filed the original lawsuit against the Rangers and the Madison Square Garden Company in April.<\/a> Tyson, who is nonbinary, said in the suit that after reporting multiple instances of unwanted interactions with Goodman, they were ultimately not chosen to return to the Blue Crew for the 2025-26 NHL season.<\/p>\n\u201cWe don\u2019t comment on employee or legal matters,\u201d an MSG Sports spokesperson told The Athletic\u00a0in an April statement. Tyson\u2019s lawyer, Bhavleen Sabharwal, had not responded to an email request for comment as of Wednesday morning. The Athletic attempted to reach Goodman for comment and will update the story if he responds.<\/p>\n
According to the amended complaint, Goodman displayed an \u201cinvasive pattern of physical contact\u201d toward Tyson and other non-male Blue Crew members, such as by \u201cfirmly touching and grabbing their heads, necks, shoulders, backs, arms and hands.\u201d The original suit alleges that Tyson, whom it describes as \u201cpresent[ing] in a traditionally feminine manner,\u201d informed MSG management that \u201cpretty much every member of the Blue Crew who isn\u2019t a man has this experience every time they are assigned to Mr. Goodman.\u201d<\/p>\n
During most home games, the Blue Crew would flank Goodman in the stands in the middle of the third period in a ritualized attempt to pump up the crowd. During these segments, Goodman gyrates to the song, \u201cStrike It Up\u201d by Black Box. In addition to his in-game performances, he has been booked by Rangers fans to perform at private events \u2014 wedding and bar mitzvah parties, for example.<\/p>\n
According to the complaint, Tyson reported Goodman\u2019s behavior in a March 2024 email to a supervisor. The suit says Goodman was temporarily pulled from his \u201cDancing Larry\u201d segment as a result, but returned after a human resources investigation late in the 2023-24 season.<\/p>\n
After a February 2025 game, Tyson reported that Goodman had touched them again, having allegedly placed his \u201cfull palm on the small of (their) back.\u201d Goodman\u2019s in-game role continued, according to the lawsuit, but Tyson was excluded from participating for the rest of the season and was not invited to return to the Blue Crew for the 2025-26 campaign.<\/p>\n
Two days after Tyson\u2019s suit was initially filed, during the team\u2019s regular-season home finale on April 8, the Rangers recognized Goodman on their in-arena video board for his \u201c30 years at the Garden.\u201d Goodman performed his dance routine after the game, perhaps because there was not a television timeout during his regular third-period window.<\/p>\n
The revised complaint also notes that Goodman continued his conduct after \u201cbeing placed on notice that it was unwelcome and the subject of formal complaints,\u201d describing his behavior as \u201cwillful and knowing.\u201d As with the original suit, it seeks an award of compensatory and punitive damages.<\/p>\n
As part of the amended complaint\u2019s filing last month, Sabharwal wrote that the existing defendants \u2014 who also include former MSG senior vice president and event producer Mike Sarnoski \u2014 had indicated they would not oppose the motion to add Goodman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Well-known New York Rangers superfan \u201cDancing Larry\u201d is being added as a defendant in a workplace discrimination lawsuit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[4823,385,99],"class_list":["post-803689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}