Danbury Hockey Coach Blasts Anthem Protesters In Pep Talk

DANBURY, CT — A training camp pep talk by a local hockey coach has gone viral.

In the locker room on the first day of training, John Krupinsky, assistant coach of the Danbury Hat Tricks, made it icy-clear where the franchise stands on kneeling during the national anthem.

"If there’s anybody here that’s going to be disrespectful to either the American or Canadian national anthem, grab your gear and get the f--- out now because you'll never see the ice in this arena," Krupinsky warned the team in a locker room speech that has now been viewed millions of times on social media.

"Taking a knee" during The Star-Spangled Banner as a form of protest touched off a tinderbox of controversy when former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick first did it nearly three years ago. Kaepernick's was a statement about police brutality, but since then kneeling during the anthem or Pledge of Allegiance has come to mean pretty much whatever the kneeler wants it to mean. In Connecticut, Haddam Selectwoman Melissa Schlag caught flak and headlines when she protested President Trump meeting with Vladimir Putin by kneeling during the reading of the Pledge of Allegiance.

The controversy spooled out again recently when U.S. women’s soccer national team co-captain Megan Rapinoe refused to sing the national anthem and took some of her time in the global sports limelight to criticize President Trump.

"We’re not women’s soccer. We’re not the NFL," Krupinsky reminded his team in the now-viral pro-anthem speech that's becoming its own anthem. "We don’t have that problem in hockey. We’re better than that..."

This is the Hat Tricks' first season in the Federal Hockey League. They are the latest in a long line of pro teams to name the Danbury Arena home ice, and Krupinsky's rant will no doubt just feed into the fervor that has made Danbury a big hockey town for decades.

See the coach's whole pep talk below. Warning: Some of the language is graphic.