Some bottom-of-the-barrel jitbag chose tonight's NHL preseason game in London, Ontario between the Philadelphia Flyers and Detroit Red Wings to remind us all of racism's effects on black hockey players like Wayne Simmonds.
[A] fan in the John Labatt Centre threw a banana peel at Simmonds as he skated in on a shootout attempt during a 4-3 loss to the Detroit Red Wings.
"I caught it from the side of my eye," Simmonds said. "It was a banana. Hopefully, that wasn't directed towards me being black. Because if it was, that's just somebody being ignorant."
The banana peel, thrown from the upper deck, landed directly in Simmonds path toward Red Wings goalie Jordan Pearce during the shootout.
The incident isn't caught in that video from the shoot-out. Simmonds scored. The fan wasn't caught. And his Flyers teammates were talking about it after the game.
"I would have went and kicked that fan's ass myself," one teammate said, asking to remain nameless. "That's just not right."
Fan tosses banana peel at Flyers' Simmonds [Philly.com] (H/T Thomas)