Islanders' AHL Affiliate Bridgeport Sound Tigers Host You Can Play Night for Equality

You might have overlooked this in our Islanders prospect report, but their AHL affiliate Bridgeport Sound Tigers are lending their support to the You Can Play Project tonight in a big way:

The Sound Tigers’ You Can Play Night (Feb. 23) will be the first of its kind to be held in the American Hockey League. The You Can Play Project is dedicated to ensuring equality, respect and safety for all athletes without regard to sexual orientation.

The evening will kick off at 5:30 p.m. when fans will be able to participate in a pre-game discussion and Q & A session with Patrick Burke, co-founder of the "You Can Play" Project.

Fans can also contribute to the You Can Play Project by purchasing tickets through Ticketmaster using the promo code "YOUCAN", where $5 of every ticket purchased will go to the You Can Play Project. Click here to purchase tickets.

Here's a clip of several of the players voicing their support, including Kirill Kabanov in Russian:

Bravo to the Sound Tigers and the whole Islanders organization (which owns the Sound Tigers).

More Info, Coverage

See more information on You Can Play here. Check some praise from an Isles-centric blogger at Puck Buddys, a hockey site that was thankfully never in the closet to begin with, because it's 2013 and, if you can write, you can write.

Several blogs will be covering this event tonight. We'll add links to their coverage to this post.

Michael Fornabaio has thoughts from Patrick Burke at the end of this post-game blog.