Racism in the NHL

As a predominantly white sport, black players in the NHL face a large amount of discrimination from social media and fan interactions in stadiums.  This has a lot to do with the statistic that black players make up less than 5% of NHL rosters.  Despite this statistic, there are several players in the NHL right now who play an essential role on their teams such as P.K Subban, Evander Kane and Wayne Simmonds.  There have been several incidents of racism on live television, one of the most famous being at a preseason game in London, Ontario.  In that game, Philadelphia flyers winger Wayne Simmonds was victim of a racist display as at least one fan threw a banana at the winger.  During that same game, another fan threw a banana at Simmonds in a disgusting display as fans continued to mock Simmonds with racist gestures.  In an interview after the game, Simmonds describes this event nonchalantly:

“I don’t know if it had anything to do with the fact I’m black.  I certainly hope not.  When your black, you kind of expect racist things.  You have to deal with it.”

The sad reality of this incident, is that this is most certainly not the first time Wayne Simmonds has been the victim of racially insensitive gestures.  As an athlete, Simmonds has been conditioned to remain mentally poised under all of these conditions because it is something he has had to endure his entire life.  Other examples of these racist behaviors can be seen through social media, during the playoff game between the Bruins and the Canadiens, fans used twitter to send racial slurs at P.K Subban because of his dominance during that series.  However, Subban has made no great mention through the media, this is because he knows that this is the culture of the NHL.  He is in a lose-lose situation, if he acknowledges these racist comments he will look weak to opposing fans, if he doesn’t acknowledge it, the NHL will continue to let this happen.  So who is at fault for this situation and climate within the NHL? Well for one it is obviously the fans themselves who repeatedly act and intimidate through racism who need to be punished in some way.  Secondly this issue falls straight to the commissioner of the NHL, although the NHL has attempted to quell this issue, racist remarks are consistently perpetrated during games.  To move forward, the NHL needs to actively promote that racism will not be tolerated, through commercials if necessary.  While I don’t have the answer to change this climate within the NHL, I believe that racism is a huge issue moving forward in a sport that is dominated by white players.