Former first round draft pick Colten Teubert and current National Hockey League (NHL) superstar P.K. Subban were teammates on the gold medal winning Team Canada at the 2009 World Junior Championship, which took place right here in Ottawa. There had apparently been some ill will on that team towards Subban, which resurfaced on Feb. 10, after Subban’s Nashville Predators visited his old team, the Montreal Canadiens.
Montreal forward Brendan Gallagher was bombarded in the post-game with numerous questions regarding Subban, and was visibly frustrated that reporters were focusing on the former player, and not the actual game which occurred. This was when Teubert reached out to Gallagher via Twitter, with a tweet saying “Don’t let Monday get to you @BGALLY.”
The term “Monday” is a racial slur towards Black people which many people, including myself, were unaware of. But, it was reported that a few of the players on that 2009 World Junior team allegedly used it to refer to Subban.
Teubert later claimed ignorance, backtracking on Twitter saying that he just viewed Monday as a day of the week, despite the fact that Feb. 10 was a Saturday. While this may be true, there is a reason why it might not be. In 2008, comedian Russell Peters made a joke during a show where he talked about someone referring to Black people as “Monday” and when Peters asked why, the response was “because nobody likes Mondays.”
Considering that this show aired less than one year before the World Junior team consisting of Teubert and Subban took took to the ice, even if Teubert wasn’t the first player to use the slur to refer to Subban, Peters highlighting the term is a reason to believe that there was malicious intent behind the word’s use on Twitter.
As no player was or will be held accountable, this sheds light on a bigger issue in hockey. The NHL is a very white-dominated league. In 2011, 93 per cent of the players in the league were white. However, the problem is that many times these white players are held to a different standard than non-white players. A key phrase here is ‘character issues.’
While playing in Montreal, Subban constantly had his character questioned, based off pure speculation about his interaction with teammates. How can one truly know the ‘character’ of a player unless they are constantly present with the team?
A second example is another Black player, Evander Kane who currently plays with the San Jose Sharks and formerly played in Winnipeg. During the most recent NHL lockout, he took a photo where he pretended that a stack of money was a cell phone. This photo was deemed by some to be offensive, as it was during the lockout and was just one of many times during Kane’s career that his character was brought into question.
The issue arises when these incidents are compared to some questionable things done by white players. Dallas Stars centre Tyler Seguin has not once, but twice made homophobic comments on Twitter. He also made a comment about international players saying “Guys always talk in different languages. Sometimes you just put your foot down. We’re in North America, we’re not going to have a team of cliques.”
During the 2017 playoffs, Anaheim Ducks centre Ryan Getzlaf used a homophobic slur towards an official and was fined $10,000. In 2014, former Los Angeles Kings defenseman Slava Voynov was arrested for domestic violence, and eventually served jail time. While he is now suspended from the NHL, he still plays hockey in Russia.
A common theme amongst these incidents is even when a white player is punished, they face no further scrutiny about their character and their careers carry on, while non-white players such as Subban and Kane continue to face constant unfair criticism over pure speculation.
This is where change needs to happen. All players should face the same consequences and public judgement, despite any differences in race and background.
