How an incident in PEI put hockey’s changing culture on display

Jordan Last week, a group of NHL players of colour rolled out a gripping new campaign, perhaps without even realizing just how timely it was.

Tape out Hate Clip Racism, ignorance, hate. It has no place in our game.

Jordan At the same time as the Hockey Diversity Alliance was putting the racist messages that some players receive on full display, a real time example of just that began to make headlines out of Prince Edward Island.

News Clip

Anchor On and off the ice, Keegan Mitchell says he always stands up for his friends. He has it tattooed on his torso, “stand by those who stand by you.” And he says that’s what he was trying to do when he defended his teammate. That player doesn’t want to be named, but says he was the subject of an anti Asian remark during a game.

Keegan I was like, there’s no place for this in the game. You shouldn’t be saying that. Just basically what everyone should now, I said. And then I slashed him.

Jordan Anyone who has played hockey or any contact sport knows that sometimes you have to stand up for a teammate. Sometimes you get punished for it. Sometimes you deserve it, sometimes not. But when Hockey PEI Served out equal suspensions for both a racial slur and a slash from an opposing player in response, that sent a message that Keegan Mitchell felt was wrong. And so he sent the governing body of his league a message back. And then the whole thing exploded, and it became a perfect example of how hockey culture can be a living, breathing and changing thing. And that’s hopeful.

I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings, this is The Big Story. Keegan Mitchell plays hockey for the Sherwood Metros, a junior team on Prince Edward Island. Hi, Keegan.

Keegan Hi, how are you?

Jordan I’m doing really well, thanks. Thanks for taking the time for us.

Keegan No problem.

Jordan Why don’t you start… we’re going to get into what happened on the ice and everything that happened afterwards and a little bit about hockey culture, but maybe just for starters, tell me about the teammate that you were standing up for. You don’t have to identify him, but what’s he like?

Keegan He’s basically a brother to me. He’s lived with me for a while, and he’s lived on PEI, so we’ve kind of grown close and definitely become brothers.

Jordan So tell me in as much detail as you can what happened that night.

Keegan Yeah, so it was December 17. It was a game in Kensington on Prince Edward Island. I was sitting on the bench, and then I heard kind of down the other side of the bench, my teammate come off the ice and tell my coach what someone just said to him and definitely caught my ear and a few others on the bench, too, and definitely made me mad and angry just hearing, like, what was said. From there, our coach called the ref over on the next whistle. He then took that information over to the other bench and told them about what was supposedly said, I guess, in his case, and told their bench. And then the play went on and then is when I went on the ice and kind of confronted the guy, saying, this isn’t going to fly with us or anyone. Like racism has no part in the game. And then the play went on after that, and then I went over to the guy and I slashed him and broke my stick over his leg to kind of send the message, I guess.

Jordan And when we’re talking about what was said, you don’t have to use the exact terms if you don’t want to, but what was the nature of the attack?

Keegan It was basically suggesting that he should go back to where he came from.

Jordan When you got back on the ice and you went over and you confronted him and then you slashed him, what was going through your head? Or were you just kind of acting off instinct?

Keegan It was definitely, I think, more instinct. I’ve done this for many years kind of standing up for my teammates. It’s kind of been my job. I definitely knew I had to do something because this isn’t something just to be swept under the rug. It has to be confronted.

Jordan And so you and the player who used the slur, what kind of penalties did you guys get?

Keegan So I got a slashing penalty and I was kicked out of the game, and then I got a two game suspension for it, and I kind of knew it was going to turn into that and that was fine. I gladly took the suspension just because I know I was standing up for my teammate in a certain way that I chose. But then I got word that the opposing player who used the slur also got a two game suspension, and I just felt like that really wasn’t fair. So then that’s when I kind of went towards the social media route to handle things.

Jordan You don’t have to read the whole post to me, but tell me about writing it. Tell me what you wanted to get across and how you felt when you were posting it.

Keegan So before I posted it, everything was gone through my teammate, if it was okay with him, does he accept if I do this? And he truly did. He allowed me and thought it was going to be a good thing to kind of shed light on this topic. But I must say, right after the game that happened, I didn’t think of just instantly going to social media about it because obviously I didn’t know the suspensions yet. But once I got word that Hockey PEI only suspended that player for two games, I felt like I should be voicing this situation. And I guess my goal of the post was to kind of call out Hockey PEI for being unfair and not practicing what they preach, which was a zero tolerance for this type of behaviour.

Jordan In a second, we’ll get to what they did next and how this whole thing exploded. But I just want to ask you about the last line of your post, and I’ll read it here. It says, “finally, hockey PEI, when are you going to wake up and realize that this pitiful suspension is making our whole community look racist?” And I want to ask you about this because you’re a white hockey player. It’s a very white sport. Are you aware of the kind of stereotypes that get thrown around about hockey locker rooms and white Jock culture? And is that going through your mind as you’re trying to sort of combat that?

Keegan Yeah. I guess it’s definitely in my mind how I said this pitiful suspension is making our whole community look racist. It’s because only a month or two prior to this whole situation, there was another instance on PEI where a kid from Halifax was subjected to some racist comments, and it was publicly aware that Hockey PEI didn’t handle it right. So having another thing like this happen that they don’t do the same thing, it’s making it look like hockey players on PEI are racist as well. But in reality, it’s only a very few amount of people who I guess, say this type of thing. But I think the large majority of players on PEI are definitely not racist. They’re just out there to play the game. Whoever’s on the ice with them or against them, it doesn’t matter. But it just seemed like if Hockey PEI was going to suspend me equally to someone who said something racist, it just showed that they didn’t take this type of thing seriously, in my opinion, I guess.

Jordan So you called them out, and what did they do next?

Keegan After the post, I got a letter to me through my manager of my team that basically said that I was suspended indefinitely from all Hockey PEI sanctioned activities, and also that the other team we were playing against was seeking legal counsel for this whole situation against me, I guess.

Jordan What did you think when that happened? What was going through your head? I know that this was about a social media policy, at least according to the league at first. Did you expect something like this to happen?

Keegan I definitely didn’t expect it. Now they say they have a social media policy that we sign a contract for, but I’ve never seen it, to be honest. It’s probably very fine print on the registration things we signed at the start of the year. But I was never aware of it, so I didn’t know kind of what was going to come out of it. But even if I did know about it, I still feel like I definitely would have gone to social media route to kind of handle this whole situation.

Jordan You’re talking to me now from PEI. I’m in Toronto. I’m not the first member of the media from somewhere else in the country that has reached out to you about this story. How did it blow up and what happened when it did?

Keegan I guess a lot of people just started liking and sharing it, not only on Facebook, where I first posted it, but then Instagram, too, where I posted it a few minutes later. And from there, I just got a bunch of messages on Facebook and from people just saying that they support me in what I’m doing. And this needs to be handled properly and kind of Hockey PEI needs to do the right thing and reverse the indefinite suspension and then the suspension on the other player as well.

Jordan And so did they?

Keegan Yeah. So then I guess they called me personally, which was the first time I heard from them personally about this whole thing. And they just apologized for the way they handled things. And they were kind of commending me on calling it out so that they could fix it. And they told me my indefinite suspension was reversed and it was no longer a factor. But I’d still have to serve my two game suspension for slashing, which I knew wasn’t going to be gone. And they also levelled up the suspension of the opposing player to five games instead of two.

Jordan Do you think they started taking this more seriously? How did you feel about that response?

Keegan I think after kind of the awareness that I brought to it, I hope they’re going to take it more seriously. I think I brought it to a certain level of broadcasting across Canada that they kind of got all eyes on them from now on. And if they ever did this again, I think there would be definitely some changes within their organization.

Jordan I want to talk to you about hockey culture for a minute because I think what you did is a great example of some of the things that people are saying has to happen in terms of zero tolerance in the game. And you mentioned you’ve been playing for years, standing up for your teammates for years. As you’ve gone through your hockey career, have you seen changes, especially over the last five years or so, in terms of what’s acceptable to say in the dressing room, what’s acceptable to say on the ice? I’m trying to put a pulse on the culture and see if all this conversation that we’re having online and elsewhere actually kind of makes a difference in the dressing rooms and on the ice.

Keegan Yeah. I guess in my own experience, I’ve never experienced racism in the dressing room within my own team. It’s never been an issue there, but I’ve definitely heard different comments over the years. But I guess at the time I was younger and honestly didn’t know too much about what those things meant or the way it makes other people feel so I guess as I got older, I kind of realized that this hurts people. And especially since it happened to my teammate, who’s basically my brother, kind of really hit home this time.

Jordan How does the culture of a hockey locker room come together to be… I know it can be a nasty place based on some of the stories we’ve heard from all sorts of professional leagues, but also that if the right people are in there working for it, it can be a supportive place. And you mentioned yourself, you’re somebody who likes to engage with your teammates. What makes the difference in a locker room?

Keegan I think definitely the right leaders in the dressing room, having the right leaders kind of speak out and bring the team together and kind of allow everyone to have their say in certain things. And I guess someone who can pull the team together, whether it be the coaches, the managers or players, if they can really get the attention of all our players and send the message of whatever we need to do on the ice in a good way. I think that’s how teams are brought closer together. I’ve always been taught by certain coaches that if something happens to one of your teammates, it better be the whole team going in there sticking up for them instead of nobody doing anything. I was actually told by one of my former coaches who played in the NHL for a little bit, he said once that if something happens to one of our players, if all our players on the ice showed up to that one person right after what happened, they’d probably never do it again because they’re intimidated by a whole team. They’re saying, oh, Geez, if I do this, then the whole team is going to come after me. I’d rather not do that. So I guess that’s always been in my mind, too. If our whole team can stick up for ourselves and our teammates, then it makes for a better team for sure.

Jordan You mentioned the initial slash itself, that you’re kind of acting on instinct and sticking up for your teammates and against racism. How does it feel now after it’s a month later? You’ve been in the papers. This has obviously gotten a lot of coverage. How does it feel to have so many people holding you up as an example of kind of how to be a good guy in the game?

Keegan It definitely means a lot, and I appreciate all the messages that people sent me with support and then just other people reaching out to kind of talk to me about it. It was definitely good to know that I had a lot of people behind me and I wasn’t fighting this fight alone.

Jordan At the same time as this incident was making headlines, the Tape Out Hate campaign launched. Have you seen it? And if you have, what do you think of it?

Keegan I have seen it, and I think it’s a great thing. And Akim Aliu, who is one of the head people, actually reached out to me and we’ve had a phone call. He told me that he really appreciates what I’ve done and he was also sending along a message from Nazem Kadri and Matt Dumba, who are also in the NHL right now. He said that I have their support as well and we’ve talked about the whole situation and definitely going to try and still keep in touch with him and kind of do whatever I can do to promote that too.

Jordan The last thing I want to ask you and don’t worry, I’m not asking you to solve all of hockey’s problems or anything like that. But just what do you think the game could use more of now to kind of get over this hump that we’re talking about in terms of you standing up for your teammate, that the guys in the tape out hate campaign are talking about? I think it’s awesome that you stood up for your teammate like that, and I think everybody agrees with that, but it shouldn’t be up to you to have to enforce this stuff yourself on the ice, you know?

Keegan Yeah, exactly. I guess what I think is more players should be standing up for this if this continues to happen. But also I think the major organizations like Hockey PEI and any other one similar to them, they need to have some sort of education towards this type of stuff. I think if it’s in our minds as players, if there’s an event on the ice that happens and we’re worked up and there’s going to be a comment said to someone else that’s going to be in the back of our head saying, I know this is not the right thing to say. I’m not going to say it or I know how this makes people feel now that I’ve been educated on it, I’m not going to say it. And if that’s in play, I think the whole racism thing is going to be able to leave hockey altogether.

Jordan Keegan, thanks so much for taking the time for us. Good luck the rest of the season and thanks for being a great teammate.

Keegan No problem. Thank you.

Jordan Keegan Mitchell of the Sherwood Metros currently suspended, back on the ice soon. That was the big story. For more from us, head to thebigstorypodcast.ca. Find us on Twitter at @TheBigStoryFPN. Talk to us anytime via email, thebigstorypodcast@rci.rogers.com [click here!]. This Podcast is available in any of your favourite podcast players. In fact, if you have a couple of favourite Podcasts players, I would strongly encourage you to subscribe on both of them.

Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.

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