Posted on 01/24/2016 7:22:46 PM PST by rickmichaels
The Edmonton Oilers became the first NHL team to use Pride Tape, a multicolored tape to promote inclusiveness in sports. The Oilers used the tape Sunday during their annual Skills Competition at Rexall Place.
"Many view professional hockey players as role models and our team felt this was a great initiative to let every person know they're welcome in the game of hockey," defenseman Andrew Ference told the Oilers website. "We're all proud to play for a team and city that supports diversity and human rights."
The Oilers' Twitter account posted photos of the players' sticks wrapped in the tape before the competition began.
The Edmonton Oilers Community Foundation (EOCF) is also making a donation to become a Founding Partner of Pride Tape and help get the initiative across the goal line. The EOCF focuses on initiatives to promote education, health and wellness for youth.
"We are thrilled to be partnering with the Oilers and officially launching Pride Tape in Edmonton, a city that believes in diversity and human rights, and a city that proudly supports our LGBTQ community," said Dr. Kristopher Wells, Faculty Director with the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services at the University of Alberta, one of the partners spearheading the campaign. "It's a local initiative with national reach and we're very excited to have the Oilers be the first to support this inclusive message on the ice."
Wells and Calder Bateman Communications are working together on a Kickstarter campaign to raise enough funds to produce 10,000 rolls of the tape. As of Sunday, they have raised more than $40,000 of their $54,000 campaign goal.
On the Kickstarter page, Pride Tape is described as a badge of support from the teammates, coaches, parents and pros to young LGBTQ players. It shows every player that they belong on the ice, that everyone is on the same team and your help is needed to make it a reality.
When Pride Tape is up and running, proceeds will support LGBTQ youth outreach initiatives, such as You Can Play and the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services. That means every roll of tape will make an impact on and off the ice.
In 2013, the NHL and NHLPA partnered with You Can Play, an organization "dedicated to ensuring equality, respect and safety for all athletes, without regard to sexual orientation"
On Sunday, You Can Play tweeted a statement from co-founder Patrick Burke, who works in the NHL's Department of Player Safety.
"I truly believe that a moment like the Oilers using Pride Tape would have meant the world to a young Brendan Burke," said Burke, whose brother Brendan was an openly gay student manager who worked to combat homophobia in hockey. Brendan died in a car accident in 2010. "It would have helped him, tremendously. And made him feel welcomed, like a true part of the hockey family. And I'm happiest today for the young LGBT hockey players in Alberta who will see this and feel welcomed by our league."
Since partnering with You Can Play, the NHL has seen all 30 teams represented by a player in PSAs. Teams have committed to having You Can Play nights this season. The first will be Monday when the Philadelphia Flyers face the Boston Bruins at Wells Fargo Center (7 p.m. ET; TVA Sports, NESN, CSN-PH).
So...next time a hockey fight breaks out on the ice, the antagonists are just going to grope one another?
Sickos. Then they wonder why sports are no longer what they used to be. Rainbow tape? ROTFL! How many homos do the Oilers have on the team?
It stops when CWII ends.
Or we go to the camps.
I hope the oilers get drilled ...
What camps? CW11?
Good grief, are you a feddie canuck in footie pj’s?
You’re awfully optimistic.
More Leftist subversion, making alternative lifestyles more important than they should be. Who needs a stable, free people anyway, right?
I can hear the popping of liberal heads exploding.
NHL Ping
The Oilers had the great Gretzky, but for years now, they’ve been down and bad. If they weren’t in Canada, perhaps they would not survive. Bad story.
(let me know if you want on or off the ping list)
Get this PC stuff out hockey!
"Inclusion" in the bizarro libworld snowflake neighborhood is the same as "tolerance"...it is strictly a one-way street.
#InfanticideMatters
Right you are...
I guess I just stopped watching when the oilers are playing.
Is Australian rules football next?
....or slap each other.
OFFS!
I am so fed up with the promoting of this garbage.
No other sexual proclivity gets this much “positive” promotion and attention.
The NHL has been promoting homosexuals for awhile. I recall the Stanley Cup was taken to a pride parade after the Blackhawks won the cup the first time. The NHL endorsed the pro-homosexual commercials that used to run during hockey games, “If you can play, you can play”. I thought, of course you can play. Drug addicts, wife beaters and pedophiles can play too but the NHL wasn’t endorsing them (yet).
They also officially endorsed the religion of global warming.
I’ve stopped buying NHL branded items. I’m an addict though so I still have season tickets but they’re the next to go.
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