Iced Racism

I once watched a hockey player in a tournament being put under extreme duress not only by other players on the ice, but also by the crowd. It was all because of his skin color.

He was a good defenseman, and he played a clean game. He stands about 6’4”, so he clearly had the size advantage over the other players who were harassing him. But instead of hitting them back – he chose to continue to play fair and ignore what they were doing. Unfortunately, the ways in which he was being fouled up were also ignored by the officials, so as the tournament went on, the horrible treatment escalated.

The crowd that was on hand at the rink got into the same spirit as the players, yelling insults at this player and throwing him off his game. To make matters worse, the parents’ bad behavior was picked up on and copied by the children. Pity.
This defenseman was a friend of mine, and it seemed like I (and his teammates) were the only ones saying anything positive about the guy. He was playing a finesse-style game, leagues above the ability of those other sawed-off goons who were harassing him. But the banging and high sticks to the face finally got the best of my friend, and in his final game he wound up getting ejected for pushing one of the players back. The pushed player fell to the ice and did the whole ‘dying bug’ act, and of course the referee bought into it completely. Of course, by this time, my friend was fed up. He left the tournament with a jagged cut that went straight up the bridge of his nose, and a lot of bruises. At the time, he swore he’d never play hockey again.

My friend was blonde, blue-eyed, and fair skinned, playing in an Aboriginal hockey tournament. Their collective ignorance took what should have been a fun experience for my friend and turned it into a very sour oneIced Racism
I once watched a hockey player in a tournament being put under extreme duress not only by other players on the ice, but also by the crowd. It was all because of his skin color.

He was a good defenseman, and he played a clean game. He stands about 6’4”, so he clearly had the size advantage over the other players who were harassing him. But instead of hitting them back – he chose to continue to play fair and ignore what they were doing. Unfortunately, the ways in which he was being fouled up were also ignored by the officials, so as the tournament went on, the horrible treatment escalated.

The crowd that was on hand at the rink got into the same spirit as the players, yelling insults at this player and throwing him off his game. To make matters worse, the parents’ bad behavior was picked up on and copied by the children. Pity.
This defenseman was a friend of mine, and it seemed like I (and his teammates) were the only ones saying anything positive about the guy. He was playing a finesse-style game, leagues above the ability of those other sawed-off goons who were harassing him. But the banging and high sticks to the face finally got the best of my friend, and in his final game he wound up getting ejected for pushing one of the players back. The pushed player fell to the ice and did the whole ‘dying bug’ act, and of course the referee bought into it completely. Of course, by this time, my friend was fed up. He left the tournament with a jagged cut that went straight up the bridge of his nose, and a lot of bruises. At the time, he swore he’d never play hockey again.

My friend was blonde, blue-eyed, and fair skinned, playing in an Aboriginal hockey tournament. Their collective ignorance took what should have been a fun experience for my friend and turned it into a very sour one, instead. My friend, like I, has Aboriginal ancestry.

Some people would refer to the way my friend was treated as “reverse racism”. I’d just call it racism.

-Marjorie Roden (by permission)