News/Commentary

Hockey player makes bold stand amidst deluge of hate over declining to wear special ‘pride’ jersey

January 19, 2023 | | Print Article

A National Hockey League player who has become the latest target of the “woke” mob after he declined to wear a special “pride” jersey strongly emphasized that he bears no ill will toward gay people while defending his own personal religious beliefs.

Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov has been subjected to days of being savaged by activists and so-called sports journalists over his daring to defy left-wing orthodoxy by choosing to not put on the rainbow jersey for the pregame skate prior to his team’s Tuesday “Pride Night” game against the visiting Anaheim Ducks because it violated his devout Russian Orthodox Christian faith.

He would soon find out that when it comes to intolerance for free thinking and persecution for religious views, Vladimir Putin has nothing on the American left as he has been deluged with pure hatred for such an unforgivable display of non-conformity.

As the firestorm swirled around him, with many demanding he be harshly disciplined by the NHL, Provorov defended himself to the media after the game which was won by the Flyers 5-2.

“I respect everybody’s choices,” he said.

“My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion, that’s all I’m gonna say,” he added as he generously offered to answer actual hockey questions from the gaggle of reporters who demanded answers for his perceived disrespect of the protected demographic.

Such independence isn’t simply going to be allowed to stand by the mouthpieces for a league that has spent years trying to outdo its more popular competitors like the NFL and NBA in a virtue-signaling competition, and one xenophobic NHL Network analyst said that if Provorov didn’t like bending a knee to the corporate-backed homosexual agenda, that he should be sent to the frontlines in Ukraine.

Putting matters in perspective was sports journalist extraordinaire Jason Whitlock of “Fearless” who discussed the viciousness directed at Provorov with Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday.

“Listen. It’s hard to blame the NHL. This is all corporate America imposing its will on sports leagues. All of corporate America has bought into diversity, inclusion and equity, or diversity, equity and inclusion, whatever you want to call it. And so they have, corporate America has all these policies in place to impose diversity, equity and inclusion, and now they’re imposing that on the sports world,” he said.

(Video: Fox News)

“It’s not just the National Hockey League, it’s the NFL, it’s Major League Baseball, it’s the NBA. If someone tells you, hey, we’re having a pride night and we don’t care what your religious values are, put on this shirt, support this. They’re all gonna do it in lockstep because they’re all slaves to corporate America,” Whitlock continued.

“And so we have, the left has realized that the one institution, the one strong force in popular culture that instilled and reinforced conservative values has been the sports world, and they’re using corporate America to take over the sports world and make it bend to the will of the left and the secular and the godless, and the NHL’s just another example of this,” he said.

While the NHL has yet to take action against its errant player, there is likely much conversation inside the league’s corporate offices given the resources that have been invested in carrying the flag for the LGBTQ+ movement and the larger left-wing cultural crusade.

The league recently drew the ire of fans for its promotion of a transgender hockey tournament, a sad sign of the times for a league that has, over the years, diluted itself to the point where real men like the macho stars who once prowled the ice striking fear into opponents and ready to drop the gloves at a moment’s notice need not apply.

Minutes afterward, the NHL expressed its unwavering support of transgenderism, the unofficial religion of the American left.

And just in time for the 2023-2024 season, the league released its first-ever diversity report, concluding that there are too many white people in the NHL workforce.

The league clearly felt very strongly about the white people problem when it promoted a discriminatory job fair in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on the weekend of this year’s All-Star Game being hosted by the Florida Panthers, but was forced to walk it back after being body checked by Governor Ron DeSantis.

Provorov “was true to himself and to his religion,” said Flyers head coach John Tortorella. “It’s one thing I respect about Provy, he’s always true to himself.”

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Chris Donaldson
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