Canadiens’ Gurianov won’t take warmups on Pride Night for family reasons

Denis Gurianov won’t wear the Montreal Canadiens’ special Pride Night uniforms and will sit out warmups for Thursday’s game against the Washington Capitals.

In a statement, while not identifying Gurianov, the Canadiens said one of their players chose not to wear the Pride jersey “for family reasons.”

Said head coach Martin St. Louis of Gurianov’s decision, “I don’t know the repercussions, and I’ve never walked a day in his shoes.”

Gurianov is a native of Russia, where a law was passed in December making it illegal for anyone to promote same-sex relationships or suggest that non-heterosexual orientations are “normal.”

The new laws make it illegal to promote or “praise” LGBTQ relationships, publicly express non-heterosexual orientations. In what has widely been perceived as a further crackdown on free speech in the wake of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the new laws expand upon those passed in 2013 that made it illegal to promote non-heterosexual orientations to minors.

Gurianov joins a list of players who sat out warmups or did not wear Pride warmup jerseys that includes Andrei Kuzmenko, Sergei Bobrovsky, Ivan Provorov, Eric and Marc Staal, and James Reimer. In addition, teams such as the Chicago Blackhawks, Minnesota Wild and New York Rangers have also chosen to not wear Pride sweaters in warmups when they had previously announced they would.