News: Hurricanes to Hold ‘You Can Play’ Night on Feb 24th

The Hurricanes announced via Twitter on Thursday that they will be holding a You Can Play Night in conjunction with the NHL’s ‘Hockey is For Everyone’ month that will be taking place throughout February.

Here are some details on the month-long celebration from the NHL’s press release:

This season, NHL Clubs have designated one player to be a You Can Play ambassador, being a leader in the locker room and in the community on diversity, equality, and inclusion. Additionally, select Clubs will designate one home game as a You Can Play night, celebrating members of the local LGBTQ community with ceremonial puck drops, anthem singers, features on hometown heroes, and 'Pride Tape' will be used during pregame warm up. For the first time, fans can purchase 'Pride Tape' and NHL® team pride shirts on shop.NHL.com. A limited number of 'Pride Tape' wrapped sticks will be autographed by current NHL players and made available for auction at auction.NHL.com.

The You Can Play project was founded in March of 2012 by Patrick Burke, Glenn Witman, and Brian Kits with the mission of ensuring “respect and safety for all athletes, without regard to sexual orientation and/or gender identity.”

When the project was announced, then-Hurricanes Tim Brent, Tim Gleason, Tuomo Ruutu, Kevin Westgarth were among the NHL players to publicly endorse the effort.

Back then, the Charlotte Checkers, Carolina’s AHL affiliate, were one of the teams in the American league that took the You Can Play pledge.

Further, as part of the league’s initiative, every team will designate an ambassador to the program. According to Mike Sundheim, that player for the Hurricanes will be goaltender Eddie Lack.

As stated by the Hurricanes in the tweet, more details on the event will be released by the team in the near future.