Wild Players Refuse to Wear Pride Night Warm-Up Jerseys

Tuesday night was “Pride Night” at Xcel Energy Center. The game and most of the festivities went on as scheduled. The Minnesota Wild played against the Calgary Flames and Jack Jablonski opened the contest with the “Let’s Play Hockey” opening ceremony.

Wild refuse to wear special pride night warm-up jerseys

But part of the festivities were supposed to include Wild players wearing rainbow colored jerseys during warmups. The same jersey worn by Jablonski in the video below.

But that didn’t happen. According to Michael Russo (The Athletic), the team decided against wearing the pregame attire. Some of the players had rainbow colored tape on their sticks. The Wild posted about, and then deleted, the jerseys on their auction website.

Minnesota Wild players did not wear Pride jerseys during warmup as scheduled for the team’s annual Pride Night game Tuesday night. According to the team, players were scheduled to wear rainbow-colored jerseys for the team’s game against the Calgary Flames, in support of the LGBTQIA+ community. The jerseys even appeared in a since-deleted post on the Wild’s auction website.

“Part of the themed game programming includes custom-designed Wild Pride jerseys worn by the team during pre-game warmups,” the post on the auction site said before it was removed. “The custom warmup jerseys will be signed and auctioned off starting March 7.”

Michael Russo – The Athletic

Jack Jablonski, wearing the 2023 #mnwild Pride jersey with “Jabs” patch, doing Let’s Play Hockey. Here’s my story on Jabs coming out in September >>https://t.co/JKeIACpzvo pic.twitter.com/ANrVsMbsVw

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) March 8, 2023

The Minnesota Wild aren’t the only NHL team to push back against woke narratives this season. Ivan Provorov refused to wear a pride night warm-up jersey for the Philadelphia Flyers in January. The New York Islanders decided, as a team, not to feature rainbow-colored tape or special jerseys during their “pride night” celebrations in February.

It doesn’t surprise me that the NHL is the first professional sports league to start challenging the mainstream narratives that have been more aggressively pushed over the last few years.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan