I haven’t been following the IIHF World Championships closely.

I’ll never be confused for an advocate of widespread political correctness.

And I certainly don’t speak Russian.

But even though I’m lacking significant context regarding the incident in question and even though I’m reacting to third-party information and another journalist’s interview that was conducted in another language, a comment attributed to Russian goaltender Semyon Varlamov in Sovetsky Sport struck me as awfully inappropriate.

Agreeing with interviewers Dmitry Ponomarenko and Pavel Lysenkov that a hit by Team Canada’s Corey Perry on Alex Ovechkin was dirty, Varlamov elaborated by saying that the Canadians only had two dirty players on their roster: Perry and Tampa Bay Lightning forward Steve Downie.

He then dropped this doozy:

“Последний только подтвердил свою фамилию.”

According to several online translations, Varlamov’s quip was essentially, “(Downie) confirmed his surname.”

What he meant, exactly, is up for debate, I suppose. But the consensus opinion seems to be that Varlamov was making some sort of Down Syndrome joke at Downie’s expense, which is about as classless a comment as one can make.

What else could he have meant though, really? No Hatfield vs. McCoy-style family feud exists between the Varlamovs and the Downies, rendering a shot at the Downie family name useless.

And though, again, I don’t read Russian, Puck Daddy’s Dmitry Chesnokov (who is also a SovSport contributor) does and, via his Twitter feed, had his own reaction on Friday:

Varlamov: “Perry and Downie played dirty. Downie’s last name is justified.” Varly hints that Downie has a Down syndrome. Ouch!

(Now might be a good time to remind the masses of Downie’s hearing loss, caused by otosclerosis, a disease that some researchers believe has an inherited genetic link.)

Ouch indeed, though I doubt Varlamov was being clever enough in the interview to make that connection.

Look, we’re far too sensitive about far too much as a society these days but there’s no more room for invoking genetic disorder trash talk than there is criticism on racial or religious levels. Instances of the latter get hit with zero tolerance policies and, in turn, aren’t stood for. Blasts that mock or belittle individuals with physical and/or mental disabilities should be treated exactly the same.

I have no problem admitting that this sort of thing hits home for me as my late brother suffered various ailments throughout his life as a result of a similar genetic abnormality. But one doesn’t have to be connected to that kind of situation personally to realize that this kind of verbal jab has no place in sports or anywhere else, for that matter.

It may have happened a world away and perhaps there’s a blurred cultural line that skews Varlamov’s sensitivity to the subject here. For that, I’ll allow room for some slight benefit of the doubt and the remote possibility that something was lost in translation.

But, to my knowledge, there has been no follow-up to the piece, nor any question asked of Varlamov, giving him an opportunity to clarify his original intent, leaving the masses to draw the collective conclusion that he knew exactly what he was saying.

Whether it was meant the way it’s been taken here or not, the words chosen came across poorly and without any semblance of class. In the future, the young goaltender should take a second to think before going on record with something so vile.

Because there should never be any level of tolerance for mocking comparisons to the disabled and the kind of ridicule at the expense of the defenseless that comments like these carry.

JJ

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