A pre-teen hockey player remains suspended from play after allegedly lambasting two teammates with racist and anti-Semitic comments.
Two sets of parents filed complaints with the St. Albert Minor Hockey Association after their sons were each targeted by their peewee team’s goalie.
League president Dave Bell told the St. Albert Gazette earlier this week that the player was suspended Monday night, pending further investigation and a meeting between two league executives and the parent of the accused.
“The player remains suspended with no involvement with the team pending the outcome of our review,” he said via e-mail Thursday, adding he is not sure when the review will be completed due to the “sensitive nature.”
He did not respond to questions regarding whether there have been prior complaints filed against this player.
The goalie allegedly called an 11-year-old defenceman a “f***ing Jew” while on a team outing to an Oil Kings’ game last Friday, later telling the player that Nazis killed Jews.
The Jewish player’s mother, who is also the team manager, said the goalie told her son to “go away” while at practice Sunday, later threatening to kill him if he didn’t comply.
The same goalie allegedly told an 11-year-old biracial forward earlier this month that his mother “should go back to Africa where she belongs.”
Both sets of parents said they want the child to be held accountable for his actions, adding they want him to be banned from the team for at least the remainder of the season.
Ian Mathieson, consultant with the Centre for Race and Culture in Edmonton, said although discipline is vital, it should be coupled with education.
“I think there’s a huge opportunity here to educate and have a much more constructive conversation,” he said. “Being able to help young people understand the implications of their actions and the very real impact of racism on people, I think, will take us a long way.”
He said simply banning the player from the ice could end up backfiring.
“We might end up shooting ourselves in the foot and that might further entrench (his) attitude towards those groups,” he said.
The league holds the most power to dish out discipline but Mathieson said racism is something the entire community must address.
“These incidents demonstrate that racism is alive and well and it still happens, so it’s the responsibility of everyone to address it,” he said. “Young people … are really strongly impacted by their mentors and their peers and people who are in leadership positions in relation to them.”
He said the league, coaching staff, teachers and parents all need to lead by example.
These groups also need to foster an environment where young people feel comfortable reporting incidents of discrimination, he said.
“There’s a lot of fear, there’s a lot of reluctance to be re-victimized and singled out again and told that you’re making a bigger problem out of something that isn’t a problem,” he said.
Although hockey is a high-intensity sport that often leads to heated exchanges between players, Mathieson said that isn’t an excuse for the use of discriminatory language.
“There still has to be respect,” he said. “We shouldn’t disown ourselves from that responsibility just because it’s high-intensity.”
Mathieson said he doesn’t believe there is a greater prevalence of racist remarks in hockey, but said there is often a lack of transparency in terms of how they are handled.
Nicolas Allen, registered provisional psychologist with River Valley Health in Edmonton, told the St. Albert Gazette earlier this month that hockey culture seems to accept discrimination.
“The idea of derogatory comments, such as sexism, bullying, homosexualism and discrimination, is quite common on the ice,” he said. “There’s this culture on the ice that if it happens on the ice, it’s OK.”
He said that he thinks the sport is trying to change this perception.
