It’s Pride Month and two PHF teams were kind enough to share what they would be doing for Pride and beyond!
The Buffalo Beauts
General Manager Nathaniel Oliver provided the following details on the Beauts initiatives during Pride.
“Members of our Beauts team attended the recent 2022 Buffalo Pride Week Parade on June 5th in the area around Elmwood Avenue and Forest Avenue (it continues on into Canalside, which you may have seen before as it’s by where the Beauts used to play). Beauts players and staff – including our head coach Rhea Coad – participated in the festivities for this celebration. We have players and staff that attend this event every year, and it’s one of the most beloved events in our community. There are also plenty of Beauts alumni who partake as well.” For more info on the event.
“We are presently conducting a jersey auction through MeiGray for all of the Pride jerseys we wore in our “Pride Night” Game on January 22nd, 2022. All of the proceeds from the auction will be donated to the Pride Center of Western New York. They are part of the Evergreen Health umbrella which does a lot in our community to provide medical care to the LGBTQIA+ Buffalonians, including support specifically for those living with HIV.
“While not having fallen during Pride Month itself, I felt it was important to mention that our head coach Rhea Coad took part in the Buffalo Sabres “Pride Night” initiative and was included in their community video broadcast on TV that night and at that game to speak about what “pride” means to her. This was important to us, not only because it shows that our head coach is part of the LGBTQIA+ community in Buffalo and in hockey, but it also helped to bridge a bit of the gap between the Beauts and the Sabres.”
“While small, the Beauts have also changed all of our profile photos on our social media accounts to be supportive of Pride Month all month long and we are in support of the PHF’s new “Pride Profiles” initiative as well. Beauts forward Autumn MacDougall spoke in the press release about the initiative.”
“We’re also doing Wallpaper Wednesday this week with wallpapers spotlighting members of our team who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community.”
Connecticut Whale
Kaylee Herndon, Social Media Manager of the Connecticut Whale provided information on the Whale’s efforts
“We will be announcing our TWO S8 partners for our Pride game and initiatives surrounding the game this month, both which help the CT LGBTQIA+ community in huge ways. We are happy to re-partner with the Triangle Community Center and will be adding the New Haven Pride Center! These organizations will receive donations from our Pride jersey auction the Pride merch sold in addition to having visibility at our Pride game, content on social, and other visibility.”
“We will also be announcing an opportunity regarding our S8 Pride logo in the coming days. We want to make sure we give our logo design opportunity to a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and have them involved in our S8 Pride jersey.”
“Behind the scenes, our team owner [Tobin Kelly] (along with other members of the [Board of the Governors]) participated in training provided by Athlete Ally and TransAthlete last month. These organizations will also be providing training to front office staff and players this offseason.”
Herndon indicated also that participation by members of the team in anything public is optional as “as we don’t want anyone to share things that they are not ready to or do not feel comfortable sharing” but also that “if someone chooses to share, that would also go up this month.”
As a note, all other PHF teams were reached out to for this article but did not respond.
D.F. Pendrys is a trans non-binary freelance reporter and editor of DFPSports.net.
TXHT may earn an Affiliate Commission if you purchase something through Cool Hockey ads/links in this article.
The Xperience Hockey Talk 