NHL To No Longer Allow Teams To Wear Specialty Jerseys For Warmups

Pride Night jerseys and other specialty sweaters can no longer be worn for warmups.

The NHL Board of Governors is doing away with specialty jerseys during warmups starting next season.

Gary Bettman spoke to Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman about updates from the NHL Board of Governor's meeting on Thursday and revealed that teams will no longer be allowed to wear different jerseys for warmups in 2023-24.

The decision comes after controversy surrounding teams this past season on Pride Nights. Some players, including Ivan Provorov and Eric and Marc Staal, did not participate in their respective team warmups due to not wanting to wear the jerseys.

After that, the Chicago Blackhawks elected against wearing the Pride Night warmup jerseys altogether, while the Minnesota Wild also nixed their Pride Night jerseys.

Now, no special jerseys can be worn during warmups for any occasion, including Pride Nights, Hockey Fights Cancer and more.

"In the final analysis, all of the efforts and emphasis on the importance of these various causes have been undermined by the distraction in terms of which teams, which players [will wear the jerseys]," Bettman said. "This way, we’re keeping the focus on the game and on the specialty nights, we’re going to be focused on the cause.”

While jerseys won't be allowed, players can still model them off the ice if they please, and there were no rules specified against using "Pride Tape," which is rainbow stick tape that players use on their sticks, or different colored tape for different nights.

For the last two seasons, the Washington Capitals have given their players the option of taping their sticks with Pride Tape for Pride Night but have not worn specialty jerseys.

The Capitals have worn specialty jerseys for Black History Night, Military Appreciation Night, Hockey Fights Cancer, St. Patrick's Day (with the benefits surrounding environmental efforts), Women's History Month and the Cherry Blossom Festival. The team also had each player wear No. 8 back in March to celebrate Alex Ovechkin's 802nd career goal.