NHL’s new policy banning gear, uniform alteration to celebrate theme nights a controversy of choice

Open this photo in gallery:

Maple Leafs defenceman Morgan Rielly joined other players on Tuesday in decrying the NHL’s new policy which bans the use of rainbow-coloured tape on sticks during Pride nights meant to celebrate inclusion.

“It’s unfortunate but I think as players and people that we are going to continue to support those causes we think are worthy and very deserving,” Rielly said after Toronto’s last practice before the regular season opens on Wednesday. “I wish players had the right to do more and be more involved. We are going to continue and be allies no matter what the league says.”

The NHL sent a memo to teams last week clarifying what players can do as part of theme celebrations. The guidelines say their uniforms and gear cannot be altered to reflect theme nights, including Pride, hockey Fights Cancer, Black History Night or Military Appreciation Night. The NHL will allow its players to voluntarily participate in themed celebrations off the ice.

In Edmonton on Tuesday, Connor McDavid, the league’s biggest star, said he disagreed with the NHL’s decision.

“I’ve enjoyed all the nights that we’ve celebrated, whether that’s Pride night or military night or Indigenous night, all the various nights we’ve had a chance to celebrate,” McDavid, the Oilers captain, said. “In terms of a league standpoint, it is something that I’d like to see put back into place one day, certainly.”

McDavid’s teammate Zach Hyman, who previously played for the Maple Leafs, expressed frustration.

“We’ll be able to support them individually, but collectively that’s out of the players’ control,” Hyman said. “It’s disappointing.”

The NHL decided in June not to allow teams to wear any theme jerseys for warm-ups after a handful of players opted out of those situations during Pride night last season. The league has said players opting out of Pride nights served as a distraction to the work teams were doing in the community.

“You know what our goals, our values and our intentions are across the league,” commissioner Gary Bettman said in February during all-star weekend festivities. “But we also have to respect some individual choice, and some people are more comfortable embracing themselves in causes than others. And part of being diverse and welcoming is understanding those differences.”

Philadelphia’s Ivan Provorov was the first player to decide not to take part in warm-ups when the Flyers wore rainbow-coloured jerseys before their Pride night game in January, citing his Russian Orthodox faith. Six other players followed for a variety of reasons – fellow Russians Ilya Lyubushkin, Denis Gurianov and Andrei Kuzmenko and Canadians James Reimer and Eric and Marc Staal – and individual teams including the New York Rangers, Minnesota Wild and Chicago Blackhawks decided not to have any players wear Pride jerseys during warm-ups.

Brad Treliving, the Maple Leafs general manager, said the NHL’s directive would not change the organization’s commitment to the LGBTQ community.

“Regardless of what is out there, this organization has always been supporters of the community, and that’s not going to change.”

New season, new expectations

Another season begins for the Maple Leafs and with it come the expectations.

Oh, the expectations. This isn’t Columbus, Ohio, or Tempe, Ariz., where to simply become relevant is an improvement.

This is the harshest market in the NHL and either the best or worst place to play depending on results – which have been shorter than fans would like for years.

Toronto won a playoff round last spring – for the first time since 2004. We will soon see if it is just another building block or a major stepping-stone.

After the final practice before the puck drops on the 2023-24 campaign everything seemed tickety-boo. A season of either exhilaration or – you know, the other thing – starts when the Montreal Canadiens visit Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday.

As always, everyone within the organization is excited. Let’s rewind back to last year and the year before and the year before than that too, and play it again: ‘A great opportunity lies ahead.’ Which it may well be, or maybe someone will step on a rake and do a faceplant again in the front yard.

Let’s call it cautious optimism. There needs to be an asterisk here.

“Expectations are high, but to be honest our main focus is to have a good start,” Rielly, the Toronto defenceman, said Tuesday after a spirited 50-minute practice session. He is 29 and about to enter his 11th season and has experienced the annual frustration longer than anyone else. “We have had a good training camp, but I think it is a little early to be looking at year-end goals and stuff. We are not going to get too carried away looking too far into the future.”

Construction has been done on the roster and this iteration of Maple Leafs should be more chippy than those in the recent past. Perhaps Ryan Reaves will drop the mitts or Max Domi will deliver a badly intentioned slash to send a message to the league – “We aren’t going to be pushed around” – right out of the starting gate. It might actually be refreshing. Go on the offensive first.

Who would expect that?

There was a little last-minute housekeeping to be completed. Toronto announced that it has signed forward Noah Gregor, who had joined the team for training camp on a professional tryout offer, to a one-year contract at US$775,000.

Gregor is 25 and quick and played 178 games at right wing for the San Jose Sharks over the preceding four years.

It is here today and gone tomorrow for Easton Cowan, the 18-year-old first-round draft pick who impressed during the pre-season. He made a good showing but is being returned to the London Knights of the OHL.

Fraser Minten, who looked sharp again during drills at the Ford Performance Centre as he centred a line between Matthew Knies and Calle Jarnkrok, is here for the start. He is just 19 and wears a wrist band that says, “No excuses, no limits.”

It will be interesting if Toronto keeps him on or limits him to the nine games allowed before he would have to be returned to the Kamloops Blazers of the Western Hockey League.

He has turned heads so far.

“At the start of camp, we had the Leafs guys, the Marlies guys and then the others,” Treliving, the team’s general manager, said. “He was one of the others.”

He has never played above the major-junior level, so this is quite a jump.

“He forced his way onto the roster but he is going to play against men now and not boys,” Treliving said. “We’ll see what he can do to help us win.

“It is very seldom that a 19-year-old comes in and does that.”

The temperature has started to plummet and hockey is about to heat up.

Can the Maple Leafs win their division for the first time since 2000? (Toronto finished first in the all-Canadian Scotia North in 2021 but the season was shortened by a pandemic. Can the Leafs advance to a third round of the playoffs, or even win the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1967.

“We have expectations to be great, but we can’t look ahead,” Mitch Marner, who fell one point short of 100 last year, said. “We just have to stay in the moment, be in the here and now and make sure we try to get better every day.”

Painful lessons have relegated Toronto to the sidelines too early for too long. We’ll see how much it has learned.

With a report from The Canadian Press