Following last night’s impressive 6-1 win over the New Jersey Devils, the storyline for the Winnipeg Jets for the next couple of days should be entirely focused on Wednesday night’s massive showdown with Calgary.
But there might be another topic sharing centre stage with the Jets’ biggest game of the year to date.
Wednesday night is the annual Pride Night game at Canada Life Centre.
Compared with how the Jets usually pre-promote a special night, there hasn’t seemed to have been as much buzz from the organization as there has been for events like Hockey Fights Cancer, Military Night, WASAC Night, or a bobblehead night to honour an individual player.
But welcoming the LGBTQ2 community, as well as raising funds for the Rainbow Resource Centre through the auctioning off of the special warmup jerseys, should be just as important a night — and especially for an organization whose practice facility was recently renamed the Hockey For All Centre.
Unless you have been completely disconnected from the NHL for the past two-and-a-half months, when Philadelphia defenceman Ivan Provorov refused to wear the Flyers’ Pride jersey for the warmup Jan. 17 at Wells Fargo Center, you are well aware of what a hot mess this originally well-intentioned leaguewide initiative has become.
The Rangers scrapped their promoted Pride Night a week and a half later — accompanied by a very vague explanation the following day.
Minnesota and Chicago followed suit last month. San Jose, Florida, Buffalo — and most recently Vancouver — went ahead without the participation of the likes of James Reimer, Eric and Marc Staal, Ilya Lybushkin and Andrei Kuzmenko respectively.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has already gone on record as saying the Pride Night initiative will have to be revisited because of the “distraction” it has become.
We certainly hope that won’t be the case in Downtown Winnipeg on Wednesday Night.
There’s an important game to win.
Pride will be on the line — from a hockey sense and symbolically.
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