Sharks Gameday: You Can't Play

The Sharks and Stars meet again tonight, each team desperate for points in the utterly insane Pacific division playoff battle. The Sharks won Saturday's match 3-0, and look to repeat their dominant performance tonight before closing out the season with two games against the Kings.

But there are more important things in this world than hockey, of course. Things like civil rights.

You're probably already aware of Patrick Burke's You Can Play project. It's a fantastic idea and promotes the acceptance of openly gay athletes and fights against anti-gay prejudice. Every week more players are joining the You Can Play team, pledging their support for the project and appearing in PSA-style videos that air during games. Players like Claude Giroux, Henrik Lundqvist, and the world's toughest 3rd-grader Tommy Wingels are all proud supporters of You Can Play.

Of course, not everyone is so open-minded and welcoming. It may be an uncomfortable subject to discuss, but there are certain players in the league that will never be part of You Can Play. There are players that embrace a more conservative, anti-gay mindset: players on the You Can't Play team.

Through hard work and award-deserving investigative journalism I have compiled a list of the ten biggest homophobes currently playing in the National Hockey League:

#10 Loui Eriksson, Dallas Stars - Loui Eriksson is so homophobic he frowns whenever he sees a rainbow.

#9 Jake Dowell, Dallas Stars - Jake Dowell is so homophobic he won't admit "We Will Rock You" is an awesome song.

#8 Mike Ribeiro, Dallas Stars - Mike Ribeiro is so homophobic he won't even touch his own genitals.

#7 Jamie Benn, Dallas Stars - Jamie Benn is so homophobic he dislikes Sean Avery because Avery appeared in a gay rights PSA, rather than disliking Avery for any of the literally hundreds of other perfectly legitimate reasons.

#6 Kari Lehtonen, Dallas Stars - Kari Lehtonen is so homophobic he hasn't responded to any of the love letters I wrote.

#5 Radek Dvorak, Dallas Stars - Radek Dvorak is so homophobic he hates all parades. Even Parade magazine.

#4 Brenden Morrow, Dallas Stars - Brenden Morrow is so homophobic he gets nervous around women named "Gayle."

#3 Richard Bachman, Dallas Stars - Richard Backman is so homophobic he shouted gay slurs at his doctor during his prostate exam.

#2 Vernon Fiddler, Dallas Stars - Vernon Fiddler is so homophobic he actually believes it's his business whether two consenting adults of the same gender want to get married.

#1 Steve Ott, Dallas Stars - Steve Ott is so homophobic he refuses to see any films starring comic actor Alan Tudyk, because Ott feels that two dicks should never be that close to each other.

I hope that by exposing these players as homophobes I am doing my part to support You Can Play. It would also be nice if this issue served as some sort of distraction for the listed players and made them play worse during their game tonight - but mostly this is about gay rights.

Prediction: The Sharks are on the right side of history. They win 3-0 again. Goals by Wingels (x3).

Thanks to Rudy for help with this post. He is the Alfred to my Batman, only gayer than that sounds.