NHL player Willie Mitchell said he’d sponsor Freyja Reed, after the soccer league she plays in told her to stop speaking out against Marine Harvest, B.C.’s largest Atlantic salmon fish farming company.

Reed was shocked when she learned the company would sponsor her team, which plays under the new banner Marine Harvest Riptide, formerly known as the Upper Island Riptide Soccer Association.

“We started speaking out about how we felt,” Reed said. “And then there was a phone call, they didn't want us to say anything, and then there was an email saying we can't say anything.”

Mitchell, a B.C. native who plays for the Florida Panthers, posted a tweet Friday night to support Reed for speaking out. He wrote: “The ability to speak for what we believe is why we are so privileged to live in N.A. Freyja Reed I will sponsor you!”

The Reed family moved to Comox, B.C., so Freyja could play for the competitive soccer team that she says tried to silence her.

“I want to speak up for what I believe in – if someone doesn't stand up and say how they feel, it'll just keep happening,” she said. "I might get kicked off the team if I keep protesting their activities."

Shel Brodsgaard, a soccer development VIPL of the Riptide Franchise, said every player, and their parents, must follow the same guidelines.

“We have guideline that we ask all of our parents and players and family, which is no different than any guideline you’re going to see,” he said. “We just ask that they just stop discounting the relationship in the public eye.”

The fish farming company said that, while Reed and her family are being asked not to publicly slam their company, they’re also not being asked to support it.

"This year the child won't have to wear the logo or participate in any events that are fundraising on behalf of the company and the team," Marine Harvest spokesperson Ian Roberts said.

Despite the accommodation not to wear the Marine Harvest logo, Reed said she doesn’t intend to stop her activism.

Opponents of open net farms argue that the fish bred there could pass diseases to wild salmon populations travelling to and from their spawning grounds.

With files from CTV Vancouver Island's Zahra Premji