Players of colour in the Greater Toronto Hockey League, the world’s largest minor hockey league, say they are routinely targeted with verbal insults because of their race
While the 40,000-player league said the data is tracked internally and players are penalized, it refused to disclose how often these incidents are occurring.
“We don’t publish stats about minors on an anonymized or aggregated basis, since that may damage the reputation of the vast majority of the young players in our league whose good sportsmanship is beyond question,” said the League’s executive director, Scott Oakman.
Why not disclose it? What are they trying to hide? It's not like they have to specifically name names.
NHL star Evander Kane of the San Jose Sharks says the same focus on racism in major league hockey needs to happen at the minor level as well. He recalled being targeted by the parents of players of an opposing team when he was only 10 years old.
"There are probably four to five parents banging on the glass behind me, screaming at me: ‘We should cut your f-ing legs off. You monkey. Somebody should kill you,’" he said.
The juniors and the NHL should follow up with some very harsh rules for when this happens on their rinks. Like a full-season suspension for any player who makes comments like that to any other player on the ice. And the banning for life from the arena of any fans engaging in that kind of behaviour, as well as the banning for life of any hockey parent from attending any games at any rink it they're caught saying those things to any player in the kids leagues.
Shit's run it's course and it's long overdue to be aggressively and intolerantly addressed. No point fucking around with it any more, just bring the hammer down on the perpetrators as hard as they can. It's not a joke anymore.
“We don’t publish stats about minors on an anonymized or aggregated basis, since that may damage the reputation of the vast majority of the young players in our league whose good sportsmanship is beyond question,” said the League’s executive director, Scott Oakman.
Why not disclose it? What are they trying to hide? It's not like they have to specifically name names.
"There are probably four to five parents banging on the glass behind me, screaming at me: ‘We should cut your f-ing legs off. You monkey. Somebody should kill you,’" he said.
Ah! Now we know where the kids learn it from.
Shit's run it's course and it's long overdue to be aggressively and intolerantly addressed. No point fucking around with it any more, just bring the hammer down on the perpetrators as hard as they can. It's not a joke anymore.