NHL Won’t Let Players Wear Pride Night Jerseys During Games, Before Warmups or at Practice This Season

The NHL sent a memo to teams on Thursday clarifying the league's new policies on special initiatives like Pride Night or Hockey Is For Everyone Night, according to ESPN.

The memo reportedly states that teams cannot wear uniforms for those special initiatives during games, warmups or practice.

Per ESPN, the NHL sent an initial memo, titled "Game and Practice-Related Special Initiatives," late last week to explain restrictions pertaining on-ice activity during special initiatives, such as warmups or in-game. However, the initial memo sparked confusion among owners, and the Thursday's memo was meant to clarify the restrictions.

"The intended purpose of the initial memo was to inform teams that they cannot wear any specialty sweaters during a game, in warmups or at an official team practice," the memo wrote, per ESPN.

"(Teams) can't force players to participate in events regarding those specialty causes given there might be players who fear some sense of retribution or embarrassment for their decision to not participate."

The memo states that players have the freedom to wear "whatever they want" as long as it falls within the guidelines of each team's respective dress code and that "players should be encouraged to express themselves off the ice."

Several players refused to wear jerseys celebrating Pride Night and Hockey Is For Everyone Night last season. Seven players even abstained from coming out for pregame warm-ups while their team was wearing such uniforms.

Those were Ivan Provorov, James Reimer, Eric Staal and Marc Staal, Ilya Lyubushkin, Denis Gurianov and Andrei Kuzmenko.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in June after the league's Board of Governors meeting that the NHL would no longer allow teams to wear such speciality sweaters during warm-ups because "it's become a distraction."

However, teams are still able to hold events like Pride Night and sell Pride jerseys.