Media

Former NHL All-Star Jeremy Roenick Knocks Kneeling: ‘I Wasn’t For It When Kaepernick Did It And I’m Not For It Now’

Font Size:

Former National Hockey League (NHL) star Jeremy Roenick told Fox News’ “Watters’ World” that he doesn’t approve of players kneeling during the national anthem.

“I wasn’t for it when Kaepernick did it and I’m not for it now,” Roenick told guest host Brian Kilmeade, referring to former San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who started the trend in 2016. “I’m a huge lover of our country. I’m a huge lover of our flag, our national anthem.”

WATCH:

Roenick said that Black Lives Matter “has a great message” about racial injustice, but argued that there’s “a time and a place to make a message.”

“We all have to work to make this world a better place for everyone but not when it comes to our flag,” he said. “Not when it comes to being our country where millions of people – men and women – have sacrificed their lives. They’ve given the ultimate sacrifice to make sure that we have the freedoms to do the things that we do. And yes, it is kneeling, but I just don’t like the venue. That flag means more to me.”

The former NHL all-star, who left a broadcasting job at NBC earlier this year over sexually charged remarks on a podcast about female hockey broadcasters, argued that everyone should “agree” that “America is the greatest country in the world and provides us the most unbelievable freedoms, better than any other country in the world.”

Referring to an ongoing lawsuit against NBC, Roenick accused the network of “a long history of double standards.”

“I say one thing on a podcast,” he said. “Somebody else says something that is just as bad actually on NBC. I get fired. The one person doesn’t. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Black, Latino, Hispanic, whatever the case may be, or gay, if you do something wrong and you’re gonna get fired. If somebody else does something wrong, they should get fired too.” (RELATED: ‘Don’t Act Like A Clown’: Mike Ditka Rips Kneeling Players, Says They Would Have Been Benched On His Teams)

The former broadcaster said he was “ridiculed” at the network for his open support of President Donald Trump.

“They hated it,” he said. “I heard about it pretty much every day.”