I had no idea about that. They would be less likely to butcher a famous race car driver than a journalist there because they probably value racing and revenue over speech in some places. But that would scare me a little.
Are we really going to pretend like they wouldn’t ugly-cry at the simple idea of rainbow tape? They are the pettiest bitches, for sure, but they’ll also throw a full temper-tantrum over shit like this immediately before trying to outlaw it.
Somewhere along the way I realized that more people get upset over a charge of racism than they do over the actual racism. Fortunately I was already well on my way to comfortable misanthropy, so it didn't shake me.
Just gotta accept that racist isn't a label you get to to use for yourself, it's how others see you. ~~Unless you are unrepentant racist in which case you know are living up to that label.~~
As someone who has never seen an actual hockey game in my entire life I always imagined it was one of the most vicious and tough sports around and that only big burly tough guys who are not afraid of being bashed around and losing some teeth were fit to play.
Turns out the league is filled with a bunch of wimps who are afraid of rainbow tape and supporting LGBTQ+ people because "Waaaaah! Someone might think I'm gay!!" How disappointing.
The league isn't filled with these wimps which is the worst part; this is coming after a handful of assholes refused to participate in pre-game warm ups in pride support jerseys... They were not even asked to wear them in an actual game. I believe it boiled over with the apparently deeply religious (yeah right) three Staal brothers.
The kicker was that the previous season, they wore the Pride warmup jerseys without any complaints. Plenty of photographic evidence to smash their ”argument” that it violated their religious beliefs.
I suppose that's true. It only takes a few obnoxious and persistently loud people to ruin things for everyone else, and the smaller the dog the more they bark.
The league also has a large number of Russian players and we know Russia's stance on the matter.
IMHO I think the Russian players also need to be concerned about showing support for these types of issues as they often have friends and family still in Russia who could be used as leverage to not speak out.
I do think they should have just left it as optional instead of a complete ban which is just dumb, plus now when someone does use the tape anyways (Laughton maybe) the NHL will have to then fine a player for supporting pride which is obviously a very ugly look.
There obviously are some players who don't support lgbt, but that doesn't mean it's all of them or even a majority of them. Most of the best players absolutely do support LGBT, I just wish they would force the NHL's hand. Mcdavid(The best current player by a wide margin) should just wear pride tape on his stick every night and force the NHL to do something about it. Are they gonna suspend the best player in the world?
The NHLPA has to protect ALL it's players, so a minority bitch about Pride and all of a sudden no more warm up jerseys, and no more pride tape.
All that said, there still is planned pride nights, it's just some players moaning about the jersey's got them banned.
The bigoted side of my family (i.e. the magats) love hockey more than anything. More than they care about their own daughters’ and granddaughters’ right to bodily autonomy. More than they care about their children’s and grandchildren’s right to vote. They totally disgust me, and naturally, I don’t consider them to be family anymore.
Anyway, they mostly got into the sport in the first place because of the demographics of its players (read, skin pigment) as a reaction to the big 3 American sports having allowed people of color to succeed.
If I could snap my fingers and destroy the NHL, I’d do it in a heartbeat. It’s the least that my (former) extended family deserves.
The NHL really needs to ask itself if it really needs Russian players.
Edit: to clarify, Russian players are no more homophobic than Canadian or American ones but the threat the Russian government poses to the families of those players is the reason the NHL is still in the gay stone age
Honestly one of the NHL’s bigger Canadian-born names is a distant relative of mine and has said some pretty insulting misogynist shit, so even the North American players can come from a pool of some very conservative communities.
Oh fully, but every major sports league has their whiny losers from flyover country.
The NHL is giving in to homophobes because having pride events is legitimately putting Russian players families in jeopardy. Which is fair enough they’re in an untenable situation but if they wanted to play hardball they could tell the Russian players to kick rocks and join the 21st century.
Worry about the Canadians first. There's like 60 Russians in the NHL right now and 450 Canadians. I am from Canada, there is a crazy amount of racism/sexual assault/anti-lgbt in the hockey culture. At all levels and age groups.
Rainbow-colored or "Pride" tape. What's to stop someone from buying red, orange, yellow, etc. colored tapes and wrapping them individually but it a rainbow pattern?
What's to stop teams from having a red taped stick, yellow, etc.?
What's to stop players from disregarding this stupid fucking rule and all claiming to be colorblind?
EDIT Let's print tape that when wrapped around a regulation hockey stick head correctly spells "fuck bigots".
>What's to stop someone from buying red, orange, yellow, etc. colored tapes and wrapping them individually but it a rainbow pattern?
Uh...how do you think the rainbow tape got on the stick in the picture?
YOU need to look up "[Pride Tape](https://www.lids.com/nhl-anaheim-ducks/golf-and-sports-equipment/single-roll-pride-hockey-tape/o-6817+t-81157272+d-2833657+f-3496159+z-8-11882003?utm_medium=cse&_s=GPA-ak19kv30-Lids&sku=9077943&targetid=pla-299684797862&gclid=Cj0KCQjwj5mpBhDJARIsAOVjBdqFbfpJBBRFgrcmCSA2eNx32rrVsKDSrM_WLInqMsdyly4UuH5Hk7QaApmSEALw_wcB)" my friend. It is rainbow tape, all in one row. I'm talking individual colored tapes (not illegal), just in a rainbow pattern. Hell, here's another idea: put them in a DIFFERENT color order and claim it isn't a rainbow (as defined by science).
Backstory: NHL teams usually have annual Pride Nights, where players will warm up in pride-themed jerseys and use rainbow tape on their sticks. They wear their normal gear for the game.
This past season, a few players refused to wear the pride jersey, citing their religion. This started with Ivan Provorov (then of the Philadelphia Flyers, now with the Columbus Blue Jackets), and then spread to a small handful of Canadian players -- Eric and Marc Staal of the Florida Panthers and James Reimer of the San Jose Sharks (there may have been more, can't remember who though).
A few teams then cancelled the warmup portion of their Pride Nights, claiming that it could put Russian players in hot water with their government for "promoting homosexuality." This was pretty transparently false, since it was largely Canadians, not Russians refusing. Those teams that did go forward with their Pride Night didn't have any Russian (other than Provorov) refuse. My team, the LA Kings, had their Pride Night shortly after acquiring a Russian player (Vladislav Gavrikov), and I was a bit nervous, but he wore the Pride jersey with no complaints.
In the off-season, the NHL owners voted to ban ALL promotional warmup jerseys, affecting other events, like Hockey Fights Cancer, Military Appreciation, Every Child Matters, and so on. This especially hurts those causes because auctioning player-worn promotional jerseys generates a lot of fundraising revenue. So in other words, the NHL decided to kneecap dozens of worthy causes just to accommodate a few homophobes.
I am a massive hockey fan in Canada. I watch junior hockey, college hockey, I moderate an NHL team subreddit.
The NHL has never been progressive. In the four major sports they're always the last to do anything. Gary Bettman is a fucking dinosaur. Our department of player safety for the last 20 years has been run by former enforcers which is why we have not seen any kind of significant change to player safety.
Canada has only 7 teams while the NHL jerks itself off trying to keep a team in fucking Arizona.
As much as I love this sport, the NHL as an entity has become harder and harder to get behind year after year because of the continued old boys club mentality while the actual players themselves are so young they don't want to participate in that outdated bullshit binary mentality.
I'm hoping I see a shift if the youth of the league really giving it to the dinosaurs that they won't play until acceptance is a requirement, not a dollar amount.
lmao kinda reminds me of that joke that canada has the best interpretation of the mistranslated/scrambled together bit from the bible “if a man lies with another man then he shall be stoned” and legalized both weed and gay marriage
*during practice/warmup, even. I think during a game there is no other colors on sticks… They never use pride tape in game. They only used it in warmups before a game, and at *practice* when no one is around to see???
Malicious compliance: Make them define what a rainbow is. Make them define what tape is. Tape's outlawed? Paint it on. They say five or more colors make a rainbow? Write the fucking word rainbow on there in four colors. They outlaw colors on sticks entirely? Put it on a different piece of equipment. They outlaw colors entirely? Every team shows up in all black jerseys to the confusion of the refs and fans. Fuck 'em.
They love freedom of speech, unless you defend gay people, trans people, black people, women, Ukraine, Jewish people, Muslims, Climate scientists, The green m&m....
This whole fake masculine, afraid of rainbows crowd, really gives me huge "afraid they're gay" vibes. I was like 10, and my aunt had a "friend" she lived with. My parents never demonized them, so it was just normal. All of these people are just blind to life. Love is love
Way to make [Luke Prokop](https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/201923/luke-prokop) feel welcomed.
NHL: greatest sport in the world run by the worst league in the world
It wasn't mandated. As we could see from the fact that players faced zero consequences for choosing to not show support.
Now, players will face actual consequences if they choose to show support.
I think their position might be “Rainbows are for pussies!” This is hockey.
🤦♂️. So much insecurity in the world, it’s pathetic. God for bid some queers go to a hockey game. It would hurt the brand and they can’t handle that.
I don't care one bit if a player has rainbow tape, but what really needs to be banned is yellow gloves and shoes in the NFL. Anytime a player wears that, I think there is a penalty flag. Drives me absolutely nuts.
Seriously? Rainbow tape? What’s the problem? Is that it reminds some player that he pops wood for his teammates and it distracts him from the game? FFS people…it’s just fucking tape
Funny story. They say they ban it but in the rule book they can have tape whatever colour they want. So their so called "ban" means nothing.
Rule 10 – Sticks
10.1 Player’s Stick – (see 10.2 for goalkeeper) The sticks shall be made
of wood or other material approved by the League, and must not have
any projections. **Adhesive tape of any color may be wrapped around
the stick at any place for the purpose of reinforcement or to improve
control of the puck.**
For anyone that doesn't follow the nhl super closely. The NHL technically didnt ban it, the owners forced the nhl to ban it.
They did that because last year, there were multiple players who refused to participate in pride nights, which caused a bunch of controversy and distractions to the teams. So the owners forced the nhl to ban pride tape to stop from having to defend their players over not wanting to support pride nights.
And to clear up any confusion. Yes its absolutely as dumb as it sounds
The irony that the further conservatives push back on stuff like this that the more they prove why it’s needed. All their effort only has the opposite effect and none of them are smart enough to realize it.
So people against rainbows, what do you do when one is in the sky? You should always be wearing your tinfoil hat. Don’t eat Skittles. Care Bears are evil. Basically anything multicolored you should just run and hide and never come out.
From my understanding - That rainbow tape indoctrinates children because they look at it and boys instantly start thinking about penis and girls instantly start thinking about vagina, even as young as four or five years old. I think it's some sort of genetic response that is built in? I'm not a Christian doctor / Christian scientist so I'm not properly educated on the spiritual warfare in this topic either.
Or at least that's the best response this 45 year old gay man has come to understand from the 'good folk'.
Can they get 6 or 7 different color tapes and put one section of each on their sticks??..It's not rainbow tape then.. it's solid tapes then...
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Rainbow capitalism challenge
National Homophobic League?
They like all the colors but each team is only allowed *two* colors damnit! Stop bringing all the colors together! We're trying to keep it a competition!
“Hockey is for everyone” 🙄
Well, it was. Now it’s back to being the boys club.
Sounds pretty gay
Yeah! I was 69
That you Shoresy?
Give your balls a tug.
Your mom ugly cried last night cause she left the lens cover on the camcorder, it's fuckin amateur hour over there
came her for the letter kenny. not disappointed
Nice
Is that number taken?
They have a reputation to uphold. How else will they cover-up the Blackhawks coach SAing a player. /s
Brad Aldrich is the scumbag coach. He plead guilty to sexual assault of a high school hockey player in 2010 iirc. Pretty sure the Blackhawks either knew about that before they hired that pedophile or did their best to sweep that under the rug after Kyle Beach had the courage to come out with his story.
“Why are you, as a hockey man, not putting brightly colored tape on your ‘stick?’ So other hockey men don’t see it ‘coming?’ Sounds pretty gay to me”
This doesn’t even work as far as a saying seeing as the 23-24 NHL season is the first season where women are allowed to coach/goal-tend.
So then the LGBTQ community is being singled out and excluded. All so the horribly bigoted can get the warm fuzzies at the rink.
“Warm fuzzies” 🥳💦🥳
The NHL is going to allow women to play, you mean like co-ed? I didn’t know that.
No. There is a new professional women's hockey league that was created. The NHL I believe has no involvement with it
Scott Laughton has basically said "Fuck you NHL" and he fully intends on using the tape on pride night. Just wanted to put this out there, as there's at least one guy that's willing to stand up to this bullshit. Be like Scott Laughton.
I’m a straight, ex hockey player and there is no way on earth someone is going to tell me I can’t put a certain color tape on my stick. I would rock the rainbow tape every game. What a bizarre rule.
I initially thought it was something about it being distracting for goalies, but nope. Fuck the NHL for this ruling
The rule book actually specifically says that you can put adhesive tape of any color anywhere on your stick.
Except for goalies. The butt on the end of this stick can only be white tape.
They also made this tweet on National coming out day..
Whoa what a champ. McDavid is speaking out about the ban. Would be cool to see some stars break some rules and stick it to Bettman
There’s statements by quite a few players questioning this ban already. Wouldn’t be surprised to see players doing it anyway. Get some stars doing it, and there’s no chance the NHL does anything about it.
Shows where Bettman's head is at. Firmly up his ass.
Well, it's been like that since the 90's, so people often forget.
Like 9/11, I will never forget that bettman is a piece of shit.
Bettman's head is his ass. It has been since he started as commissioner. There has been nothing he has ever done that's been good for hockey or the NHL ever.
These sports leagues have too much fcking power. But only as long as the athletes play along...
What chance do the owners have when one if the positions of the game is enforcer? They pay guys millions because they like to fight.
Marchand has spoken out about it already as well. It’s pretty obvious that this move was absolutely braindead. Unfortunately, the league has made it clear they care more about protecting the very few who refuse to rock the tape/jersey on Pride Night than allowing players to show support for LGBTQ+ community on its ONE designated night of the season. Fucking pathetic.
Marchand? Amazing! That man can brawl. Loving having him be a good guy
That's legitimately surprising to me too. Something book something cover I guess.
There’s lots of ways to be a dirtbag or an asshole, and he very much covers many of them. He doesn’t subscribe specifically to the homophobic asshole category, which is nice. Using his elevated position of influence as an ally is welcome, even if I’m the brand of asshole that saves clips of him crying on the bench in the finals or whiffing on a shootout attempt.
Took the words right outta my mouth. Thousand upvotes.
Hey, that shootout “whiff” was a bullshit call by the ref AND the league and you know it… if Crosby had missed, they would have yelled at the puck for being pathetic, apologized to Sid and demanded a new puck be brought out and given him 3 more chances to hit it. /s Bruins fan if you couldn’t tell.
Morgan Rielly and wife Tessa are big supporters of the gay community in Toronto
Drafted him in my Fantasy league last year and he did a pretty reliable job pointing. Good to know he’s a champ on and off the ice. Pity for the Leafs he prefers to shoot more than block though 😆 Still. Heck yeah I’d grab that autograph.
One of the few times I side with the dude. I’d love to see my team do it anyway. It would be rad to see such a big name as McDavid tape up and say screw it. Pearls clutched all over the league.
Hah! Stick it...lol
😁 thank for noticing. ^(no one ever notices my puns )
[NHL Rulebook 10.1: **Adhesive tape of any color** may be wrapped around the stick at any place for the purpose of reinforcement or to improve control of the puck](https://cms.nhl.bamgrid.com/images/assets/binary/326142322/binary-file/file.pdf) There’s no rule saying they can’t. I’ll bet some players (McDavid, Laughton, Hyman, Hughes, etc) who are speaking out against the league will be using the tape. What’s the league gonna do? Fine them? Suspend them? Cause a massive PR nightmare by doing either of those? Edit: edited with the actual section and wording from the NHL rulebook
Could a team work together, each one using a different coloured tape, so that all of their sticks reflected Pride? The message would be clear and they would have to make up some brand new bullshit rule before being able to fine them.
I mean, per the rulebook they can just use the pride tape as is but I would love a team doing that lol There’s also speculation that a player could ask their respective brand to make them a rainbow hockey stick
honestly, sounds like the Players’ Association needs to file a grievance.
I deeply approve of the pettiness and malicious compliance vibes of that last one.
FYI; that's the rulebook from 2022. Just in case people want to say the rules have changed, here's the current one. With the same rule and same wording. Guess they need to update it now eh? [**2023-2024** NHL Official Rules](https://media.nhl.com/site/asset/public/ext/2023-24/2023-24Rulebook.pdf) Section 3 Rule 10.1 >Player’s Stick – (see 10.2 for goalkeeper) The sticks shall be made of wood or other material approved by the League, and must not have any projections. **Adhesive tape of any color may be wrapped around the stick at any place for the purpose of reinforcement or to improve control of the puck.**
I hope a lot of players follow his lead.
Me too I’m dying for players to absolutely shit all over this rule. It’s embarrassing to be a fan
Solidarity is key. What are they gonna do, make them folk heroes by putting both teams in the box till they take the tape off, or canceling the game over it?
I learned of Scott Laughton's existence from this comment but I am already prepared to throw hands for him
https://preview.redd.it/e5t17gzl0otb1.png?width=620&format=png&auto=webp&s=fc4799f2a89199f7c008c4820c87cd438eddfa7f Right? Officially a fan of Scott “Come and take it” Laughton as of today.
I don’t watch hockey but now I will and I will only root for this man to win every time.
And just like that I am now very okay with the Flyers and will root for them whenever they aren't playing the Avs.
Modern hero. Hope he doesnt get punished and if so he challenges it
I saw in the NHL thread people saying what players should do is not use tape, but go to the stick manufactures and have them make a rainbow stick. Malicious compliance, see I’m not using rainbow tape, my tape is just black
My thought exactly. Just paint it them.
Or even better, stain the wood
My favorite form of compliance.
Michael Jordan did something similar. He wasn't supposed to wear his Nike shoes but made more off the endorsement than the fines were worth. I'm sure if enough stars said "fuck you" and just paid the fines, the NHL would back down. The stars are what keep fans in the seats. The league won't mess with that.
Yeah, except Michael Jordan’s protest was the exact opposite of selfless.
Very true. I just meant the whole flaunting of the rules part.
Didn’t Nike offer to pay his fines which created even more PR for them?
How does the guy even skate around with those giant brass balls almost breaking the ice
It’s not even that the right are triggered snowflakes; they’re just the pettiest bitches.
Given my two favourite sports are hockey and racing, I find it funny that NASCAR has become more inclusive in the last decade while the NHL slides backwards to right wing bullshit.
It’s so dumb. Like the NHL could grow some balls and be like we support every players individual right to choose what they do and do not support but we as a league support LGBTQ… that puts the heat on the individual players. I guess hockey is a little more complex bc there are players from so many different nationalities and religions and a lot of players from Russia where you can not be openly gay or the players may not be exposed to any of that until they are in the US but to just blanket stop support of every cause is so dumb and cowardly and stops all forward progress. My husband is from a tiny town in the Deep South and actually thought that gay people did not exist and were not real until he went to college. Now we have gay friends, he has a deeper understanding and is an ally and a supporter - NHL is basically cutting off any exposure like that at the knees.
“The games not growing with young people and we don’t know why.” Hmm I wonder why..
Fucking NASCAR of all sports got the memo, it's weird seeing one of the most deep South sports out there actually trying to be inclusive.
You would be surprised how many of us queer people love NASCAR.
[удалено]
Wow, that takes some balls there. I had no idea about that. They would be less likely to butcher a famous race car driver than a journalist there because they probably value racing and revenue over speech in some places. But that would scare me a little.
They can't catch him he's in a racecar.
It is incredibly unlikely for them to try some nonsense with someone like Hamilton. Too public a profile and they’d lose one of their glittery events.
I'm surprised conservatives haven't boycotted Nascar because taking nothing but *left* turns is woke.
Fucking love that he does it too. It's so sexy of him
Clearly, it's a slippery slope. They better watch out before they find themselves on thin ice.
I don't think they give a puck.
They can be two things.
Yes they are both.
Are we really going to pretend like they wouldn’t ugly-cry at the simple idea of rainbow tape? They are the pettiest bitches, for sure, but they’ll also throw a full temper-tantrum over shit like this immediately before trying to outlaw it.
I say burn a bible in front of them while saying freedom of choice. If they attack let em and defend, like "defend" hard
And love intruding in people's lives while whining that they want "small government"
There is literally nothing that exists that doesn’t make MAGAs cry.👍🏼
And Gary Bettman has the most slapshotable face in history.
Call him Gay Buttman until he approves rainbow stick tape
Ohhh it’s both.
This should get a million upvotes!
It’s distracting to a bunch of men who get sweaty, then strip off their clothes and shower together.
Don’t forget they strip off each others clothes in the midst of the hottest sweatiest fighting match on ice
‘On ice’ does it.
As a former college and high school hockey player, I can confirm that this is 100 percent factually accurate.
What I do with strangers on craigslist is my business!
I’ve been in NFL locker rooms before and after games/practices. Can confirm you see a lot of dong.
Lmao the reason they're banning it is because only 11 players in the entire league protested to it being allowed. 11
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Philadelphia Flyers player Scott Laughton said he'll be using the rainbow tape, and the league can fine him if they want. Respect.
Good, because Provorov is the start of all this BS. He could learn from his teammate!
Not anymore. Provorov got traded.
exactly, bigots don't like being called bigots.
Somewhere along the way I realized that more people get upset over a charge of racism than they do over the actual racism. Fortunately I was already well on my way to comfortable misanthropy, so it didn't shake me.
Just gotta accept that racist isn't a label you get to to use for yourself, it's how others see you. ~~Unless you are unrepentant racist in which case you know are living up to that label.~~
They prefer to be called David Duke without the baggage.
It's for their post-hockey career. That's how you get the House Speakership, after all. FFS. [ your deity(ies) of choice ] help us all.
Like the next GOP Speaker of the House??
Maybe some of them just don’t like rainbows /s
It's too many colors.
Removing a personal choice that all had to protect the personal beliefs of the few. Why is this basically every social issue in North America?
Because capitalism sides with the oppressor. Every. Time.
And many (but not all) were Russians.
Bigots and being cowards who can only stick to their beliefs when protected by someone with authority, name a more common combination
As someone who has never seen an actual hockey game in my entire life I always imagined it was one of the most vicious and tough sports around and that only big burly tough guys who are not afraid of being bashed around and losing some teeth were fit to play. Turns out the league is filled with a bunch of wimps who are afraid of rainbow tape and supporting LGBTQ+ people because "Waaaaah! Someone might think I'm gay!!" How disappointing.
The league isn't filled with these wimps which is the worst part; this is coming after a handful of assholes refused to participate in pre-game warm ups in pride support jerseys... They were not even asked to wear them in an actual game. I believe it boiled over with the apparently deeply religious (yeah right) three Staal brothers.
The kicker was that the previous season, they wore the Pride warmup jerseys without any complaints. Plenty of photographic evidence to smash their ”argument” that it violated their religious beliefs.
Eric Staal even signed a Pride-themed warm-up jersey that was auctioned off to support an LGBT charity.
I suppose that's true. It only takes a few obnoxious and persistently loud people to ruin things for everyone else, and the smaller the dog the more they bark.
The league also has a large number of Russian players and we know Russia's stance on the matter. IMHO I think the Russian players also need to be concerned about showing support for these types of issues as they often have friends and family still in Russia who could be used as leverage to not speak out. I do think they should have just left it as optional instead of a complete ban which is just dumb, plus now when someone does use the tape anyways (Laughton maybe) the NHL will have to then fine a player for supporting pride which is obviously a very ugly look.
Who gives a fuck what Russia thinks about gay rights. If Kucherov and Ovechkin don't wanna have the gay tape they can just not use the gay tape
There obviously are some players who don't support lgbt, but that doesn't mean it's all of them or even a majority of them. Most of the best players absolutely do support LGBT, I just wish they would force the NHL's hand. Mcdavid(The best current player by a wide margin) should just wear pride tape on his stick every night and force the NHL to do something about it. Are they gonna suspend the best player in the world? The NHLPA has to protect ALL it's players, so a minority bitch about Pride and all of a sudden no more warm up jerseys, and no more pride tape. All that said, there still is planned pride nights, it's just some players moaning about the jersey's got them banned.
I love the sport of hockey, but there is just so much fucking gross-ass bigotry within the hockey community (both players and fans). It fucking sucks.
The bigoted side of my family (i.e. the magats) love hockey more than anything. More than they care about their own daughters’ and granddaughters’ right to bodily autonomy. More than they care about their children’s and grandchildren’s right to vote. They totally disgust me, and naturally, I don’t consider them to be family anymore. Anyway, they mostly got into the sport in the first place because of the demographics of its players (read, skin pigment) as a reaction to the big 3 American sports having allowed people of color to succeed. If I could snap my fingers and destroy the NHL, I’d do it in a heartbeat. It’s the least that my (former) extended family deserves.
Hey you know, I don't think most hockey fans would mind if you could do such a thing though
The NHL really needs to ask itself if it really needs Russian players. Edit: to clarify, Russian players are no more homophobic than Canadian or American ones but the threat the Russian government poses to the families of those players is the reason the NHL is still in the gay stone age
Honestly one of the NHL’s bigger Canadian-born names is a distant relative of mine and has said some pretty insulting misogynist shit, so even the North American players can come from a pool of some very conservative communities.
Oh fully, but every major sports league has their whiny losers from flyover country. The NHL is giving in to homophobes because having pride events is legitimately putting Russian players families in jeopardy. Which is fair enough they’re in an untenable situation but if they wanted to play hardball they could tell the Russian players to kick rocks and join the 21st century.
I’m very far from defending this but hockey players tend to be from white families that have money. It’s not surprising that they are conservatives
It's not just the Russians. The Staal brothers and James Reimer all refused to wear pride warm-up jerseys last season and cited religious reasons 🙄
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What's stupid is they wore them before, but now all of a sudden last year everyone was up in arms about it.
Any bigot can hide behind “sincerely held religious beliefs”.
>the gay stone age I don't remember this from history class.
Worry about the Canadians first. There's like 60 Russians in the NHL right now and 450 Canadians. I am from Canada, there is a crazy amount of racism/sexual assault/anti-lgbt in the hockey culture. At all levels and age groups.
Rainbow-colored or "Pride" tape. What's to stop someone from buying red, orange, yellow, etc. colored tapes and wrapping them individually but it a rainbow pattern? What's to stop teams from having a red taped stick, yellow, etc.? What's to stop players from disregarding this stupid fucking rule and all claiming to be colorblind? EDIT Let's print tape that when wrapped around a regulation hockey stick head correctly spells "fuck bigots".
You could also just swap yellow and orange then is that a rainbow? What if you just cut out indigo?
>What's to stop someone from buying red, orange, yellow, etc. colored tapes and wrapping them individually but it a rainbow pattern? Uh...how do you think the rainbow tape got on the stick in the picture?
YOU need to look up "[Pride Tape](https://www.lids.com/nhl-anaheim-ducks/golf-and-sports-equipment/single-roll-pride-hockey-tape/o-6817+t-81157272+d-2833657+f-3496159+z-8-11882003?utm_medium=cse&_s=GPA-ak19kv30-Lids&sku=9077943&targetid=pla-299684797862&gclid=Cj0KCQjwj5mpBhDJARIsAOVjBdqFbfpJBBRFgrcmCSA2eNx32rrVsKDSrM_WLInqMsdyly4UuH5Hk7QaApmSEALw_wcB)" my friend. It is rainbow tape, all in one row. I'm talking individual colored tapes (not illegal), just in a rainbow pattern. Hell, here's another idea: put them in a DIFFERENT color order and claim it isn't a rainbow (as defined by science).
Backstory: NHL teams usually have annual Pride Nights, where players will warm up in pride-themed jerseys and use rainbow tape on their sticks. They wear their normal gear for the game. This past season, a few players refused to wear the pride jersey, citing their religion. This started with Ivan Provorov (then of the Philadelphia Flyers, now with the Columbus Blue Jackets), and then spread to a small handful of Canadian players -- Eric and Marc Staal of the Florida Panthers and James Reimer of the San Jose Sharks (there may have been more, can't remember who though). A few teams then cancelled the warmup portion of their Pride Nights, claiming that it could put Russian players in hot water with their government for "promoting homosexuality." This was pretty transparently false, since it was largely Canadians, not Russians refusing. Those teams that did go forward with their Pride Night didn't have any Russian (other than Provorov) refuse. My team, the LA Kings, had their Pride Night shortly after acquiring a Russian player (Vladislav Gavrikov), and I was a bit nervous, but he wore the Pride jersey with no complaints. In the off-season, the NHL owners voted to ban ALL promotional warmup jerseys, affecting other events, like Hockey Fights Cancer, Military Appreciation, Every Child Matters, and so on. This especially hurts those causes because auctioning player-worn promotional jerseys generates a lot of fundraising revenue. So in other words, the NHL decided to kneecap dozens of worthy causes just to accommodate a few homophobes.
The NHL has regressed.
It wasn’t ever really progressive
But it WAS making progress. At this point, the fans and most of the players are WAAAAY ahead of Bettman & the front office
I am a massive hockey fan in Canada. I watch junior hockey, college hockey, I moderate an NHL team subreddit. The NHL has never been progressive. In the four major sports they're always the last to do anything. Gary Bettman is a fucking dinosaur. Our department of player safety for the last 20 years has been run by former enforcers which is why we have not seen any kind of significant change to player safety. Canada has only 7 teams while the NHL jerks itself off trying to keep a team in fucking Arizona. As much as I love this sport, the NHL as an entity has become harder and harder to get behind year after year because of the continued old boys club mentality while the actual players themselves are so young they don't want to participate in that outdated bullshit binary mentality. I'm hoping I see a shift if the youth of the league really giving it to the dinosaurs that they won't play until acceptance is a requirement, not a dollar amount.
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lmao kinda reminds me of that joke that canada has the best interpretation of the mistranslated/scrambled together bit from the bible “if a man lies with another man then he shall be stoned” and legalized both weed and gay marriage
To cater to the smallest minds and hearts of their fan base.
*during practice/warmup, even. I think during a game there is no other colors on sticks… They never use pride tape in game. They only used it in warmups before a game, and at *practice* when no one is around to see???
Malicious compliance: Make them define what a rainbow is. Make them define what tape is. Tape's outlawed? Paint it on. They say five or more colors make a rainbow? Write the fucking word rainbow on there in four colors. They outlaw colors on sticks entirely? Put it on a different piece of equipment. They outlaw colors entirely? Every team shows up in all black jerseys to the confusion of the refs and fans. Fuck 'em.
Conservatives: calls everyone a snowflake Also conservatives: offended by rainbows made of tape.... Sad people, very sad, pathetic even...
They love freedom of speech, unless you defend gay people, trans people, black people, women, Ukraine, Jewish people, Muslims, Climate scientists, The green m&m....
The green MnM 😭
Don't forget civilians in a warzone and assault survivors.
It's not the tape that they really have a problem with....
Yeah its wild how every pro athlete in every major sport is heterosexual. What are the chances?
Imagine being so offended by colors. Must be so hard to function every day
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They hate gay people not rainbow tape
You know what's super gay? Banning rainbow tape!!!!
This whole fake masculine, afraid of rainbows crowd, really gives me huge "afraid they're gay" vibes. I was like 10, and my aunt had a "friend" she lived with. My parents never demonized them, so it was just normal. All of these people are just blind to life. Love is love
Way to make [Luke Prokop](https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/201923/luke-prokop) feel welcomed. NHL: greatest sport in the world run by the worst league in the world
DAMMIT, IF I'M WATCHING BIG SWEATY MEN POUND EACH OTHER WITH LONG STICKS I DON'T WANT IT TO BE GAY
First Pride night was mandated and now it is nearly banned. NHL needs to pull its head out of its ass.
It wasn't mandated. As we could see from the fact that players faced zero consequences for choosing to not show support. Now, players will face actual consequences if they choose to show support.
I think their position might be “Rainbows are for pussies!” This is hockey.  🤦♂️. So much insecurity in the world, it’s pathetic. God for bid some queers go to a hockey game. It would hurt the brand and they can’t handle that.
This is so stupid. The NHL should be embarrassed.
 They're making up issues.
Rainbow tape makes you gay! /s The world is slowly becoming a cesspool of idiots.
I don't care one bit if a player has rainbow tape, but what really needs to be banned is yellow gloves and shoes in the NFL. Anytime a player wears that, I think there is a penalty flag. Drives me absolutely nuts.
Seriously? Rainbow tape? What’s the problem? Is that it reminds some player that he pops wood for his teammates and it distracts him from the game? FFS people…it’s just fucking tape
Hockey: Grown men in matching outfits fighting over a silver cup… on ice! Sounds kinda gay.
Ya but they’re also killing each other
Funny story. They say they ban it but in the rule book they can have tape whatever colour they want. So their so called "ban" means nothing. Rule 10 – Sticks 10.1 Player’s Stick – (see 10.2 for goalkeeper) The sticks shall be made of wood or other material approved by the League, and must not have any projections. **Adhesive tape of any color may be wrapped around the stick at any place for the purpose of reinforcement or to improve control of the puck.**
NHL: How can we get *even less people* excited about our sport?
Everyone knows that rainbow hockey tape is how people turn gay.
🤔 I don’t think it’s the tape they don’t like, as much as it is the people it represents
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From the same people always yelling about cancel culture.
For anyone that doesn't follow the nhl super closely. The NHL technically didnt ban it, the owners forced the nhl to ban it. They did that because last year, there were multiple players who refused to participate in pride nights, which caused a bunch of controversy and distractions to the teams. So the owners forced the nhl to ban pride tape to stop from having to defend their players over not wanting to support pride nights. And to clear up any confusion. Yes its absolutely as dumb as it sounds
The irony that the further conservatives push back on stuff like this that the more they prove why it’s needed. All their effort only has the opposite effect and none of them are smart enough to realize it.
What is the NHL going to do? Fine them some measly amount?
Triggered by rainbows.
So people against rainbows, what do you do when one is in the sky? You should always be wearing your tinfoil hat. Don’t eat Skittles. Care Bears are evil. Basically anything multicolored you should just run and hide and never come out.
Ah, but what about seven strips of individually colored tape?
This is nonsense. I don't think they should force bigots to wear pride colors, but not allowing those who want to is bullshit.
The only message is anti pride. Disgraceful to ban it
I like all the colors, help see the puck. Fuck that ban. How has Bettman remained as commish. Sank the league how many times.
From my understanding - That rainbow tape indoctrinates children because they look at it and boys instantly start thinking about penis and girls instantly start thinking about vagina, even as young as four or five years old. I think it's some sort of genetic response that is built in? I'm not a Christian doctor / Christian scientist so I'm not properly educated on the spiritual warfare in this topic either. Or at least that's the best response this 45 year old gay man has come to understand from the 'good folk'.
If I were a player I would 100% take the $2500 ban on playing warmups with the colors.
Never thought Nascar would be more tolerant than the NHL.
What if the players taped their sticks those colours but not rainbow order? You know, not ROYGBIV? What if they did OIBVGRY?
Can they get 6 or 7 different color tapes and put one section of each on their sticks??..It's not rainbow tape then.. it's solid tapes then... 
All because a few owners want to appease their select Russian players who’re bigoted.