As a refresher, Tortorella told Linda Cohn of ESPN that if any of his players sat during the national anthem, they would sit for the rest of the game.
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National Hockey League winger Brown took to Twitter to question Tortorella’s controversial comments, claiming they proved Kaepernick’s point. “If this is the coach of Team USA and he is taking that position, then he should be stripped of his duties and he should not be allowed to represent the United States of America”.
“Understand: I’m not criticizing anybody for stepping up and putting their thoughts out there about things”. “I am furthest thing away from being political”. He has also cited his deep respect for the military, especially with his son now deployed with the Army Rangers, as a big reason for his feelings on this topic.
Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Jack Johnson said he wasn’t well-versed enough about the Kaepernick situation to comment on him specifically, but said there would be no circumstance in which he would refuse to stand for the anthem.
Tortorella, the fiery former Rangers coach who is leading the USA squad during the two-week tournament in Toronto, told ESPN on Tuesday that players who take a seat during the national anthem can forget about representing their country on the ice. “I’m not against expressing ourselves”. Thats what is great about our country. We can do that.
“It is probably the most disrespectful thing you can do as a USA citizen is to bring that in”. That’s what’s so great.
“But I look at that and I look at our flag, our national anthem, which is the symbol of us”.
Forward David Backes of the Boston Bruins said it’s a “matter of debate” trying to take a stand by sitting during the anthem.
“If I was ever involved in a situation where someone is trying to make a point – and they have the ideal right to do that – but to disrespect our flag and anthem, as I said yesterday, they would not play”, Tortorella told ESPN. “We’ve gone through it”, he said.
I dont know what is being written out there, I really dont care, Tortorella said. Everyone has their opinion and they are entitled to that, you just try to do it the right way and move on.. And it’s not black, white, blue, red – it has nothing to do with the politics of all this. It has nothing to do with the politics of all of this. “It’s his right to do, but everyone here is just concentrating on representing their country and their flag”. This is our country. But to drag an anthem in and a flag in? This shouldn’t come into the equation at all. He also has felt his bond to the USA tighten through his son’s military service. Hockey players and coaches, sometimes to a fault, don’t like rocking the boat too much. “Other people are doing real stuff. We just want to give to our country in our little way”, Tortorella said. Quite honestly we are entertainers. “What Nick is doing by far dwarfs what we do”.
The issue with Tortorella was raised a day earlier, when he was asked by ESPN about the stance taken by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who did not stand during the national anthem before an exhibition game in August against the Green Bay Packers.
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“What I now is I’m not going to have to make that decision (about benching a player who might sit) because that’s not going to happen”, Babcock told reporters. “So I don’t have to worry about that reaction. As you get older, you figure some things out and grow up at your rate.”. “You’re not going to see anything from us, obviously, with Torts. But I don’t even know why we’re talking about this”.
