Teams within the National Hockey League have have been asking players to clean up their social media accounts – but not because they’re offensive.
In fact, it’s because they’re full of Fortnite references, and some clubs apparently don’t approve of the popular battle royale styled game.
According to TSN correspondent Rick Westhead, a worker from the Ontario Hockey League says the NHL believes Fortnite is far too distracting. His full Tweet reads:
“An OHL team employee tells me some players have been advised to scrub Fortnite references from social media accounts. Some NHL teams consider the video game a major distraction/obsession.”
But why would this mean they have to delete social media posts regarding the video game? Well, during his 31 Thoughts podcast with Elliotte Friedman, Jeff Marek of Sportsnet said [via cbssports]: “On video games – and I’m not gonna say the player’s name. I really doubt he’s going to make it to the NHL, and it’s because of a video game addiction.”
And to follow on from this, an article from The Washington Post [via Daily Herald] uncovers that Hockey teams were now asking and monitoring how much their players took part gaming. It says: “A reporter claimed an NHL insider had told him a recent high NHL draft pick would never make the pros because he was “addicted” to Fortnite. It ignited fear in front offices league-wide.”
The Washington Post managed to speak to upcoming hockey star Riley Sutter about this. He said: “There’s definitely some guys around the league, some even on my [junior] team, that are pretty bad for it.
“It takes away from their sleeping and keeps them up late … It’s starting to become a pretty big issue,” he continued.
The NHL decision is fair if, like Sutter said, Fortnite is causing players to lose sleep because that would obviously effect their performance – but isn’t gaming just like any other pass time, like watching Netflix? Plus, look at other sports like Football and the NFL – their players bloody love Fortnite and aren’t afraid of showing it!
It all seems a little strict if you ask me, but what you think about this news? Is Fortnite really that distracting? What about gaming in general? Make sure you let us know.
Featured Image Credit: Epic Games