PHILADELPHIA — Coach John Tortorella said on Thursday that he had spoken to defenseman Ivan Provorov “probably a week before the game” regarding his decision to not take part in warmups on Tuesday night to avoid wearing a Pride Night-themed jersey.
General manager Chuck Fletcher was also involved in those conversations, Tortorella said. Additionally, Tortorella said he spoke to Flyers Pride Night ambassador Scott Laughton, who helped start an initiative to invite members of the LGBTQ+ community to Flyers games throughout the season.
Per a league source, Comcast Spectacor chairman and CEO Dave Scott and president and CEO of Spectacor Sports and Entertainment Valerie Camillo were not informed of Provorov’s decision. They were not aware of the situation until the Flyers’ game against the Anaheim Ducks started.
Provorov was the only Flyers player to sit out of warmups prior to the game, and was thus the only player to not wear the Pride Night-themed jersey, which featured rainbow nameplates and numbers on the back. Although he did not participate in warmups, Provorov played that night, logging a team-high 22 minutes and 45 seconds of ice time. After the game, Provorov noted his desire “to stay true to [himself] and [his] religion” by not wearing the Pride jersey. He said that he is Russian Orthodox.
Regardless of Provorov’s decision, Tortorella said that it was a “great night for Pride Night.”
“I’m proud of the organization,” Tortorella said. “People are pissing and moaning that ... the organization [was embarrassed]. I don’t look at it that way at all. Because so many people in this organization put so much time into this because it’s so important to them.”
Tortorella continued to double-down on his “respect” for Provorov, which he first said after the game on Tuesday. Tortorella has maintained that he did not consider scratching Provorov for the game. On Thursday when discussing the present issue, Tortorella referenced his comments in 2016 regarding his reaction to a player hypothetically sitting during the national anthem, which he walked back in 2020.
“They asked me, ‘If a player sits, what would you do?’ ” Tortorella said. “And what did I say, I said the player would sit the rest of the game. I was wrong. I learned a lot through that experience. My feelings toward any type of protest to the flag, during the anthem, it disgusts me. To this day. It disgusts me. It shouldn’t be done. Those are my feelings. I can’t push those feelings onto someone else. So I was wrong in saying that back then. Didn’t realize I was. But as I went through it all, it was ‘Who am I to push my feelings onto someone else?’
“Same situation here. Provy’s not out there banging a drum against Pride Night. He quietly went about his business. He and I had a number of conversations [about] how we were going to do this. You have the team, you have him, you have all this going on. Talked to Laughts. Went through the whole process there. [Provorov] felt strongly with his beliefs. And he stayed with it.”
Winger James van Riemsdyk, one of the Flyers’ Pride Night ambassadors, also emphasized the “positives” of the night, which included getting to meet members from the Greater Philadelphia G.O.A.L organization with Laughton postgame. Greater Philadelphia G.O.A.L. aims to advocate for and support LGBTQ+ first responders and military members, educate first responders in LGBTQ+ cultural humility, and provide community outreach to advance relations between the LGBTQ+ public and first responder agencies.
For van Riemsdyk, that was just one highlight of the night, in which the Flyers invited members from other local LGBTQ+ organizations to attend the game.
“We met a kid who we hosted earlier in the year, who came back and was showing us pictures playing hockey and videos playing hockey,” van Riemsdyk said. “So that’s what it’s all about for me and stuff like that. So I think it just shows the positive impact that we can have, and with things like that, that we’re trying to do.”
While Tortorella, Fletcher, and Laughton were involved in conversations surrounding Provorov’s decision leading up to the night, van Riemsdyk said he figured out that Provorov was not going to partake in warmups around the time that the team hit the ice for them.
“It wasn’t necessarily something that was talked about collectively, I don’t think, before the game,” van Riemsdyk said. “But obviously, as it got closer and closer to that, I think, [I] kind of started to realize what was going on, or whatever. And that was kind of the extent of it.”
Tortorella said that the team met after Tuesday night’s game as a group for roughly 15 to 20 minutes in which both Provorov and Laughton spoke. He called it a “very healthy” conversation, adding that he is “not concerned” about speculation of the team fracturing as a result of contrasting opinions. He went as far as to say that the situation “bonds” the team.
Van Riemsdyk said that he does not envision Provorov’s decision to not partake in warmups on Pride Night as being a problem on the team moving forward.
“I mean, we all have a job to do,” van Riemsdyk said. “We all have to go out there and do our job and find out what the team structure is and things like that. So that’s part of being professional is, again, just being prepared every day and just going from there.”
