TRAIKOS: Maybe Jordan Subban wasn't the victim of a racial gesture. But that's not the point – Toronto Sun

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I’ve watched — and re-watched — the video of Jacob Panetta shrugging his shoulders towards Jordan Subban during an ECHL game on the weekend many times in the past 48 hours.

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To me, it did not look like it was racially motivated. But I wasn’t on the ice. More importantly, I’m not black.

So I don’t know — and I can’t know — what must have been going through Jordan Subban’s mind when he saw an opponent making what looked like “monkey gestures” at him. To Subban, who is black, it must have looked similar to the racist gesture that occurred days earlier in the American Hockey League, when a player  made a racial gesture  towards Boko Imama.

Panetta, who was released from his team and suspended indefinitely, said that wasn’t the case.

In an interview with Postmedia on Monday night, the 26-year-old claimed he was only making “a tough-guy, muscle-flexing pose” towards Subban and that it got misinterpreted. It’s the same gesture Panetta said he has made many times before. There’s even video evidence to back that up, as well as of Washington Capitals forward Tom Wilson doing the same thing at the NHL level.

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It was only after the game ended and Panetta was in the dressing room that he realized that Subban saw it differently.

“I heard him in the hallway and I kind of clued in that it was perceived like that and he took it that way,” said Panetta. “I was kind of in shock. It’s not my character. It’s not what I intended. That thought never crossed my mind.

“It’s tough hearing things. But actions are perceived differently by everyone. Unfortunately, those actions were perceived as racial. I want to emphasize that that was never my intention. My parents raised me to treat people with the utmost respect. That’s exactly what was going through my mind and what’s been going through my mind for the past 36 hours or so.”

As tough as the past couple of days have been for Panetta, who has been branded a racist and who many believe should be banned from playing professional hockey altogether, the Belleville, Ont., native said he can only imagine how difficult it has been for Subban and anyone else who viewed his gesture as racial.

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“I’m sure it’s caused a lot of mental and emotional damage to Jordan and his family. It’s something that I’m sincerely sorry for,” said Panetta. “I just want to emphasize again that I’m sorry that he viewed it that way and I’m sorry for all the anger and hurt I’ve caused him and anyone else in the (arena) or anyone that’s had a chance to view it on social media.”

Maybe this is just one big misunderstanding, a case of crossing your signals and thinking something is worse than it actually is. Maybe Panetta is completely innocent. If that’s the case, we owe him an apology for blaming him for something he did not do.

At the same time, that doesn’t mean Subban is to blame. Nor does it mean that what Subban saw — and felt — is less important or less valid.

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There’s a reason why Subban assumed he was being racially targeted. It’s because it has happened to him before. Many times. Over his career, he has been called names and felt like he didn’t belong. Talk to his brothers — PK is a defenceman with the New Jersey Devils and Malcom is a goalie with the Buffalo Sabres — or to Wayne Simmonds, or countless other black hockey players and they will tell you the same thing.

“The unfortunate thing isn’t just the incident,” PK Subban told reporters on Sunday. “The unfortunate thing is how many kids deal with this every day and it doesn’t come to light.”

There’s a reason why the Hockey Diversity Alliance partnered with Budweiser Canada to launch the #TapeOutHate campaign. There’s a reason why the NHL hired Kim Davis as its executive vice president of social impact, growth initiatives and legislative affairs.

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Last January, Brandon Manning was suspended for five games in the AHL for using a racial slur against Imama. A year later, Krystof Hrabik was suspended for 30 games after he pretended he was eating a banana in front of Imama. That was in the same week where Willie O’Ree had his jersey retired in Boston as the first black NHLer.

In other words, we’ve come a long way as a sport and a society. But we’ve also got a long way to go. These are not isolated incidents. And they are not going away.

As Maple Leafs captain John Tavares told reporters on Monday: “We have a lot of work to do with learning and discussion — and something we addressed with the team as well.”

That might be the only good thing that comes out of this.

Regardless of Panetta’s intentions, this is a teachable moment for hockey. It’s yet another opportunity for the sport to work at being more and more inclusive to everyone.

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A similar moment occurred three years ago, when TV microphones caught what sounded like a homophobic slur coming from Toronto’s Morgan Rielly. He claimed he was shouting for a teammate to “rag it” — a hockey term for ‘hang on to the puck and kill the clock.’ It could have ended there, as a simple misunderstanding.

Instead, Rielly and Leafs GM Kyle Dubas held a news conference a day later where they used the incident as a way to deal head-on with LGBTQ rights and matters of inclusion.

“I think it’s an opportunity for us as a team to realize that there’s really no place for slurs like that in sport and in life,” said Rielly said at the time.

That’s the direction the sport needs to take now with this.

“It’s definitely been a great teaching point for me,” said Panetta. “Even though those gestures were never meant to be racial, I’ve definitely learned that actions can be perceived differently and taken in different way. I just want to keep learning from it. I hope that we can have a conversation and I can talk to (Subban) and begin to work through this.”

It’s the kind of gesture we need more of these days.

mtraikos@postmedia.com

twitter.com/Michael_Traikos