NHLSports & Race

Black Philadelphia Flyers Player Has Banana Thrown At Him

The NHL barely has an offseason, so now, a scant three months after the Boston Bruins lifted the Stanley Cup, the preseason is underway. As happy as hockey fans are to have the league back, however, one incident from a preseason game involving Philadelphia Flyers right wing Wayne Simmonds has to dampen that enthusiasm.

This is Simmonds. As you’ll notice, he’s black. And while he’s certainly not alone in being a black hockey player, he’s part of a small minority – at the beginning of last season, there were a total of 32 black players in the 93-percent-white NHL. And when you’re part of such a small minority, some people will try to ostracize you for it. And so we come to the story of Simmonds getting a banana peel (or just a banana, depending on which account you read) thrown at him by a “fan” last night. Unfortunately, it’s far from the first instance of racism Simmonds has encountered, but it certainly seems to be the most-publicized. Simmonds had this to say:

“I caught it from the side of my eye,” Simmonds said. “It was a banana. Hopefully, that wasn’t directed towards me being black.

“Because if it was, that’s just somebody being ignorant.”

And yeah, we guess there’s a chance that wasn’t the reason, but that would be one awfully big coincidence if an object that could be used to denote a racial stereotype just happens to hit a black guy, in a sport where black guys are relatively rare. Not to mention that throwing a banana peel on the ice is also, you know, dangerous – banana peels play a part in possibly the most well-worn of slapstick comedy tropes for a reason.

At least what’s followed the incident – the public shaming of whoever did it – is the best possible response (besides catching the person who did it, which reportedly didn’t happen). The incident itself proves there’s still a long way to go in race relations. The fact that it’s getting called out every which way shows, if nothing else, that we’re getting somewhere.

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