War On Tape: Players, Teams Have Plans To Skirt NHL Ban On Pride Tap

The NHL can't seem to not get itself stuck in some kind of controversy, and this one is especially sticky: it involves rainbow stick tape.

News broke this week that the league was outlawing rainbow-colored tape used by some players on Pride Nights.

Yes, those same Pride Nights that used to feature jerseys that are now outlawed.

This — as you might expect — enraged progressives while most other people probably didn't even realize that this was a thing. Either way, rainbow tape is outlawed and people aren't happy about it.

It's important to note that teams are still able to hold Pride Nights. The only difference is you won't see the jerseys or tape.

What is going to get interesting is how the NHL will enforce its ban, as some teams and players are making it very clear that they intend to ignore it.

Now, I think the whole ban on tape is a little goofy. If a player wants to use it one night a year in warm-ups it's not hurting anyone. As long as they're not forcing players to do it, I don't see the harm.

But after the PR nightmare that was last year's Pride Nights fiasco, you can kind of see why the NHL would prefer to keep things black and white (the traditional colors of hockey tape).

The Athletic published an article about the current state of the tape turf war (an article which had the comments disabled for some reason. OutKick has reached out to The Athletic for comment on this but has not heard back).

In the piece, they interviewed the co-founder of the company that makes the tape. He told them that several teams have ordered cases of the verboten tape.

While the article didn't specify which teams had a crate of rainbow tape headed their way, it did quote some players who would consider using it despite the ban.

One such player is Philadelphia Flyers center Scott Laughton.

The Minnesota Wild's Jon Merrill said something similar and even questioned what the league could do about it.

“If anyone does it, what is the league going to do?” Merrill told The Athletic's Joe Smith. “Take me off the ice, give me a penalty? Then you look bad as a league. I don’t know. It’s upsetting. Just disappointing.”

The NHL continues to find itself in no-win situations. They tried to do away with the warm-up sweaters and tape because of the distractions it caused. Now look at what we're talking about during the first week of the following season.

It's annoying for sure, but the NHL got itself into this mess in the first place.

Follow on X: @Matt_Reigle