Ryan Van Horne
aka Scribe
OK, let's try this again. Moderators, I'll see if I can make this more palatable for you because this is a topic that bears discussion. I tried going over to the OHL board, but you don't have one, so I'm starting the thread here. If you can think of a better board for me to start it on, let me know.
Philadelphia Flyers prospect Steve Downie was involved in another controversial incident last week. The Peterborough Petes forward got involved in an after-the-whistle scrum in Game 5 of his team's playoff series with the Ottawa 67s. During the scrum, Brett Liscomb of Ottawa, who was a teammate of Downie's in Windsor and was even his road roommate, made what the OHL describes as a "derogatory comment" to Downie. Ooooh my goodness -- a hockey player calling another hockey player names. We better put an end to that, the OHL says, so they suspend Liscomb for five games.
When I first saw this, I thought, OK, maybe Liscomb said he was going to call up Mike Danton to get a list of hitmen and then take Downie out in a Sopranos kind of way.
No, it wasn't anything threatening at all. Liscomb called him queer. Well, he didn't actually use that word, he used a word that rhymes with bag and starts with f.
OK, moderators, bear with me here. This has happened thousands of times on a hockey rink. It's not one of hockey's qualities, but it's hardly one of its biggest warts, either.
Stickwork, knee-on-knee hits, and checking from behind are all blights on the game that need to be eliminated. Many times, players do this and don't get suspended for five games. They should.
Apparently, the OHL is trying to crack down on slurs. Fine, I say, but this is like using a sledgehammer to put in a thumbtack. The ref gave Liscomb a gross misconduct and he was tossed from the game and missed Game 6 in which the 67s were eliminated.
If Liscomb gets a minor, or a 10-minute misconduct, and the ref goes over to Ottawa coach Brian Kilrea and says, "Killer, the league's cracking down on this, tell your boys to knock it off" you can bet that would be the end of it.
But no, political correctness runs amok and Dave Branch suspends Liscomb for what he would only refer to as a derogatory remark. OK, so the next time a player calls another player a c---sucker, is he going to get suspended for five games? That's a derogatory comment, too. It also calls someone's sexual orientation into question, or does it? What about a--hole? That's derogatory, but but that's just an unflattering comparison to a part of the human anatomy. What about dummy? That's pretty derogatory. Nobody likes being called stupid, it's not good for your self-confidence.
My point is this, unless Steve Downie really is gay, then what Liscomb said isn't a slur, it's trash-talking.
If the OHL wants to eliminate objectionable conduct from their rinks, that's fine, but they should take a more equitable approach and not succumb to the zeitgeist. Some common sense, please.
Philadelphia Flyers prospect Steve Downie was involved in another controversial incident last week. The Peterborough Petes forward got involved in an after-the-whistle scrum in Game 5 of his team's playoff series with the Ottawa 67s. During the scrum, Brett Liscomb of Ottawa, who was a teammate of Downie's in Windsor and was even his road roommate, made what the OHL describes as a "derogatory comment" to Downie. Ooooh my goodness -- a hockey player calling another hockey player names. We better put an end to that, the OHL says, so they suspend Liscomb for five games.
When I first saw this, I thought, OK, maybe Liscomb said he was going to call up Mike Danton to get a list of hitmen and then take Downie out in a Sopranos kind of way.
No, it wasn't anything threatening at all. Liscomb called him queer. Well, he didn't actually use that word, he used a word that rhymes with bag and starts with f.
OK, moderators, bear with me here. This has happened thousands of times on a hockey rink. It's not one of hockey's qualities, but it's hardly one of its biggest warts, either.
Stickwork, knee-on-knee hits, and checking from behind are all blights on the game that need to be eliminated. Many times, players do this and don't get suspended for five games. They should.
Apparently, the OHL is trying to crack down on slurs. Fine, I say, but this is like using a sledgehammer to put in a thumbtack. The ref gave Liscomb a gross misconduct and he was tossed from the game and missed Game 6 in which the 67s were eliminated.
If Liscomb gets a minor, or a 10-minute misconduct, and the ref goes over to Ottawa coach Brian Kilrea and says, "Killer, the league's cracking down on this, tell your boys to knock it off" you can bet that would be the end of it.
But no, political correctness runs amok and Dave Branch suspends Liscomb for what he would only refer to as a derogatory remark. OK, so the next time a player calls another player a c---sucker, is he going to get suspended for five games? That's a derogatory comment, too. It also calls someone's sexual orientation into question, or does it? What about a--hole? That's derogatory, but but that's just an unflattering comparison to a part of the human anatomy. What about dummy? That's pretty derogatory. Nobody likes being called stupid, it's not good for your self-confidence.
My point is this, unless Steve Downie really is gay, then what Liscomb said isn't a slur, it's trash-talking.
If the OHL wants to eliminate objectionable conduct from their rinks, that's fine, but they should take a more equitable approach and not succumb to the zeitgeist. Some common sense, please.
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