Alex Ovechkin and most of Washington Capitals players skip Pride Night ritual

Washington Capitals players from outside North America may not be as used to Pride Nights as other athletes.

On Saturday night, the Capitals celebrated alternative sexual lifestyles with their "All Caps All Love" night, posting rainbow and transgender flags ahead of their gay-memorabilia auction.

'We proudly stand with the LGBTQ+ community.'

After the NHL banned themed jerseys in 2023, some fought for the right to use rainbow-colored stick tape, and won. That is how select Capitals players decided to show their gay pride on Saturday night against the reigning champion Florida Panthers, but as the teams took the ice, viewers noticed only eight of the Capitals' 20 dressed players took part.

John Carlson, Nic Dowd, Brandon Duhaime, Hendrix Lapierre, Connor McMichael, Dylan Strome, Logan Thompson, and Trevor van Riemsdyk were the eight players spotted on video and cited in an article by outlet Russian Machine Never Breaks.

However, missing from the group was captain, and the NHL's all-time scoring leader, Alexander Ovechkin.

RELATED: Pro-transgender Seattle Kraken jersey enrages NHL fans: 'Feel some trans joy'

Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images

Interestingly, all of the players that participated were from either the United States or Canada; none of the Capitals players born overseas participated in the stunt.

This included center Aliaksei Protas from Vitebsk, Belarus, left winger Ivan Miroshnichenko from Ussuriysk, Russia, defenseman Martin Fehérváry from Bratislava, Slovakia, and defenseman Rasmus Sandin from Uppsala, Sweden.

Despite their leader and biggest star not participating in their festivities, the Capitals went all out in their support for certain sexual preferences with promotional videos and statements.

"We proudly stand with the LGBTQ+ community, and celebrate the importance of inclusion every day," Strome, from Mississauga, Canada, said in a team video.

RELATED: Florida Panthers praise Trump during White House visit: 'Nothing beats this'

Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images

"It was great," Dowd of Huntsville, Alabama, said in a post-game interview. "Every year we've put this on, guys lean into it and support it, and I thought it was another good night. I thought the Caps did a great job of showcasing it."

The team also hosted the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, D.C., on the ice that night, but that was not enough to push them ahead of the Panthers, and the Capitals lost 5-2.

Fans in Seattle were recently outraged and piled plenty of backlash onto their Seattle Kraken team for supporting transgenderism with a themed logo, which inexplicably featured a unicorn drawn by a tattoo artist who said "queerness" inspires her work.

"Being able to be in Seattle surrounded by the queer community and being exposed to the queerness I never got to experience growing up, it inspires my work a lot," the artist said.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!