Yesterday. It was literally god damned yesterday’s FTB where Hardev described the racist incident in the AHL where Boko Imama — who has been the target of now three racist incidents in his professional career — was the victim of a racist gesture by an opponent, who was suspended for 30 games.

Hockey just can’t stop being racist. I almost photoshopped a meme with the “it’s been 0 days since the last racist incident in hockey” but didn’t want to make any humour out of this. We’ve had our fair share of minorities writing here at PPP. We’ve had numerous commenters and lurkers who are also minorities. It’s exhausting for me to see this come up all the time, and I can only imagine how they must feel having likely been the target of racism more than once in their lives, including as participants and/or fans in hockey.

Well, here we go again. Last night in an ECHL game between the South Carolina Stingrays and the Jacksonville Icemen, a fight broke out in overtime. It involved former Toronto Marlies defenseman, Jordan Subban. He described what happened in a post-game tweet:

The player he tagged is Jacob Panetta, a 25 year old defenseman from Belleville, Ontario. He was undrafted to the NHL and playing in his first full professional season since finishing his NCAA career. The account that Subban tagged of Panetta’s has already been deleted as of writing this.

This comes after more incidents of this nature have come to light, not just in North America or professional hockey either. I don’t know if players are more willing to speak out about it, for themselves or their teammates, or if social media, camera phones and streaming services make it easier for more people to find and record them, but this is absolutely something that should be called out, and the perpetrators named and shamed. 30 game suspensions clearly aren’t sending the message, nor is the litany of “sensitivity training” programs or other PR bunk that leagues and teams like to tout.

Leafs Trade Targets: the Jake Muzzin Support Group | by Hardev

Leafs with a convincing win against the grinding Islanders | by Katya

MLHS Podcast Episode 38—Defense trade targets for the Maple Leafs | by MLHS

Two Chicago Blackhawks players that the Leafs should be interested in that aren’t Dylan Strome | by TLN

‘He seems to have no real limit’: Rielly makes the most of more minutes | by TSN

Mike Johnson 20 Questions: On Maple Leaf Gardens’ showers, meeting ‘Big Walt,’ and the perils of a common name | by The Athletic

(Video) 32 Thoughts: Staal expected to be among players named to Canadian men’s Olympic team on Tuesday | by Sportsnet

From that same 32 Thoughts intermission segment...

I’d be real curious which team this is... and I have a sinking suspicion it may be the Florida Panthers. They have a slew of former first rounders who are good-ish but won’t break their team. Owen Tippett, Gregori Denisenko, and Olli Juolevi. They could also part with their most recent first rounder, Mackie Samoskevich, who is good but a lower first round pick and won’t cost them a player from their roster like Tippett. And they would greatly improve their defense, which is pretty top heavy at the moment with Ekblad and Weegar.

Enjoy your Sunday everyone!

From The Branches