Bruins intend to lock arms during the national anthems in “solidarity with the Black community”

The Bruins players released a statement through the team today, outlining their intentions to “lock arms” during the playing of the national anthems in the upcoming games “as a sign of solidarity with the Black community.”

From the team:

If you’re on mobile, you may not see the embed above; you can read the text of the statement below:

Over the past several months we have been trying to educate ourselves and learn more about racial injustice in our country and around the world. As a team we have decided to lock arms during the playing of the United States and Canadian National Anthems as a sign of solidarity with the Black community. This action is solely intended to be a positive sign of support for the Black community, and a way for us to use our platform to help end racism.

It would appear that the Bruins, as a team, are trying to walk a fine line here: they want to make some kind of statement in support of the Black community, but don’t want to go as far as kneeling during the national anthems.

Predictably, people have pretty strong feelings about this.

It’s good to see the Bruins try to take a step in the right direction, but the NHL’s general silence on the whole thing has been a little odd, especially given what other sports leagues around the world have done in recent months.

Ideally, the Bruins and the league as a whole can do a little more going forward to take direct action to address racism in the sport and in the community.

This is the first time the Bruins players, as a group, have made a statement like this, but individual players have spoken out already.

From Zdeno Chara back in May:

And from Patrice Bergeron, back in June: