Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds was in the middle of his shootout attempt when a fan inside the Labatt Centre threw a banana peel in his path. Simmonds, of African-Canadian decent, wasn't shaken by it and beat Red Wings goaltender Jordan Pearce.
Simmonds, who grew up a little over two hours from London in Scarborough, took the high road talking about the incident after the game with The Daily News' Frank Seravalli:
"When you're a black man playing in a predominantly white man's sport, you've got to come to expect things like that," he said. "Over the past 23 years of my life, I've come to expect some things like that. But I'm older and more mature now, I kind of just left things roll off [my back]. I try not to think about stuff like that."
Sources told Seravalli that the perpetrator was not caught.
That kind of racism has been seen in hockey for far too long. Whether it's bananas or racist chants or taunts, it's sad that one idiot in the crowd decided that it was a good idea to put their ignorance on display.
Peter Luukko, president and COO of Comcast-Spectator (owners of the Flyers) issued the following statement on Thursday night:
"It appeared as though a fan threw an object onto the ice during the shootout. Unfortunately, we weren't able to identify the individual.
We certainly don't condone such a foolish act (like this) as a player could potentially be seriously injured. This is ninth time we have played here in London and the fans have always been wonderful to us. The Flyers consider this our 'home away from home' and that's because this city, the fans and this spectacular arena have been so supportive of the Philadelphia Flyers."
Ironically,*Simmonds told CSN Philly earlier this week that racial negativity "really doesn't happen in Canada. That's pretty much that way it is."We certainly don't condone such a foolish act (like this) as a player could potentially be seriously injured. This is ninth time we have played here in London and the fans have always been wonderful to us. The Flyers consider this our 'home away from home' and that's because this city, the fans and this spectacular arena have been so supportive of the Philadelphia Flyers."
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