Recently, hockey player J.T. Brown was claimed off waivers by the Anaheim Ducks from Tampa Bay Lightning after only posting four points in 24 games.
Brown, however, didn’t make headlines for his play this season. Following the lead of fellow kneeling African Americans in the NFL on Sept. 28, 2017, Brown raised his fist during the U.S. national anthem in protest against “police brutality and racial profiling” and discrimination in general during a preseason game against the Florida Panthers. He did it again during a regular season game on Oct. 8, also against the Panthers.
The protest sent shockwaves around the hockey world, with many fans divided about his intentions and whether it was disrespectful to the U.S. Armed Forces and police.
Eventually, the interest in the discussion moved away as the season went on but has reared it’s ugly head after Brown was picked up by the Ducks.
Most of the comments from armchair pundits came in the like of “I hope he sticks to hockey this time” or something about professional athletes shouldn’t have an opinion on political matters. Except those commentators are wrong. It wasn’t hockey players who initially brought social politics into the game. It was the spectators.
Just ask Wayne Simmonds of the Philadelphia Flyers who had bananas thrown at him from the stands or Joel Ward of the San Jose Sharks who was met with the screams of racists when he eliminated the Boston Bruins from the playoffs in 2012. Or just ask Brown how people reacted with death threats on social media when he made his stand.
Politics has always been in sports, whether it was the so-called “gentlemen’s agreement” to keep black Americans from joining Major League Baseball until Jackie Robinson in 1945 or the highly charged clashes between the Catholic Republican supported Glasgow Celtic and the Protestant Unionist supported Glasgow Rangers in Scottish soccer.
Hockey is no exception. On March 17, 1955, Montreal Canadiens fans rioted after Maurice “Rocket” Richard was suspended for the remainder of the season after hitting a linesman. The fans believed the suspension to be motivated by Richard’s French Canadian ethnicity during a time when tension between Anglo and Franco-Canadians was high. The riot resulted in an estimated $100,000 worth of property damage, 37 injuries and 100 arrests.
In regards to Brown and the other countless athletes who are protesting discrimination today, fans shouldn’t be telling them to shut up. They should be standing with them, heads-bowed like Peter Norman did during the 1968 Summer Olympics.