"Even the Security Personnel Was Laughing At the Racist Remarks"

ik - this is sickening. Even the security guards, eh?

Quebec hockey team apologizes for fan racism

CTV.ca News Staff

The management of a Quebec hockey team whose fans slammed an aboriginal coach with racial slurs recently has called the actions disgraceful.

At a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League game Friday between the Moncton Wildcats and the Chicoutimi Sagueneens, fans let fly with a barrage of racial slurs against Wildcats coach Ted Nolan, an aboriginal Canadian of Ojibwa descent.

Nolan once coached the Buffalo Sabres and was named the National Hockey League's coach of the year. He was left stunned and shaken by the racism, the likes of which he said he has not experienced since childhood.

In a letter sent to the Moncton Wildcats, the Chicoutimi Sagueneens management apologized for the fans and said the racism was not indicative of the team or the community.

"The disgraceful acts of some of our spectators do not represent the image of our fans and of our regional population. The Sagueneens organization understands and respects the multicultural dimension in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and in no way condones this type of behaviour," reads the statement.

The racist slurs began during the game, which the Wildcats lost 4-3, and continued even as Nolan boarded the team bus afterwards.

Nolan said it began with some fans imitating a "tomahawk chop," others pretending they were shooting at him with a bow and arrow, and others doing a "warrior cry." All while fans leveled derogatory remarks about his ethnic heritage.

The racism cut deep, he told CTV Atlantic.

"You know, people always say sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt you. But that's not true at all," Nolan said. "Names do hurt and when I started hearing those things it took me back to when you were a 16-year-old kid and didn't know how to deal with it, and the only way you know how to deal with it is to cry yourself to sleep, and here I was a grown man, 47-years-old, going through the same situation right now and I don't really know how to handle it."

Nolan said security personnel at the Centre Georges Vezina arena were even laughing at the remarks.

Players on his team said it was clear their coach was upset during the game.

"He was really upset by it and you could tell after periods he was just anxious to get back in the dressing room so he wouldn't have to take the abuse from the fans. It was awful," Wildcats centre Matt Eagles told CTV Atlantic.

Moncton Wildcats General Manager Bill Schurman appreciates the Sagueneens' apology, but is pressing for an investigation into the event.

Since the story broke, more than 300 of letters of support for Nolan have been received by the Wildcats' Moncton office.

With a report from CTV Atlantic's Monica Verma