Sports teams are always trying to get their fans fired up to attend games, and often times, that means special jerseys for specially themed nights.
The Cincinnati Cyclones minor league hockey team was just trying to do a little “throwback” game when they inadvertently got themselves into some trouble. Whoever was in charge of the game day marketing thought they were knocking the promo out of the park, when they actually (and accidentally) knocked themselves into a controversial political statement.
The team’s initial post has since been deleted, but the announcement originally featured their star player Reece Harsch in a red uniform with red lighting, and the post’s caption read:
“We don’t care, we paint the town red (on January 6th).”
Yikes…
Not sure how someone didn’t catch that, considering they mistakenly made a “January 6th” reference. Of course, they didn’t mean to do so, they were just quoting a Doja Cat song, and the phrasing of their caption just so happened to include many details that were similar to those that were shared when groups of people rioted at the United States Capitol in 2021.
The Cincinnati Cyclones quickly realized their mistake, deleted the video, and then put out a statement (which can be seen above) apologizing:
“Last night, we shared a video of our red warm-up jerseys with lyrics to a trending song. The tweet was meant to hype people up for our Throwback Night, where we will wear the retro inspired jerseys.
Our Throwback Night is traditionally held on the first weekend of January. This night and these jerseys are in no way a political statement.”
We live in a world now where sports teams have to put out official statements saying they aren’t trying to be political. That is simply hilarious.
The minor league team has since reposted the video, minus the unintentional “January 6th” references. It appears that the “Red Game” will still happen on the first weekend of January, but the team will certainly make sure to choose their words more wisely as they market it.
You can take a look at the new, politically neutral hype video below:
