The Agony of Defeat By a Black Hockey Player Scoring the Winning Goal

Hey Kaplan, you ignorant racist schmuck, it’s “shvartze.”

Asshole Boston fans? I don’t believe it.

@Dodgerblue: You know how I know that? Mel Brooks.

My reaction (I’m a pretend Caps fan until they lose) was just the opposite: “Wow, not a lot of black hockey players out there, scoring the winning goal in playoffs is major, good on him.”

Ahnuld translates his last name on Letterman. Look for it at the 3:15 mark. Wait for Dave’s outstanding response.

They let Americans play in the NHL? Who knew?

@matador1015: Just seeing the old Late Night opening — with the puppy in the basket! — makes me long for Classic Dave.

@nojo: Blazing Saddles. “They darker than us!” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsj4s9z-EAE

@nojo: I’m with you, Nojo!

Now how would the Great White North react to a game-winning goal by an Inuit player? Or is there an equivalent to The Paper Bag Test among racist hockey fans?

@matador1015: See, that’s the problem with the Ed Sullivan Theater: Dave can’t barge in on Live at Five.

As the resident puckhead around here, allow me to make several points:

(1) Searching will allow you to find many more tweets like this (exchanging “black” for a certain other word).

(2) Irony of ironies — the Bruins signed the first black player in the NHL, Willie O’Ree, in 1958. (The reason why he is not as famous as, say, Jackie Robinson, is because he was not that good a player. Played for about a season, then knocked around the minors for the rest of his career.) He’s still alive, in Canada, incidentally.

(3) But also: those in the other locker room in the old Boston Garden, that belonging to the Celtics, was not exactly shy about breaking gentlemens’ agreements. Red Auerbach, Bill Russell, K.C. Jones, etc. The truly awful side of color-bars in the history of Sport in Boston belongs to the Red Sox, who were the last club to integrate.

(4) Racism has been a problem in hockey for years. (A preseaason game in London, Ontario this year featured a banana being thrown at Wayne Simmonds who (a) plays for the Flyers and (b) is black.) But it’s getting better. For example, Jarome Iginla (long of the Calgary Flames) is half-Nigerian, and is universally beloved — both in Calgary and league-wide. But you still have pockets of hatred out there.

(5) @matador1015: you may be in luck! Jordin Tootoo of the Nashville Predators is Inuit. He’s the first native of Nunavut to make it to the Show. He also happens to be a low-grade goon. (Which has nothing to do with his ancestry, but his lack of intelligence and skill.)

(6) One cause that is gaining unprecedented support in the hockey world is You Can Play. Started by the Burke family (who lost Brendan a couple of years back in a car crash, while travelling with his college team to whom he came out a few months earlier), it is generating support for players who can play, regardless of orientation. Observe.

The end.

Why the sudden shock that a brother can not only skate but stickhandle?

Considering I hate the Bruins, Patriots and Red Sox (but not the Celtics), Boston can suck it.

I think I was one of the first if not the first non white to play hockey where I grew up in Canada City. I didn’t really get the “Asians can skate?” treatment because I sucked. My only qualities were that I could really skate and check… shoot, pass and deflection shots and other important hockey skills not so much.

My only racist encounter was playing a team from another town and getting “Hey they got a chink on their team. Hey chingchong!” The irony was that the kid who said it was Indian (Hindu not North American.) Being a hot tempered and foul mouthed shit, I responded with a less than polite and ironic, “Fuck you P***ki.” We ended up playing against each other and I took an elbow to the jaw and I politely cross checked him into the boards very very hard. Let’s just put it this way, it was not a great moment in tolerance and maturity.

@homofascist: Racists in the Northeast? That’s not the Northeast I know.

Good for Tim Thomas. I guess now he won’t be bothered by another pesky invitation to the White House next year.

Was that Tebus person involved?