Peterborough coach wrong to pull team over racist slur: Columnist

A retired teacher, former minor hockey coach and former hockey scout for the NHL Buffalo Sabres weighs in on the Greg Walsh/racial slur incident in the Peterborough Examiner.
Interesting that the author once pulled a kids' team from a game because they were getting roughed up and coming to the bench crying. Pleas to the referees to bring the novice all stars vs. peewees game under control fell on deaf ears so the coach/author pulled his kids. He was suspended for a year by minor hockey.
What would you have done if you were the coach in a dangerous mismatch of teams? What would you do if you were coaching a game in which a racial slur went unpenalized?

Teams boycott Peterborough tournaments

The coach of two London, Ont., minor hockey teams says his squads will be boycotting tournaments in Peterborough until the Ontario Minor Hockey Association apologies to coach Greg Walsh.
This is an interesting development you can read in this Postmedia story.
Not sure if this is a fair tactic, but if the goal is to continue the discussion about racism in minor hockey, then so be it.

OMHA reverses coach's suspension

The OMHA has reversed a decision to suspend a Peterborough house league coach who stood up for his team in the face of racism on the ice. Good move. Let's play on.
Coach Greg Walsh had originally been suspended a year after his team refused to return to the ice for the third period after an opposing player called one of Coach Walsh's players the n-word.
The player who used the slur apologized and has already served a three-game suspension.
Here's a link to a CBC report.

Georges Laraque weighs in on hockey racism

Former NHL player Georges Laraque has weighed in on racism in hockey in the wake of the stupid one-year suspension given a Peterborough house league coach by the Ontario Minor Hockey Association.
The former Montreal Canadien writes, "It's unacceptable and shameful that the OMHA is choosing to hide behind their rules and regulations to punish Walsh, instead of giving him and his team the respect they deserve for standing up against racism. Every single one of us knows that he did the right thing."
As I said in a blog posting a few days ago, the OMHA has screwed up, totally misreading the tea leaves and misjudging public opinion in dealing with this incident. 
Here's the link to Laraque's Facebook posting.

Greg Walsh gets shafted by OMHA

Steve Simmons is my favourite sports columnist for Sun Media. He's also an experienced volunteer minor hockey coach. Here's what he says about the Ontario Minor Hockey Association and Peterborough house league coach Greg Walsh. Clearly, the suspension is unfair and the public backlash has only just begun to harm the OMHA and the image of minor hockey.
The better solution to this whole situation would have been a media conference apology involving the kids, two coaches and OMHA head.
Suspending Walsh for a year makes the OMHA look like it condones racism and shafts volunteers who are sincere in trying to mold teenagers into fine young men.
Here is what Steve wrote in the online version of his column.

BLINDNESS OF MINOR HOCKEY

For more than 20 seasons, under all kinds of circumstances, I have coached various levels of minor hockey in the province. I have been suspended more than once and argued against my players’ suspensions vociferously and often have been frustrated by rules that benefit the administrators but not the participants. The curious ruling this week by the Ontario Minor Hockey Association was that house league coach Greg Walsh would be suspended for pulling his team from the ice after a racial slur had been uttered by an opposing player. All Walsh asked for — and didn’t get — was an apology. Nothing more. He didn’t want his team to participate in a game being played under so ugly a tenor. The player in question wound up with a three-game suspension. The coach got the season. I would like to say I’m surprised by the ruling, but I’ve been around long enough to know that bull-headed illogic, rather than common sense, prevails too often in minor hockey rulings.