#7 You Can Play campaign by the Edmonton Oilers
Valentine's Day 2017. Rainbow hockey tape. One of the most startling and inclusive experiences of my life.
I watched the Edmonton Oilers launch a You Can Play campaign in the stadium on Valentine’s Day 2017. I think I still have some rainbow colored hockey tape :)
It remains one of the most startling and inclusive experiences of my life.
This was perhaps the most gruffly adorable inclusion message I ever saw in my life. The ’you can play’ campaign was all the more authentic for being so direct.
The phrase came from a piece Patrick Burke wrote on Outsports after his brother Brendan Burke (who came out publicly in 2009 and was killed in a car accident in February 2010) — "If you can play, you can play." Patrick co-founded the You Can Play Project in March 2012 with Brian Kitts and Glenn Witman in tribute to Brendan.
The phrase came from a piece Patrick Burke wrote on Outsports after his brother Brendan Burke (who came out publicly in 2009 and was killed in a car accident in February 2010) — "If you can play, you can play." Patrick co-founded the You Can Play Project in March 2012 with Brian Kitts and Glenn Witman in tribute to Brendan.
I don’t know why this video still hits me so hard, but it’s just the best piece of work on meritocracy I think I’ve ever seen. Still use this mantra in our work to this day.