As for your take, Danny, I can understand it, but at the end of the day, what you’re pushing basically leaves people forever afraid that they’ll be punished for accidental implications. You’re saying a “negative connotation” is worthy enough, but where does that lead? Are NHLers supposed to take away the message that they need to be cautious about using the word “banana” around black people for fear of suspension? Is society as a whole supposed to tread lightly around the idea of inviting black people to partake of a fried chicken meal for fear of offending them? Please. This is fucking ridiculous. Not only is there nothing even close to clear intent present in Barch’s comment, but the idea of punishing him for “connotation” or “implication” just creates a priviledged class of people in the NHL who everyone else has to tread lightly around because of their skin colour.

P.K. Subban didn’t give a shit. He’s intelligent enough to know what Barch meant and unlike all the paranoid white people in the head office looking to “set a good example” of political hypercorrectness, he isn’t whining about imaginary racism. The rest of us should take his lead.

I’m not saying Barch is not a racist d!ckhead, I’m just saying I have doubt.

That being said, big ups to Suppan for downplaying it with the media. (& I’m a Bruins fan who can’t stand him)

Family Fued, 100 people surveyed….top three answers on the board.

Name something you slip on.

What would be the number one answer not called “ice”?

Though it’s more interesting that the players don’t complain about it. It could mean a lot of things.

And, if you’re famous and you say something questionable, it will get questioned to the point where you’re apologizing. The media whips up a frenzy whenever SOMEONE cries racism. And businesses always decides on damage control whenever charges of racism appear.

The result is a huge number of statements that whites get punished for saying. Which isn’t to say that Barch doesn’t deserve punishment. Maybe he does–we don’t know the culture inside the NHL to that degree. At best, he probably should have known better, especially given the Simmonds incident earlier. At worst, he did it on purpose.

I’m just saying that it can be really easy for whites to say the wrong thing by accident and without malice.

And yes, this is generally a white problem. The media doesn’t destroy any other color for saying similar things. Which is racism against whites. But nobody likes to talk about that, because they’d rather foment discord instead of realizing that we’re all in this together.

Racism is bad–we all realize this. And yet in trying to stop one form of racism, we perpetuate another.

The worlds getting ridiculous.

When pple fall down on the ice, normal questions are if the ice monster got ya…if the blue line (or red line) got ya…havent heard of the banana peel one, but guaranteed it wasnt racial.

This is dumb.

This is no different than homophobic comments. We all grew up with it, but most adults understand that this is no longer tolerated in public. The really remarkable part is that you would have hoped the ship had sailed on racist comments a long time ago.

Frankly, Barch deserves more games off for simply being too dumb to understand the above issues