One Leaf chose not wear pride sticker on his helmet or use pride tape during warmups
The Leafs held their annual Pride Night against Columbus on Tuesday. Contrary to what many online seem to believe, the Leafs do not typically wear Pride jerseys like many other teams, but they have made it a habit to wear Pride stickers on their helmets and use rainbow coloured stick tape during warmups to help members of the LGBTQ+ community to feel welcome.
Recently, we've seen a sharp increase in the number of players who opt out of supporting Pride events. On this night, all of the Leafs participated in Pride Night except for Ilya Samsonov.
Samsonov, who was serving as the backup to Joseph Woll, did not have a Pride sticker on his helmet and did not have coloured tape on his stick. According to Mark Fraser, former Leaf and current head of the Leafs' diversity and inclusion team, Samsonov has participated in past Pride Nights in Washington in the past. However, new LGBTQ+ laws that were introduced in Russia had Samsonov concerned about his family's safety back home in Russia, which is why he chose not to participate in the Leafs' Pride Night.
Samsonov was not made available for comments pre-game, but there will certainly be questions about it post-game. With Samsonov having supported these initiatives in the past, it's worth mentioning that he likely does support the LGBTQ+ community, but when it comes to protecting your family, especially in a country in turmoil, I think just about anyone can understand not wanting to put your loved ones at risk.
| POLL | ||
AVRIL 4 | 906 ANSWERS One Leaf chose not wear pride sticker on his helmet or use pride tape during warmups How do you feel about Samsonov opting out of Pride Night activities to avoid risking his family's safety back in Russia? | ||
| I agree with his reasons for opting out | 448 | 49.4 % |
| He should have just worn a sticker | 22 | 2.4 % |
| Don't care either way. It's his choice | 436 | 48.1 % |
| List of polls | ||
