Racism (?) at Canadian hockey game
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Fan throws banana peel at Flyers’ Wayne Simmonds
By Sean Leahy
Fan throws banana peel at Flyers’ Wayne SimmondsThe Philadelphia Flyers and Detroit Red Wings played in a neutral site exhibition game Thursday night in London, Ontario. While the 4-3 win for the Red Wings was the result, the story was an apparent racist incident during the shootout.
Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds(notes) was in the middle of his shootout attempt when a fan inside the Labatt Centre threw a banana peel in his path. Simmonds, of African-Canadian decent, wasn't shaken by it and beat Red Wings goaltender Jordan Pearce(notes).
Simmonds, who grew up a little over two hours from London in Scarborough, took the high road talking about the incident after the game with the Philadelphia Daily News' Frank Seravalli:
"When you're a black man playing in a predominantly white man's sport, you've got to come to expect things like that," Simmonds said. "Over the past 23 years of my life, I've come to expect some things like that. But I'm older and more mature now, I kind of just left things roll off [my back]. I try not to think about stuff like that."
Sources told Seravalli that the perpetrator was not caught.
That kind of racism has been seen in hockey for far too long. Sadly, it's been prevalent in European soccer for some time causing FIFA to begin its "Let's Kick Racism Out of Football" campaign. Whether it's bananas or racist chants or taunts, it's sad that one idiot in the crowd decided that it was a good idea to put their ignorance on display.
Peter Luukko, president and COO of Comcast-Spectator (owners of the Flyers) issued the following statement on Thursday night:
"It appeared as though a fan threw an object onto the ice during the shootout. Unfortunately, we weren't able to identify the individual.
"We certainly don't condone such a foolish act [like this] as a player could potentially be seriously injured. This is ninth time we have played here in London and the fans have always been wonderful to us. The Flyers consider this our 'home away from home' and that's because this city, the fans and this spectacular arena have been so supportive of the Philadelphia Flyers."
On Friday morning, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman released a statement about the incident:
"We have millions of great fans who show tremendous respect for our players and for the game. The obviously stupid and ignorant action by one individual is in no way representative of our fans or the people of London, Ontario."
... as did London, Ontario Mayor Joe Fontana:
"As Mayor, and on behalf of Londoners, I am sending an apology to Wayne Simmonds and the Philadelphia Flyers organization regarding the incident at last night's exhibition game. It was a stupid and mindless act by a single individual, however it reflects badly on our entire community. London is a diverse and welcoming city and we like it that way."
Through the Flyers, Simmonds released his own statement putting the incident behind him and looking ahead:
"It was unfortunate that this incident happened but I am above this sort of stuff. This is something that is out of my control. Moving forward, this incident is something I will no longer comment on so I can just focus on playing hockey for the Philadelphia Flyers."
Ironically, Simmonds told CSN Philly earlier this week that racial negativity "really doesn't happen in Canada. That's pretty much the way it is."
http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Fan-throws-banana-peel-at-Flyers-8217-Wayne-Si?urn=nhl-wp13220
I remember, some time ago, when African soccer players in Italy (or Spain or another European country, I'm not sure) were taunted with monkey noises.
Comments
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white people being racist? i am appalled...
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Hebrews that escaped from slavery son's helped changed hockey from the slow moving nonthinking brute sport, to the fast pace and complex game when seen today.
LEARN ABOUT THE Canada's Maritime Province from the Colured Hockey League in Canda from 1894 and how they use to whoop on the whites in the exhibition game's, Now goaltenders can leave their feet because the higher science of the hebrews that they brought to hockey.
The Colored Hockey Championship of the Maritimes
by Dr. Garth Vaughan ©
Presented at “Putting it on Ice” World Hockey Conference, St. Mary’s University, Oct 3, 2001
Segregation - Integration
Black Hockey Roots of Nova Scotia:
As the Mi'kmaq carvers of Nova Scotia first gathered both hornbeam and yellow birch trees from which to fashion sticks for Ice Hockey, they called them "hockey roots". There is no doubt that the "roots" of the very game of Ice Hockey lie within Nova Scotia, and the deepest of those roots lies in Windsor.
Unfortunately, the roots of the problem of segregation of African Canadians from Ice Hockey also lie within Nova Scotia - but then again, so do the roots of integration. Racism is a learned behavior. It is much easier to prevent than to overcome. The secret to prevention lies in proper respect for people in general. Respect is a natural phenomenon with children that can be reinforced by caring adults. Research shows that the first indications of integration of Black players onto adult white hockey teams started in Windsor, Nova Scotia and began on the basis of "respect". The Paris family of Windsor agree with this theory for they were at the centre of the process and have played a vital part in the major contributions made to Ice Hockey by Maritime African Canadians in subsequent years.
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The Desire to Play:
It is generally understood that unless one begins to skate and to play Ice Hockey in childhood, he or she never becomes good at either. Therefore, when Black men began playing good, competitive games in public rinks in the Maritimes in 1895, it is a given that they had been involved in both for a decade or more.
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Maritime Black Population:
The first Black settlers in Nova Scotia arrived from Africa in 1741, followed by Black United Empire Loyalists in 1763 and others after the War of 1812. By 1890, the Black population was 6000. Of these, 4000 lived in segregated neighborhoods of the Halifax/Dartmouth area and fringe communities of Africville, Preston and Hammond's Plains. Communities of 100 or so existed in other towns. Only 165 Blacks lived on Prince Edward Island in a community known as The Bog in Charlottetown's West End.
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Overcoming:
Since segregation prevented Blacks from playing hockey with white teams, they created their own. Since white teams refused to accept challenges to play, Blacks played contests with each other and seven teams existed in the Maritimes by 1900. They referred to the themselves as 'The Colored League", as they played for "The Colored Hockey Championship of the Maritimes". Three teams chose names out of respect for the monarchy like the Dartmouth Jubilees, Amherst Royals and Truro Victorias. Others were the Halifax Eurekas, Africville Seasides, and Hammond's Plains Mossbacks. Prince Edward Island's only team was Charlottetown's West End Rangers. New Brunswick had a significant Black population in the Saint John area but did not enter a team into competition. Cape Breton had a small Black population of men who came from Alabama (three train car loads) to work in coal mining. They would have had no knowledge of skating or Ice Hockey.
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Getting Started:
Poverty made it difficult for Black parents to feed and clothe their families, let alone afford skates for young men to play Ice Hockey. Sticks were easily accessed as Black craftsmen made and sold them at the local market along with native Mi'kmaq carvers. Considering the level of poverty, discrimination, and segregation, it's a wonder that any Blacks got to skate or to play Ice Hockey. However, their desire to play transcended the cultural difficulties which otherwise denied them. Many frozen ponds were available for games in the Halifax/Dartmouth area while "Government Pond" at "The Bog" was the favorite site for The West End Rangers of Charlottetown. Players developed competitive skills by a team of fathers playing a team of sons. In that era, teams consisted of a spare and seven players who played the entire game, so that in all, the seven Maritime teams consisted of some 56 players. Their story is important to record as an important part of our hockey heritage - the development and romance of the game.
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Game Time and Travel:
Although players and the press often referred to the Colored Hockey "League", there was no "league" in the conventional sense of the term for there was no set schedule of games, nor could there be, for Mother Nature was in complete control of natural-ice conditions. Games were arranged by letter of invitation or by a notice of a "challenge match" placed in a newspaper. This was subject to a response, as well as to the availability of a rink. Since white teams pre-booked ice time in the coldest part of the season, most Black encounters took place in late February and early March, on slow, soft, often wet ice when white teams were finished for the season. There were no cars at the time, and travel between towns was by railway - Cape Breton and P.E.I. were reached by ferry.
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Acceptance:
While regular games by white teams brought crowds of 200-300, Black games attracted up to 1200 mainly white fans. The caliber of play was fairly well documented, considering that journalists were only beginning to formulate terms for reporting hockey games. Hard-fought games with exciting end-to-end rushes, frequent on-ice skirmishes, and marked team-rivalry made for happy fans. Rink owners recognized the financial opportunity and promoted games with prominent newspaper ads.
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Accomplishments:
Entertainment at Black encounters was the name of the game for fans and players alike. A race between the fastest players of each team preceded games, and the ten minute intermission between the two thirty-minute periods, was filled with acrobatics and circus-like comedy at high speed. The Black Communities of P.E.I., Truro and New Glasgow also had their own brass bands which performed before games and between periods late into the 1920s.
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Goal Tender Goes To Ice:
A general rule of hockey in the early 1900s required the Goal Tender to remain upright for the entire game. He used ordinary gloves, cricket pads and the same type stick as other players, because the wider "goal stick" was not yet in common use. Black teams were first to allow their Goal Tenders to go to ice, a practice not allowed in games elsewhere until the formation of the NHL in 1917. -
Criticism:
While large crowds indicated general acceptance, newspaper accounts document that verbal abuse flourished with both crowds and journalists. Reporters were racist in attitude in the first couple of years, more respectful for a few years, and then reverted to racist reporting for a short while - finally ignoring Black games. There is nothing to gain by printing the epithets used, nevertheless, all common ones and some never imagined, appeared in the Maritime press.
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Three Decades of Black Hockeyists:
The relative popularity of Black teams in hockey in the Halifax area was short lived, between 1900 and 1914. In 1906, The Acadian Recorder reported that the games were not as interesting or as popular as previously, with only about 100 mostly Black people attending. Meanwhile, white teams did not play Black teams nor did Black players get to play on white teams. As activity subsided in the Halifax area, new teams were formed elsewhere and in 1920 as the Truro "SHIEKS" beat the New Glasgow "SPEEDBOYS" to capture the "Colored Hockey Championship". In 1921, the P.E.I. West End Rangers defeated the New Glasgow "ROVERS" and retained the Championship for two years. Those three teams continued the tradition until 1928.
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Overview of Integration:
Games between Afro-Canadians which began in Nova Scotia in 1895 were also the beginning of the struggle for Blacks everywhere to be accepted in Canada's National Winter Sport. The gradually increasing level of respect for certain Black families in small towns appears to have played a significant role in this integration as Black players eventually got to play on white teams in the late 1930s.
In Windsor, the Paris and Jackson families lived within town limits through the 1920s and the children attended the public school. John "Buster" Paris and Percy Jackson first played pond hockey with young white friends, followed by junior high school intermural hockey. They went on to play in the Annapolis Valley High School Hockey League as members of otherwise white teams. In 1937, Buster was the only Black player in the Windsor Senior Town League.
In nearby Wolfville, during the 1930s, Mr. Clifford Oliver was a respected employee of Acadia University. His family members were well accepted in Wolfville at church and school where the children were high achievers. When Clifford's son William "Billy" Oliver attended Acadia University, he played in the Acadia "College Band", played on the water polo team and was a forward on the 1934 Acadia Hockey Team.
The Dorrington and Byard families followed a similar course in Truro. Art and Doug Dorrington played for the Truro Sheiks all Black team and went on to play for a white team, the Stellarton Royals in the APC League in the 1949-50 series. Art went to the New Haven Night Hawks and the Boston Americans before retiring from Ice Hockey to become a Sheriff in Alabama.
In the 1950s-60s, Buster Paris's children had become outstanding athletes and key players in the newly formed Windsor Minor Sports Program. Meanwhile, in the nearby rural community of Five Mile Plains there was a segregated Black school, and none of those children got to play with a white hockey team. When the children reached high school age, they transferred to the Windsor Academy, and thus became integrated into the white school system, but, not having achieved early hockey skills, they still did not get to play on white teams.
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Wider Acceptance:
Maritime African Canadian hockey players gradually became integrated onto white teams. Manny MacIntyre of Devon, N.B. played on the incredible Sherbrooke Saints all-Black line in Quebec during the 1950s along with Herbie and Ossie Carnegie of Ontario, one of the greatest lines ever to play Ice Hockey in Canada.
1960- John Paris Jr. was playing for Windsor Royals Midget team when scouted by Scotty Bowman and taken to Quebec to play and later coach in Quebec Hockey Leagues and scout for the NHL.
In 1964, John's brother Percy played for King's College School in Windsor as the team won the Nova Scotia Headmaster's League Championship for the first time ever. He played on an all-Black line for Saint Marys University with Robert "Bob" Dawson of Dartmouth, N.S. and Darrel Maxwell (Chook Maxwell's younger brother) of Truro, N.S., a noted baseball and hockey player who was scouted by Punch Imlach along with Willie O'Ree of Frederickton to the Boston Bruins organization in 1955, and played in the WHL and the IHL for a decade. Willie O'Ree was accepted as first Black player in NHL for Boston Bruins in 1957.
Mike Paris, son of John Paris Sr. played with brothers John and Percy in Windsor, N.S. Minor Hockey Program in the 1960s.
Two decades followed before another Black player was admitted to the NHL. Bill Riley of Amherst joined the Washington Capitals of the NHL in 1974-1980. Eldon "Pokey" Reddick of Halifax became the first Black Goalie in the NHL when he joined the Winnipeg Jets in 1986, moving to the Edmonton Oilers from 1988-91. Then in 1994 John Paris Jr. of Windsor, Nova Scotia become the first Black coach in professional hockey with the Atlanta Knights, leading the team to the IHA Championship.
2001 March 3, 2001 John "Buster" Paris was inducted into the Birthplace of Hockey Hall of Fame as a "Builder".
There is an old adage which says "Walk a mile in another man's shoes to know what life is like for him." I fear we'd have to skate a long time on old-fashioned Starr Skates to know what life was like for the hockeyists in the "Colored Hockey Championship of the Maritimes", as well as all African Canadian players who have followed their lead. -
good drop waterproof. still not a fan of ? -- i mean hockey.
but thats still an interesting story -
good drop waterproof. still not a fan of ? -- i mean hockey.
but thats still an interesting story
no doubt, im not a hockey fan either.... just letting these folks know that we changed the game of hockey and been playing the game you hunderds of years. -
lmao @ ?
but tbh, whites have always been inferior to us...thats why they so mad all the time.
