Banana Thrown At Black NHL Player

    Last night I wrote a blog about the disgraceful chants about death and murder that took place between English soccer fans of Leeds United and Manchester United.  I stated that, no matter how bad the rivalry in our sports, this kind of stuff never really happens in the U.S.  I also said that we have some class compared to the average European fans.  After seeing the video of a banana being thrown at Wayne Simmonds last night, one of the few black players in the NHL, I couldn't believe my eyes.
    The banana was thrown while Simmonds was all alone on the ice for a shootout attempt in overtime in a game between the Detroit Redwings and Philadelphia Flyers.  I thought to myself, "You gotta be kidding me, I just wrote about the disgraceful European soccer fans saying this stuff never happens in here."  Then I realized that the game was actually played in Ontario, Canada and felt a little better about the blog post I wrote, and U.S. fans.  It could have been an American fan who was attending the game but I highly doubt it.  I guarantee this was a Canadian, who in my mind is just like a European.  The damn Montreal Canadiens take dives in hockey like a bunch of Europeans playing soccer.
    My generation really never experienced racism too much in sports.  I can only imagine the days of Jackie Robinson, as well as many other black players, coming up and playing baseball in "the white mans game."  The harassment and threats they must have received cannot be measured.  While I was growing up, most of my favorite players in every sport were black including guys like Paul Pierce, Antoine Walker, Dee Brown, Curtis Martin, Mo Vaughn, Pedro Martinez, Willie McGinest, Chris Slade, and many many more.  What was missing from the list were hockey players.  To this day, hockey is still played by 99 percent white people and remains basically the only major sport in America that racism still strongly exists.
    In an interview after the game, Wayne Simmonds commented on the flying banana; "I caught it from the side of my eye.  It was a banana.  Hopefully, that wasn't directed towards me being black, because if it was, that's just somebody being ignorant."
    Whoever threw the banana must have brought it into the area with the intentions of throwing it at Simmonds.  Who has a banana at a sporting event, never mind a hockey game?  I have been to hundreds of major sporting events and not once have I seen someone eating a banana.  The fan knew what he was doing before he entered the arena and the shootout provided him with the perfect opportunity.  A lot of respect goes out to Wayne Simmonds who could have gone nuts about this incident and he would have been justified in doing so.  Simmonds went on to say, "When you're a black man playing in a predominantly white man's sport, you've got to come to expect things like that."
    I guarantee this isn't the first time Simmonds has been heckled about his skin color.  He has probably heard this a million times, starting with Pee Wee hockey.  The problem is that every black kid who has ever wanted to play hockey gets grief about his race and most likely decides to stop playing at a young age.  Players like Wayne Simmonds and Kevin Weekes are two of the few black players that were able to make it all the way to the NHL.  Props to them for keeping with it as they make the great sport of hockey even better.  Hopefully this is the last racist act we see in hockey, and all other sports, this year.  Sadly, that will not likely be the case.