The NHL, NHLPA and NHL Player Inclusion Coalition have agreed that players will be able to represent social causes with stick tape this season, including games and practices, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported Tuesday.
This issue has been a hot-button topic since the NHL banned all pre-game tributes ahead of this season.
“After consultation with the NHL Players’ Association and the NHL Player Inclusion Coalition, Players will now have the option to voluntarily represent social causes with their stick tape throughout the season,” the NHL said in a statement.
Arizona Coyotes defenceman Travis Dermott is the first player known to have disobeyed the ban when he put rainbow tape on his stick for a game Saturday against the Anaheim Ducks.
He has not been subject to discipline by the NHL.
The NHL made the decision to ban Pride tape and specialty jerseys — widely seen as a promising step, if performative, to promote inclusivity in a largely insular hockey culture — after several notable players across the league publicly opted out of participating in Pride Night activities, including Ivan Provorov and Andrei Kuzmenko.
Speaking on Sportsnet’s Halford & Brough earlier this month, deputy commissioner Bill Daly explained the decision as not wanting to put players in a “difficult position.”
“We don’t want the situation where some players, or a large majority of players, use a certain cause messaging that other players don’t want to utilize and that puts those other players in a difficult position. We don’t want to put them in that difficult position,” Daly said.
Commissioner Gary Bettman also said in June that the discourse surrounding Pride Nights had become a “distraction” for players. The ban on themed jerseys to commemorate special causes also included for Hockey Fights Cancer, Black History Month and Military Appreciation Night.