An Ally On Ice: The Minnesota Wild’s Jon Merrill

After a year of skating around the LGBTQ+ fan base, it appears that we will still be welcomed at the Xcel Energy Center this season. The National Hockey League’s Minnesota Wild will host their annual Pride Night on March 12 with the Arizona Coyotes coming into town to face off against the State of Hockey.

At this point, there are no openly LGBTQ+ players in the league…yet. However, we do have allies. We always had.

For the Wild, our ally is a Defenseman named Jon Merrill. He skates for our community – our fandom.

The Oklahoma City native is playing in his 12^th season in the NHL, 3^rd with the Wild. He was signed as a free agent and is under contract until the 2024-25 season. Merrill was drafted in the second round – 38^th overall – in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft by the New Jersey Devils. At the time of the draft, he played on the United States Development Team, in which he won a Bronze in the 2011 IIHF World Junior Championship. Merrill also played at the University of Michigan for three seasons before turning professional.

Merrill had stints with the Vegas Golden Knights, Detroit Red Wings, and Montreal Canadiens before coming to the Wild. His resume includes six postseason appearances, including two Stanley Cup Finals – 2018 with Vegas and 2021 with Montreal.

Resume aside, where Merrill shines is through his commitment to supporting the LGBTQ+ community. Last season, he welcomed us into the Wild locker room prior to the Pride Night. Even in the face of some backlash by some players across the NHL for teams hosting similar nights, Merrill stated that he has never received “any sort of backlash or any negativity that’s come on me because of it.”

Merrill is not the first NHL player to proclaim his allyship for the LGBTQ+ community. Back in 2011, now-retired defenseman Sean Avery made a statement in support for our community as an advocate for marriage equality in New York. It was a rare statement for that time that a few of us may still remember.

Why would Merrill become our ally? “To me it’s a human rights issue,” Merrill explained. “I don’t understand why everyone’s not in an ally or in full support of it, doesn’t really make much sense to me. It’s always been something that I’ve always just tried to be understanding and inclusive of all walks of life and the way people live and just try and be supportive of everyone. And this is just another issue that I can offer that support and be a good human being in my eyes.”

“I think especially because in conversations I’ve had with members of the LGBTQ community, they always have felt maybe outcasted or not well received in the athletic or jock community,” Merrill further explained. “To just have somebody stand up and tell them that they’re accepted in the jock world, in the athlete world, I think can go a long way and just show and support it and making them feel more welcome and more comfortable in their own skin. If it’s something that I can do as simple as doing an interview or putting tape on my stick or marching in a parade, and then I’ll do it every day of the week just to make someone feel more comfortable and to make someone feel more okay to be themselves.”

He is not alone is being allies to our community. Merrill is joined by his wife, Jessica, who is, in his words, also “a huge supporter of the community and is behind the scenes making all of this come to fruition.”

What will Merrill do at this year’s Pride Night? He said that, along with Jessica, he will “definitely host some kids. We like to bring underprivileged youth that are a part of the community that may otherwise never have experienced a hockey game or anything of that magnitude, to allow them to come to the game on our costs and just show them a good night, if anything, and show them some support from someone they may have never thought supported them. And so, we’ll definitely do our part and bring some families in and meet them after the game and give them tickets.”

If you go, make sure you go to the Promotions page on the Minnesota Wild website and select the Pride Night offer. With your ticket, you get a Wild-branded Pride beanie. Plus, proceeds from your ticket purchase will go to “the Twin Cities Pride community,” per the Promotions page.

We’ve got a friend on the ice. Whenever you see number 4 working his shift against the Coyotes – or the rest of the NHL – know that Jon Merrill is in our corner.

Minnesota Wild Pride Night vs Arizona
March 12 at 7:00 PM
Xcel Energy Center, Saint Paul
$44.00-105.00
https://fevo-enterprise.com/event/wildpride2324