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This story came up at work this week and I had some thoughts about it. If you don't want to read it then all you need to know is in the title.

"Hockey team leaves ice after racial slur"
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/12/03/toronto-hockey-coach-123.html

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When I was about 11 or 12, I was playing little league baseball and I hit a long fly ball down the right field line. I thought it was going to go foul so I slowly jogged to first base. The call from the umpire was a fair ball and my coach urged me to run the bases – I’d hit a grand slam and made it all the way home.

The opposing coach pulled his players off the field because he knew the ball was foul, and I knew the ball was foul. I agreed to go up and bat again and to this day I don’t remember what happened (but I didn’t hit a home run the 2nd time).

I still think about that event today and I am 100% sure that the opposing coach was wrong. He should not have given the example to his players that they could somehow leave the game if they didn’t like the way it was going.

This is the exact same thing. The point of sports is to test yourself directly against someone else. That person may not play the way you think they should, but if you leave the competition you are a loser and have failed the personal challenge that comes when you need to face adversity. You might not win the game but at least you can look in the mirror and say that you met the challenge no matter how tilted or unfair it may have been. This is probably the most important lesson that any sport has to teach you as a participant.

This doesn’t even touch on the fact that one of the main strategies of Hockey is to disrupt the composure of the opponents so that they are irrational and make bad decisions. This player just figured out something that was more disruptive than fighting or calling him a fag or whatever.

I will add that the officials probably should have ejected the player from the game, but if they don’t then you need to go out there and beat that player within the rules of the game – you can’t just quit because that disrespects the challenge and the purpose behind even playing the game to begin with. Finishing the game isn’t tolerating the other player its finishing your commitment to yourself to do your best regardless of what everyone else does.

Outside of the game, I can think of a ton of different ways for that player’s team to show that they won’t tolerate this – thinking physical punishment during practice or even kicking him off. There’s always the grudge factor that the other team will gang up on this guy during future games and punish him physically, and last but not least we’re going to meet you in the parking lot . . .