Bernie Parent just keeps living the life. Last night, he was seated with WAYNE GRETZKY at the Flyers-Maple Leafs game. Pictures via reader Mike, who is in the Flyers jersey, who will almost certainly tell me what the two legends talked about???
There will always be a few… and I’d expect that, especially when it comes to black hockey players, you’ll often be able to find at least some racist Tweets from fans of the predominately white sport. But, Penguins fans on Twitter took it to another level yesterday.
Over a dozen Tweets, all from different idiots, called Simmonds either a “nigger” or some variation of a primate.
You can see them all after the jump. Feel free to respond, too.
Sports Betting Updates
Unfortunately, this seems to happen to Wayne Simmonds every year.
Last season, a jackass from Canada was arrested for throwing a banana at Simmonds during a preseason game. Now some Czech folks find themselves in trouble for directing racist chants toward the Flyer.
As we mentioned a few weeks ago, Czech fans calling themselves “Black Commando” chanted “opice” at Simmonds during a game last month. Opice is monkey in English. According to a Czech report, translated, those fans were arrested yesterday and charged with "misdemeanor disorderly conduct, defamation of nation, race and other ethnic groups."
There were other chants and insults, though it appears the fans, who were drunk at the time, are saying those were part of tradition at the arena. Some tradition.
Accusations are members of the fans, who call themselves the Black squad. They come in a black hooded sweatshirt and black scarf with the character that will now be examined by experts. Most of them were drunk. For example Pribyl admitted ten beers and two shots, which, according to him only "mild drunkenness, because it is trained."
According to the plaintiff Simmonds also shouted "hu hu hu", "Ku Klux Klan" and the song "Dead Gypsy floats on water and it belongs to nature." Fans in court mostly agreed that they are cries that the many years screaming hockey what it is.
"Hu hu hu is chanting at weakening, it has cast an opponent. Ku Klux Klan has always sung to We Will Rock You. Racism has nothing to do," said Pribyl. Ditty about "Gypsy" by other fans are traditionally referee when viewers dissatisfied with him.
Simmonds said he didn’t know anything about the chants until a video was posted online. He has, however, since left the team, according to this report. His departure appears to be unrelated.
via Puck Daddy
2:00 mark
Let’s frown together.
From FlyersNation.net we get this video of Wayne Simmonds absolutely beating the shit out of someone in Germany.
UPDATE: via his Facebook page, Ralk Rinke, Simmonds' punching bag in this video, shows us his face after its meeting with Simmonds' fist:
via (@Sean_Leahy)
Other signs: Ilya Bryzgalov is playing in his second game for CSKA in Russia today. He blew a 2-0 lead and his team is currently trailing, 4-2. Ilya Kovalchuk has a hat trick against Bryz, proving that in Soviet Russia, some things never change!
And from the Twitter account of Eisbaren Berlin-DG (@Eisbaeren_B), we get these two nice to meet you, I’d rather not be seeing you videos from Danny Briere and Claude Giroux, introducing themselves to their new fans. Those short videos are after the jump.
If you feel like you are being cheated on right now, don’t worry, I do too. We’ll get through this together.
Wayne Simmonds was asked about racist Tweets fired out into the ether about Joel Ward, the Capitals forward who scored the Game 7 winner against the Bruins last night. Simmonds has worked out with Ward each of the last two summers.
“It’s the Internet. They can say whatever they want, and they don’t have to show their faces,” said Simmonds, who, like Ward, is one of 28 black players in the NHL. “It’s disgusting. Things like that have happened to me before. It’s not something you want to happen, but it’s sad in this day and age that it continues to happen.”
“It is what it is. People can be as gutless as they want,” he said. “They don’t have to show up. They just throw a comment out on the Internet and it’s getting kind of ridiculous. Social media is not meant for that. It’s for ‘Say, hey, nice score. Congratulations.’ You’re not supposed to throw things out like that.”
Gutless, seems to be the Flyers word du jour (mmm that sounds good and you’ll have that), but it works here. Though we're probably required to mention that Simmonds allegedly called Sean Avery a faggot during the preseason… which was a week after Simmonds had a banana thrown at him in Canada. Bigotry FTW!
As we pointed out earlier, there were similar Tweets about Simmonds during the Penguins series, but they weren't nearly to the level of what we saw from Boston fans last night. Of course, Simmonds didn’t score any overtime winners, so it’s entirely possible that we would have seen the same thing happen had he been the one to finish off the Penguins in historic and damning fashion, like his teammate Claude Giroux did.
It’s also worth noting that while last night’s Tweets mostly came from Bruins fans, this probably – unfortunately – would have happened in just about any city.
Here's an excerpt, courtesy of the Flyers, of Wayne Simmonds speaking to reporters today:
Q: Wayne, do you expect that, after what you saw yesterday, that this is the kind of playoff series you guys are going to get with them [Pittsburgh]?
“Yeah, definitely. It’s fun hockey, it’s like old school hockey. You come to the rink, you battle everyday, you know there’s going to be fights, you know you’re gonna get hit and you know you’re going to have to hit back and that’s the type of hockey that we like to play. So I think that suits our team well.”
Q: Were you going into yesterday’s game saying ‘I don’t want to get in a fight’ and then all of a sudden you’re fighting on of the toughest guys in the league…what’s going through your mind there?
“Obviously it wasn’t ideal for me to fight in that situation but, Danny took a solid hit there and obviously I’m going to go to my player’s defense, that’s the type of player I am. It doesn’t matter if I have stitches in my eyes, I have to go in there and stand up for my teammate.”
Q: Is it a real toll on you, whether or not to keep wearing a visor?
“Yeah, this year is my first year without a visor and I’ve taken a few shots to the face but…obviously it’s something I’ll keep mulling over but, I don’t know. I like it without the visor but then again, I want to have my eyes after I’m done playing hockey.”
Who needs eyes?!?
Lindy Ruff facepalm via (@g81ross)
Ryan Miller is dead. He was 31.
Miller is, by far, my favorite opponent for Philly teams to play against. He has it all: talented player at a position notorious for getting the best of local teams, whiny demeanor, vagina, and the propensity to completely and utterly lose his shit when he comes within 20 miles of our city’s center.
The Flyers beat the Sabres last night, 7-2. It would figure that, on the day I wrote 2,200 words about the issues plaguing the Flyers (and there are some), they would unload a steaming pile of goals all over the belly of my words. But that’s OK– I’m not complaining. I like it.
Things didn’t start off well for the Flyers, however. Early in the first period, it was Philly typical as Jason Pominville was left wide open for an easy one-timer:
If this happened in a video game, you would go on a message board somewhere and complain about the game’s shitty AI.
Then Bryz let in a Mister Softee, which was eerily reminiscent of (though significantly less important than) Claude Lemieux’s go-ahead goal in Game 5 of the 1995 Eastern Conference Finals. Chris Therien remembers it well:
I was on the couch, crying
It was all Flyers after the Sabres' two quick goals.
Max Talbot scored. Then, enter Wayne Simmonds, Silence of the Lambs:
Well helll-ooo, Clarice!
Simmonds, who needed 25 stitches to his upper and lower lips thanks to taking a puck to the face in pre-game warmups, netted the Flyers’ second and third goals, which, fittingly, proved to be the kill shots for Sabres goalie Jhonas Enroth. He would be replaced by our favorite son, Ryan Miller. Here’s a fun stat: It was the third time in the last four games against the Sabres, dating back to Game 7 last year, that the Flyers forced them to pull their goalie. Heh.
Remember the last time?
Canadian banana tosser
Chris Moorhouse just happened to purchase a banana before overtime and then tossed it at the lone black guy on the ice, Wayne Simmonds, just as the Flyer was participating in a shootout during a preseason game in Ontario. What a crazy coincidence!
But that's how it went down, according to Moorhouse's unfortunately-named lawyer, Faisal Jospeh.
Moorhouse pleaded guilty today to provincial trespassing (oh, Canada), and will have 90 days to pay $200 plus costs for the incident, which was deemed “not racially motivated.”
While it certainly wasn’t an act deserving jail time, or even any sort of probation (in my opinion), perhaps Moorehouse’s wallet could have sustained more punishment… with a forced donation to, oh I don’t know, the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation, or something.
More from Moorhouse's lawyer: [London Community News via Puck Daddy]
Following the judge’s decision, Joseph called the whole situation, and the media circus in general, a “gongshow.” His disgust is rooted in the assumptions made by both media outlets and the general public.
“Absolutely appalled. Absolutely ridiculous,” Joseph said of the backlash Moorhouse faced for a non-criminal act. “And for people to be giving death threats to his family – over a banana?.
“The banana was not loaded and nobody was killed.”
That other water fountain wasn't loaded either, but, you know…
