‘No place in the game’ for racial slurs: Archibald
Canucks forward has felt the sting of insults
Darren Archibald should have been talking Monday about how he has contributed to an improved penalty kill and brought a needed physical element to the Canucks.
Instead, the winger from a bi-racial family, who has endured his own ugly episodes of racial slurs, was asked for his take on disturbing taunts from four fans at the United Center in Chicago on Saturday. They were targeted at Washington Capitals winger Devante Smith-Pelly, who took a minor penalty and then took the verbal abuse.
The four repeatedly yelled “basketball” while sitting beside the penalty box. The implication was that because the 25-year-old Toronto native is black, he should be playing basketball instead of hockey. Those fans have been since been banned from the United Center.
When Smith-Pelly heard the taunt, he got up to confront one fan through the glass, but was quickly turned around by the penalty box attendant.
“It’s 2018,” Archibald said Monday. “You’d think there’s no room for anything like that. I saw he (Smith-Pelly) was in the box and saw the comments about it. I haven’t encountered anything like that in a number of years. It’s something I’ve dealt with as well when I was younger in the Toronto area — in minor hockey and in Junior A.”
And it was something the 28-yearold Newmarket, Ont., native tried to keep in perspective. Not that it’s easy.
“Young and dumb and stupid comments,” he added of slurs sent his way by opposition players at minor and junior levels. “Guys on the ice try to get under your skin and I’ve never really tried to take it to heart. They try to get you off your game, but you’d like to think you wouldn’t hear things like this anymore.
“And you try not to make a big deal out of it because there’s a lot of publicity that comes from it. It’s unfortunate. There’s no place in the game — let alone anywhere — for that and it’s something that you can’t believe is still going on.
“It just goes to show you that there are some ignorant people out there. You’ve taken a penalty and you don’t need to hear people barking at you from behind the glass.”