A really ugly story coming out of Chicoutimi, Quebec. Apparently, over the weekend, during a hockey game in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League between Chicoutimi and Moncton, a group of Chicoutimi fans began hurling racist slurs against the visiting Moncton team coach, Ted Nolan, who is Ojibway Indian. (Nolan coached the Buffalo Sabres of the NHL.)

::More below the fold::

Fans allegedly shouted racial slurs during the game, and continued afterwards as he left the Centre Georges Vezina arena and boarded the team bus after losing 4-3 to the Chicoutimi Sagueneens. A police car even had to attend the scene.

“All of a sudden it just escalated more and more, and people were pretending to shoot the bow and arrow and the tomahawk chop and, you know, the hand on the mouth making the warrior cry and bringing derogatory racial slurs as far as my native heritage,” Nolan, 47, told CTV Atlantic on Sunday.

The Canadian Press reported Nolan as saying he hasn’t experienced racism to such a degree since he was a child.

“I thought this stuff happened in the 1940s,” Nolan said. “The racial slurs that we listened to throughout the game were just disgusting. It was really a bad night.” (link)

I was listening to the local sports radio station just now, and they interviewed Les Studley who is the play-by-play man for the Moncton hockey team. He said the fans were out of control. Chicoutimi officials did nothing to stop the escalation, and eventually the mob grew to about 100-150 people. The harassment continued after the game, when the mob followed the team out to their bus. He said these fans were harassing him as he made for the team bus for not speaking french. Police had to be called in to settle down the crowd.

Studley said the mood on the bus was very subdued. Nolan was visibly upset. He sat at the front of the bus, and held his head in his hands, close to tears.

“I have never seen anything like that in my life,” he said. “There were some incidents that happened when I was a kid, but I never seen a public display like that. This was in a public forum where there’s families and kids. There’s athletes on the ice that could see it.

“When you have security guards laughing along with the other people doing it and the referee not doing anything about it during the game … they were fully aware of what was happening. One of our players had a fan throw a garbage can at him.

“You want the rivalries and you want emotion in the rink, but when emotion turns into racial stuff there’s no room for it whatsoever. Whether it’s blacks, natives or whatever, racial stuff is racial stuff.” (link)

You know, I’m not so naive as to believe that racism doesn’t exist in Canada, but this is way over the line. What’s upsetting is that nobody stepped in when it was just a few fans. Nobody said, hey cut it out. That security guards were laughing. And that police would need to be called. For all we like to say otherwise, we in Canada need to realize that racism does exist.

While I’m sure those fans are all so proud that they’ve humiliated this man in front of his entire team, I hope that these young boys take this experience and learn from it. Learn how it feels, and grow to be the ones who’ll step in to say cut it out.

Update [2005-12-20 9:51:41 by olivia]: It was good to see this story making the sports news and news headlines last night.

Racial slurs that were levelled at a coach in a Quebec hockey arena recently have been condemned by players and managers across Canada. (link)

Reaction from Nolan’s players,

Players on his team said it was clear their coach was upset during the game.

“He was really upset by it and you could tell after periods he was just anxious to get back in the dressing room so he wouldn’t have to take the abuse from the fans. It was awful,” Wildcats centre Matt Eagles told CTV. (link)

Reaction from Chicoutimi,

“There’s no way we’ll tolerate such things. It’s disgraceful,” said Pierre Cardinal, media liaison for the Sagueneens.

The team also sent a letter to the Wildcats’ management and apologized for the fans and said the racism was not indicative of the team or the community.

“The disgraceful acts of some of our spectators do not represent the image of our fans and of our regional population. The Sagueneens organization understands and respects the multicultural dimension in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and in no way condones this type of behaviour,” reads the statement.

(…)

Moncton Wildcats General Manager Bill Schurman appreciates the Sagueneens’ apology, but is pressing for an investigation into the event. (link).

Reaction from the Commissioner of the QMJHL, who has convened the league’s disciplinary committee to investigate (link),

BOUCHERVILLE, Monday, December 19, 2005 (QMJHL) – The Commissioner of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, Mr. Gilles Courteau, issued a statement following the disgraceful gestures and comments directed towards Moncton Wildcats Head Coach Ted Nolan that took place during and after the game in Chicoutimi last Friday night.

Even though no formal complaint was lodge at the QMJHL, the Commissioner finds disgraceful the behaviour of a group of isolated individuals: “I find the events which occurred last Friday in Chicoutimi regrettable. The distasteful and disgraceful gestures and comments aimed at Head Coach Ted Nolan by an isolated group of spectators in no way represent the image of the Saguenéens organization, their players or the fans that attend QMJHL games.”

He added: “Like Mr. Ted Nolan, all players and team staff members are part of the QMJHL family -without allusion to their nationality or ethnic background.”

Furthermore, the Commissioner wishes to inform all contributors that this situation is considered very serious. As such, steps will be taken to insure that these types of incidents do not repeat themselves in both Chicoutimi and other QMJHL markets. The Saguenéens organization is already looking over any improvements it can make to solidify its security procedures. (link)

Last words from Nolan,

“Sometimes people think because it’s not a physical abuse, and it’s verbal, it’s not as bad, but the old nursery rhyme, ‘Sticks and stones may break your bones but names will never hurt,’ — that’s not true. Names do hurt,” he said. (link)

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