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A Canadian Team Removed John Vanbiesbrouck’s Banner and Number from the Rafters

Kevin Kinkead

By Kevin Kinkead

Published:

Lou Capozzola-USA TODAY Sports

Saw this on the timeline:

Vanbiesbrouck played a couple of seasons with the Flyers in the late 90s, though he was better known for his time with the Rangers and Panthers.

The statement is in response to a decision that nobody knew much about. Turns out the Canadian hockey team where JVB began his career, the Soo Greyhounds, had his jersey hanging in the rafters, and retired his number, but at the end of 2023 they quietly took it down and didn’t put it back up.

It all goes back to an incident from the early 2000s in which Vanbiesbrouck called Trevor Daley the N-word while he was coaching the Greyhounds. Wikipedia usually stinks, but this is an accurate recap:

“When he retired from the NHL, Vanbiesbrouck took over as the head coach and director of hockey operations for the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. In February 2003, the team had a record of 18–24–4–3. One month later, on March 7, the Greyhounds lost 6–1 to the Guelph Storm. After the game, Vanbiesbrouck used a racial slur in expressing his anger with Trevor Daley, a black player and Greyhounds’ team captain, to two of Daley’s white teammates. Daley was told of the remarks by his teammates and was advised to leave the team by his agent Bobby Orr. Daley returned home to Toronto and informed the commissioner of the OHL about the remarks.

The day after Daley left the team, Vanbiesbrouck resigned his positions as head coach and general manager and sold his ownership stake in the team. In his apology, Vanbiesbrouck stated, “I used the ‘N’ word instead of calling him Trevor, I used it just not thinking.”

The current owner of the team, Tim Lukenda, emailed The Sault Star earlier this month and said the banner came down because “we just thought it was the right thing to do at this time… Basically, we want to make sure we are creating a welcoming environment for all of our guests, players, former players and families.” He said the jersey number would remain retired.

So this is really a question of “why now?” Why not remove the banner last year, or the year before, or at any other time? The incident with Daley goes back more than 20 years now.

The answer, obviously, is that a portion of society looks differently at these incidents in 2024 than it did 10, 15, or 20 years ago.

Interestingly enough, JVB is currently serving as USA Hockey’s assistant executive director, and in scanning social media while learning more about this story, it seems as though there’s a portion of people who would like to see him removed from that role. This really looks like a classic “cancel culture” type of conflict, where the people on one side will say there needs to be more accountability and more repercussion for these types of transgressions, no matter when they occurred, while the other side is saying stuff like this:

Kevin Kinkead
Kevin Kinkead

Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com

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