MILWAUKEE — The Milwaukee Admirals are asking fans to pack Panther Arena for PRIDE Night, which celebrates the LGBTQ+ community.
Admirals PRIDE Night ticket packages for the game against the Grand Rapids Griffins on Tuesday sold out in advance.
There will be a pre-game mixer, and right after the game, there will be a drag show with drag queens from Hamburger Mary’s in Milwaukee.
There is also a new line of rainbow-colored Admirals PRIDE merchandise created for the event.
The Admirals shared a Facebook postadvertising the drag show that started with “The Queens are back.” It got a lot of angry comments from people not supportive of the team’s PRIDE Night theme.
There have even been some requests to return tickets to the game.
“Yeah, we’ve gotten a couple of calls and canceled tickets because of it,” said John Greenberg, President of the Admirals. “That’s their choice. We advertise PRIDE Night in advance and have a ton of different theme nights throughout the season. If someone doesn’t feel comfortable with what we’re doing, we’ll just reschedule them for another game.”
This comes as a few National Hockey League teams have come under fire for their PRIDE Night responses.
The New York Rangers promised fans they’d wear PRIDE-centric jerseys and tape while warming up for their PRIDE game last week but ended up wearing their usual uniforms. The Rangers later said in part, that they “support everyone’s individual right to respectfully express their beliefs.”
A week before that, a player with the Philadelphia Flyers refused to warm up in a PRIDE jersey because of his Russian Orthodox religious beliefs.
“Here at the Admirals, we believe hockey is for everyone,” Greenberg said. “We’re here to entertain all our fans no matter their gender, race, sexual orientation. That doesn’t matter to us. They’re here to be hockey fans and have a good time.”
On social media, the hashtag #hockeyisforeveryone is being shared.
We did reach out to some local LGBTQ+ advocates but did not hear back before the deadline.
Admirals PRIDE Night comes a week after the Milwaukee Bucks hosted PRIDE Night, and designated Fiserv Forum as a safe space for members of the LGBTQ+ community.
