Fleury wears special mask for Wild's Native American Heritage night, defying NHL policy
Fleury wears special mask for Wild's Native American Heritage night, defying NHL policy
Marc-Andre Fleury wore a custom mask for the Minnesota Wild's Native American Heritage night Friday after being told by the NHL it was not allowed.
Fleury took the ice for the team's game against the Colorado Avalanche wearing the specially designed mask. Agent Allan Walsh confirmed earlier in the day the league informed his client he couldn't wear the mask, even for warmups.
With the Wild celebrating Native American Heritage night Friday against Colorado, Fleury wanted to honour his wife, Veronique, who is of Abenaki and Mi'kmaq descent, with a specially designed mask. Walsh said Fleury offered to pay whatever fine he'd receive and the NHL threatened to levy the organization with an "additional significant fine."
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Why is it forbidden?
I think it's to stop players getting singled out for refusing to show support for certain causes, prolly a response to the hate against certain Russian players opting out of pride days last year. Kinda dumb imo. But I blame the fans who were dumb enough to think that any player with family still in Russia would openly support the LGBTQ community.
I don't follow hockey much the last 15-20 years or so - but the only people I heard about skipping out on pride stuff were fundamentalist Christian
Americans(fml, the Staal's are Canadian)! Not to say others didn't do it - just it didn't make big enough waves to hit the 'non-sports news' I watch.Oh yeah I forgot about the Staals. They deserved the hate they got lol.