John Tortorella is the coach of the Philadelphia Flyers professional hockey team, and he is a stand-up guy in defending and protecting his players against Leftist attacks.
The Daily Caller reports that the Flyers squared off against the Anaheim Ducks on January 17, 2023, in a game during the Flyers' Pride Night. The event caused a significant amount of drama. The Philadelphia Flyers wore pride-themed jerseys to kick off the night, but one player refused to participate in this political event.
Defenseman Ivan Provorov decided to sit out of the game rather than wear this specific type of jersey. He cited his religious beliefs as Russian Orthodox and stated that wearing something like this goes against his religious beliefs.
As you might have come to expect in this day and age, people went crazy about the fact that Provorov would not bend to their will and wear the jersey that they specifically wanted him to wear. However, the Philadelphia Flyers coach Tortorella stated that he would not be piling on with all of the complaints others had made at that time. Instead, he defended his player and that player's right to be true to himself and practice his faith.
Many said that Coach Tortorella handled this situation with a lot of grace and that he was able to smooth things over in a way that allowed him to protect his players and not run afoul of anything that the NHL wanted to get through in terms of messaging about their players, their coaches, and the game itself.
He started a press conference about the situation by saying:
"The organization has put out statement, and I'm not going to get too deep into the conversation."
He followed that up by saying:
"I'm going to point to the press release from the team, quickly defend my player and then I'm getting the (bleep) out of here."
In other words, Tortorella wanted to reference anyone who had a problem because one of his players didn't wear the pride jerseys. He wanted to defuse the situation so that it wouldn't get out of hand, with so many people questioning the motives of his players or trying to raise controversy where it didn't belong. That is highly important today, and many are pleased by how well the coach handled the situation.
Login