Personally, I think it’s fine that they didn’t punish him. Hockey is a sport where there is constant curses thrown around all the time, and if one crossed the line they shouldn’t be punished for it just because a curse was considered hurtful. Hurt feelings are not and shouldn’t be as important to the NHL as having players healthy and performing. It’s a sport not a dance.

Whats said on the ice stays on the ice. It wasn’t offensive anyway because Avery isn’t gay. (man that was hard to type). It would be totally out of line had Simmonds called an openly gay man a slur, but he didn’t. The only reason GLADD got involved is because Avery is a spokesperson. That group sure didn’t help publicize hockey in a good light. I think everyone has the right to live how they want to, but GLADD seriously needs to know when to pick their battles. The NHL did the right thing by standing ground and not suspending a player over a whole “he said” situation.

Actually, no. This is rather disgraceful.

First off, I don’t see how anyone can argue with a straight face that “what goes on the ice, stays on the ice.” There are TV cameras, radio broadcasts, thousands of people at the rink, and many more watching the game. This isn’t some secluded area away from larger society. I understand that players aren’t role models of larger society, but they are professionals playing in front of the masses. They should act as such – and so requiring and expecting that they don’t use slurs of any kind, be it about sexuality, race, or ethnic origins really isn’t asking for much. Feel free to disagree, but I don’t believe a hockey player loses their decency when they’re on the ice.

Second, players are taught to control their bodies and their reactions when dealing with officials (cussing off a ref is a great way to get an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, oh, and anger the coach). Yes, I understand that when people get mad, they say things they don’t necessarily mean. However, Simmonds could have yelled hundreds of other things at Avery – he specifically chose that word. Who he said it to is immaterial; he should be held to account on it.

By the way, there was no need for Avery to say anything because it was clear on video what he said – people knew it online instantly. Insisting there was not enough evidence is akin to peeing on my leg and telling me it’s raining. Speaking of, and third, I’m pretty confident that a slur isn’t ever a compliment. Nobody yells it at anyone to be nice or farcical; they say it to anger their opponent, to trash talk them, etc. At the least, it was not in this case. Simmonds wasn’t being coy, he was outright yelling at Avery – in anger. He knew full well he wanted to get a rise out of Avery and he crossed a line in doing so. If we are serious about wanting players to be open about who they are, to want fans from all walks of life enjoy the hockey game, then the we and the league needs to be serious about stamping out slurs. They add nothing to the game. The lack of action against it reflects poorly on not just Simmonds, but the Flyers, the NHL, and the many who want to sweep this under the rug or pretend it was no big deal.

I find it funny that someone making the arguement against calling someone a demeaning name…goes and says “are you really just that dumb.”

Way to prove your point?

I’m not actually offended by that…I am making a point tho. People says things out of anger that they shouldn’t. Ex: People who vote “yes” and are pro gay marriage still slip and say offensive words. Its an imperfect world. It happens. To act like this doesn’t happen EVERY GAME in the NHL is naive. If a suspension or fine or whatever was handed out it would have to be handed out every, single, game.

I am not for anti-gay language.
It is ignorant and makes the person using it come off as a bigot.
But I don’t think the NHL could of handed out any kind of penalty for THIS situation.

“With all due respect…”
…God I hate that line.

There’s a few things to address here: I think GLAAD and the HRC are taking the absolute wrong approach to this, but that’s not unusual. Civil Rights organizations in the US today are pushing more and more in their public language to maximize what they feel is their effectiveness. What do I mean by that? The “I support X issue, ergo I am the voice of X issue, ergo if you disagree with me you must OPPOSE X issue, ergo you are a bigot.” It’s a nonsense and it detracts from the issue.

I say this as a person who is pro gay rights and, hell, up until 2 weeks ago one of my apartment roommates of 3+ years was gay. We talked about the issue a lot, and he actually concurred with the above and preached it himself. The logic is old school from when things were much, much worse. That’s not saying today is hunky dory, it isn’t. But things used to be much much worse. As such, as things improve slowly but surely the message has to change, but those organizations might be perceived as “soft”.

What GLAAD and the HRC should have done is said “We’re disappointed in the decision, but we have contacted the NHL and expressed that we would be highly interested in working with them to remove this type of behavior and culture from hockey.” and then if the NHL doesn’t respond and work with them, slowly up the pressure until the NHL’s basically in a public-relations slow-cooker.

Instead, this attitude only makes people clam up because they’re being told: If you agree with my view, but disagree with my method or conclusion, you’re a bigot." Think about it from a business perspective: The NHL has an upcoming CBA negotiation with the NHLPA, and given the new TV contract, the NBA’s upset etc, it stands poised to do really well. However, as a response to this behavior, they punish Simmonds. What does this mean?

It means they’ve created a policy by their action. It may not be written, but the precedent is now there: We will review video and if a player, by video alone and reading his lips, mouths a racial/sexual obscenity, it will be punished.

Well… are we doing this proactively or only when it’s brought up by an outside party/player complaint? If it’s only the latter, is the NHL truly doing enough? Is it just saving face or actually working to eliminate discrimination?

How seriously do we take fan complaints? If a Devils fan contacts us and swears up and down he was sitting in the seats by the benches and heard Pronger call Brodeur a gay slur, do they investigate or do they assume the fan might just be nuts? We all know that every team has members of it’s fanbase that are less than rational. Does the NHL have the staff to handle this, becuase if that fan then stands up and says “Well, I’m a (insert race/class/gender/orientation) fan and they IGNORED my complaint!”, regardless of whether they’re right or wrong, the NHL just lost face. I reserved judgement for Simmonds until I saw the video, but there are a LOT of people in the world who will believe anything an organization that labels itself as a rights organization says or reports, without objectively looking at the evidence.

Here’s another item: How fair is it between players? What happens if Jagr mouths off the same as Pronger… but says it in Czech? What happens if Brodeur responds… in French? Then Bobrovsky shoots off a slur… in Russian. Then Timmonen joins in with Finnish, Larsson throws it back in Swedish, then Zubruis joins Larsson and everyone wonders what the hell they speak in Lithuania.

Does the NHL have the staff capable of reviewing all of the above and making a judgement on lip reading alone, in all those languages, who said what? Hell, lets say they don’t even say it in their native tongue, what about broken English? I still can’t understand a word Jagr says and he’s speaking English (supposedly). Can they judge broken English? Or, how do they judge for goalies wearing a cage?

Simply put, you can’t just throw in a policy like that and expect it to in any way be fair for every player. This is something that takes a lot of work. If the NHL does throw it in, and it upsets a lot of players because they can’t handle the above and some get punished, some not, it could become a sticking point for the NHLPA and affect the CBA.

Some people might say: “Who cares, should we allow discrimination to fester simply because it’s difficult?!” Absolutely not, but we shouldn’t rush in headlong either. I can tell you from life experience that I have watched people descend into the bowels of racism and homophobia… AFTER policies were put in place to try and combat those very ideals when the policies were ill-thought out and hasty. Basically, it backfired.

My final word on this, and it’s another item where I express my displeasure with these “Rights organizations”. Because frankly, half the time I don’t think they care nearly as much about equality as they do their own political power base. They may be started and supported with the best of intentions, but many of them are corrupt to the core. And it’s evident in how they’ve approached this situation. They’re seeking to embarass and cajole the NHL through bad press into making a policy, but the policy fixes nothing.

Ohh, sure, the NHL might put in a policy and you’ll never hear those slurs again. GLAAD and the HRC would tout that as a victory, but it’s not. However that’s not their goal. As long as it APPEARS that the players are no longer flinging slurs, they can put that into a nice press release and feel empowered by the response. But if those players are still THINKING along the same lines? It means nothing and that’s no victory. You’ve changed nothing and society is no better.

This is not to say there should not be rules of decorum, but that’s how you have to arrange these issues: You can feel how you want, but for decorum and civility’s sake, don’t say it. Find another way to fling insults, there are varied ways. The organizations can then work, over many years and generations of players, to educate them and try to move as many away from that viewpoint until it, hopefully, eventually disappears. That’s a real victory, not to tell people they can’t feel a certain way (especially when they have a legal right to), but to try and educate them to be better.

But that doesn’t sell well in the media. It doesn’t meet this ridiculous “We can have equality tomorrow!” mentality these idiotic organizations spout. You can’t. You cannot change a culture overnight or even over one generation unless you’re going to be flat out oppressive. Unless you’re willing to be the kind of intolerant bigot that you claim to be fighting.

Simmonds did something royally stupid, yes. Does it mean I’ve lost respect for him? Some, but not all. His handling of the recent “Nanner-trebuchet” incident was wonderful, and I’d like to see it elsewhere. But I don’t expect him to be perfect either. We’re all flawed, we’re all imperfect (except Pronger, don’t elbow me bro!). We all should work on those flaws. We’ll get absolutely nowhere by saying “You need to do all of this 100% correctly or I have no respect for you!” because we’re setting a standard we can’t meet. Go through the ranks of these organizations. I know I’ve known of NAACP members who were homophobes. I’ll bet there are GLAAD members who are racists. I’ll bet there are members of any organization, be it civil, political, sports-related, religious etc, who have glaring issues.

Let’s address them in a calm, rational, civilized manner.