Starting in the 2023-24 season, NHL teams will no longer wear specialty jerseys during warmups for themed nights. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman announced the decision following the league's Board of Governors meeting.
This decision from the NHL comes after a season that was filled with how various Pride nights were handled across the league. Some individual players refused to wear the warmup jerseys, and several teams chose not to wear an LGBTQ-themed warmup jersey at all.
Immediately following the meeting, Bettman spoke with Sportsnet about the decision. Bettman said the debate about the jerseys became more of a "distraction." He also suggested that nixing the jerseys would put more focus onto the nights themselves.
"Actually, I've suggested that it would be appropriate for clubs not to change their jerseys in warmups because it's become a distraction and taking away from the fact that all our clubs, in some form or another, host nights in honor of various groups or causes," Bettman said. "We'd rather those continue to get the appropriate attention that they deserve and not be a distraction."
Bettman acknowledged the jerseys can make fans the LGBTQ community feel more included and that the NHL made this decision during Pride month but re-emphasized his opinion that the jerseys had become a distraction.
"Those are legitimate concerns, but in the final analysis, all of the efforts and emphasis on these important various causes have been undermined by the distraction in terms of which teams and which players (are wearing them)," Bettman said. "This way, we can keep it focused on the game. On these specialty nights, we're going to be focused on the cause."
Bettman said that Pride nights -- and all specialty nights -- are here to stay in the NHL. The only change will be that players no longer wear themed jerseys in warmups.
"Absolutely, 32 of our clubs did Pride nights. Some do Heritage nights," Bettman said. "Everyone does Hockey Fights Cancer. Some do military nights. All of those nights will continue. The only issue will be -- or the only difference will be -- we aren't going to change jerseys for warmups because really that has become more of a distraction from the essence of what the purposes of these nights are."
The discussion around NHL Pride nights began when then-Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov chose not to wear the team's warmup jersey for religious reasons. Throughout the rest of the season, Eric Staal, Marc Staal, and James Reimer sat out Pride Night warmups for the same reason.
Several NHL teams chose not to wear special warmup jerseys at all because of new Russian anti-gay laws that may have put players from that country in jeopardy if they promoted pro-LGBTQ causes. Teams like the Pittsburgh Penguins, Nashville Predators, and San Jose Sharks chose to go ahead with Pride Night warmup jerseys despite having Russian players in the lineup.
