Vancouver Canucks Ban Fortnite On Road Trips
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VANCOUVER (CBS Local)- The Vancouver Canucks are reportedly the first NHL team to officially ban the popular video game Fortnite from being played on road trips.
According to a Yahoo! Sports report, center Bo Horvat told TSN 1040 earlier this week that the team would not allow its players to play the video game while on road trips.
"Yeah, that's definitely a no-go on the road. No more Fortnite. No more bringing your video games on the road. It's strictly team meals, team dinners, and hanging out with the guys. So we'll have to put an end to that."
"There's better ways to spend time on the road, whether it's hanging out with the guys in the room, going to a movie with the guys, doing stuff outside your room. There's a lot of cool cities we go to visit and to be cooped up in your room all night and not doing anything, playing Fortnite, is a waste of your time."
Horvat's statement to 1040 confirmed what defenseman Michael Del Zotto had told reporters earlier in the preseason about the organization possibly instituting a ban on the video game. Officials and coaches from NHL teams across the league have worried about the video game habits of their players according to Yahoo. The concerns aren't just at the professional level however as TSN correspondent Rick Westhead noted in late August.
An OHL team employee tells me some players have been advised to scrub Fortnite references from social media accounts.
— Rick Westhead (@rwesthead) August 28, 2018
Some NHL teams consider the video game a major distraction/obsession.
Fortnite is incredibly popular, with Business Insider stating in June that the game had passed 125 million players since its launch in July 2017. The NHL isn't the only professional sports league that has seen its players run into issues with Fortnite as Fortune published a piece earlier this year on the prevalence of the game among MLB players.