A learning experience, with sharp elbows
Admit you’re wrong, say you’re sorry, vow you’ll make it all better, and promise you will learn from this mistake
Keegan Mitchell would be the first to admit it. In fact, he did. Rather eloquently.
The well-spoken hockey player took to Facebook on Jan. 7 to discuss how he was treated after he stood up – his words – for a teammate.
Sure, he’s known for dropping the gloves, Mitchell allowed.
“I have fought countless times in response to something negative that has happened to either my teammates, or myself.”
But he did his time — usually a three-game suspension — no questions asked.
That changed Dec. 17 when a player threw an antiAsian racial slur at one of his teammates. Mitchell reacted, swiftly.
“I stood up for a teammate/ best friend/brother.”
He two-handed the offender across the shins with his stick. Don Cherry would love this guy.
Still, this isn’t the 1960s. A member of the team went to their coach, the referee, the other team’s coach and the player who uttered the remark, Mitchell wrote later. The expectation was justice: an ejection and suspension.
Mitchell got two games for his two-hander. The guy uttering the slur deserved to get the rest of his payback too, Mitchell figured. Fair is fair. Still, he had to wonder when, shortly after the incident, “I witnessed the ref laughing with the player.”
His suspicions were confirmed Jan. 5 when he learned the player who uttered the slur got two games. The same penalty as Mitchell got for reminding the guy that kind of behaviour was not allowed around his teammates.
And that’s when Mitchell crossed the line on Facebook.
“If Hockey P.E.I. took these scenarios as seriously as they say they do, this player would have been suspended appropriately. So, my question is, when is Hockey P.E.I. going to start taking ALL racist slurs and comments on the ice into consideration for appropriate penalization?
“A two-game suspension for a racist slur is absolutely disgraceful. Finally, Hockey P.E.I. when are you going to wake up and realize that this pitiful suspension is making our whole community look racist?” he wrote.
The hockey bureaucracy reacted all right.
It suspended him – indefinitely – for violating its social media policy by criticizing its referees and disciplinary process. And that’s when the real fun began.
Gordon McNeilly is the first Black man to win a seat as an MLA on P.E.I.
“It completely sends the wrong message,” he said of the issue. “You have to look outside of your bylaws when you're dealing with issues this big. If there’s bylaws issues, then they have to be changed. If there’s leadership issues, then we kind of have to look at them and we have to get a better sense of what Hockey P.E.I. is doing at this time.”
Ouch.
Then k.d. lang – the Grammy-winning Canadian singer, and no stranger to penning a nice turn of phrase – took to Twitter: “@HockeyPEI C’mon. Do better.” Who knew? Her elbows are as sharp as Gordie Howe’s
Former Hockey P.E.I. president Gordie Lund accused the organization of over-reacting.
If Coach’s Corner was still on TV, the CBC’s Ron
MacLean would have had to wear a helmet and elbow pads in a – no doubt useless – bid to control Cherry.
Freedom of speech, standing up for a teammate, hockey! Grapes would have been so incandescent with anger he’d likely have lit his latest crime-against-fashion suit on fire in a live example of spontaneous combustion.
Finally. Mercifully. The hockey honchos sought some good PR advice.
It always goes like this: admit you’re wrong, say you’re sorry, vow you’ll make it all better, and promise you will learn from this mistake.
That looks like this when you put it in writing, as Hockey P.E.I. did Jan. 12:
“This incident has made us realize that our inclusivity and anti-harassment guidelines for officials, teams, players and their families do not go far enough to protect those that they should. We are committed to change not only the guidelines of the game on the Island, but the culture as well.”
Hockey P.E.I. said Mitchell’s gutsy stand helped it realize its “missteps,” so it repealed his suspension and jacked up to five games the penalty for the player uttering the slur.
“We acknowledge the initial error in judgment and express our deepest apologies to the victim.”
And it vowed to “use this as a learning experience while continuing to make the game accessible, inclusive and safe for any individual that participates.”
A learning experience, indeed. Sports bureaucracies everywhere, take note.
Rick MacLean is an instructor in the journalism program at Holland College in Charlottetown.