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I am fully supportive of hockey's "You Can Play" cause, headed by Patrick Burke. I believe our game should be welcoming and inclusive of everyone who wants to play, coach or officiate. I do not condone workplace bullying or intimidation tactics, regardless of the job in question.
I used to fight opponents willingly to defend my teammates especially if they were unable to defend themselves, be it intellectually or with my fists. With that said, I think there is a massive "slippery slope" being ventured upon by the NHL's public-relations driven handling of the whole Andrew Shaw situation.
Let's put a simple truth out there: The "homophobic slur" uttered by Chicago Blackhawks forward Andrew Shaw is one that has been used around the rink and other athletic arenas for decades -- along with a variety of other manhood-questioning terminology, such as using coarse terms for female genitalia, sexual activities, etc -- as a form of trash talking or taunting to get under an opponent's skin.
if I had a nickle for every time my sexual preference was challenged, my physical equipment or my preference in acts of intimacy, I would be able to play the slots in Atlantic City until the next turn of the century.
Does the fact that people have been saying this "stuff" for a long time make it right? No!
However, to think that a suspension and a fine will reeducate the masses on the ice while they are whaling away in any Pro game is making the Commissioner of the NHL or other league's sports czars the new Wizards of Fantasyland.
Derogatory comments get uttered in games around the league pretty much on a nightly basis, especially during the playoffs when emotions run higher and players and coaches say all sorts of vile things to opponents, officials and sometimes even guys on their own side "to light a fire under them" If I were a betting man, I'd wager that at least one extremely un-PC term was used on the ice, from the bench or the penalty box in each and every one of playoff games played this weekend. They just weren't picked up over microphones.
When I was in Quebec, if I fought everyone who called my teammates "Grenouille", I would have never been out of the penalty box. Even on my favorite TV Show, NCIS, The arch enemy was "Le Grenouille" who also was Tony's girl friends father and an International arms dealer.
After living in Quebec, I learned of the dislike and even bigotry that many non-French have for their countrymen who hail from Quebec. As for me, with Romeo LeBlanc, Gerard Gauthier, Pierre Champoux, Jean Morin, Rocket Richard, Serge Savard, Richard LeDuc, Jean Beliveau from the Hockey world and many others from Quebec and with French heritage, my friends, the term, Grenouille, would be the equivalent of using the N word for Blacks and The S word for Spanish....I would never say it even if just kidding with those guys.
History lesson: When the Russians first started to play in the NHL, we officials were strongly schooled not to let others call them "Commies" etc. I got it, mostly because I grew up in a city that is a "minority majority" city and because I had schooling from my parents and knew about a bar of soap and how to digest the same.
My parents expected, demanded that I be better than peers whom bigotry had polluted. My father in particular always viewed people for what they did vs their ancestry, their preference or their color. He was a teacher beloved by most all of his students, with no ethic or color boundary lines. I always aspired to be like my dad.
When I became ingrained in the hockey realm, I don't want to use the word desensitized because that's not at all accurate, but I realized that a lot of things that should not be said or done off the rink were considered fair game on the rink. No matter what I thought, others still called The French players and refs, "Frogs," including people I consider friends.
Where was the correctness then? Where is it now? It still goes on.
So what made the Andrew Shaw case -- the word he said that got him suspended a game, not the double flip-off to the officials that got him an accompanying "fine and dandy" pocket change (by NHL salary standard) slap on the wrist -- different?
Why did the NHL suspend him for a game and not the many others who continue to say it? Plain and simple, it was a public relations move to save face. Shaw got caught on national TV saying it. Especially given Burke's role in the league and the prominence of "You Can Play," the NHL really had no choice but to display shock and grave concern.
The ultimate joke is the quote attribution on NHL PR's release on how Shaw "must be held accountable" for "the offensive comments and the inappropriate gesture." They might as well have attributed it to Archie Bunker.
The NHL commissioner and deputy commission are too smart not to know this: If TV cameras ever followed the NHL's newly minted PC Paragon around for a few days while on the job, there'd by an all-new PR Department issued statement on someone else's sudden need for personal accountability.
Sorry. I lost my train of thought. Where was I? I must have gotten sidetracked counting the money I've made from turning my cancer survival story into a business opportunity. That was actually once said by a certain brilliant and current NHL Hockey guy to my fellow officials about me. Read his non-redacted emails.....now those should be fine-able.
Ah, yes, back to Andrew Shaw. I feel no sympathy for him. But isn't it just a little bit silly that he sits out exactly the same number of playoff games as Duncan Keith had to sit or Pierre-Edouard Bellemare had to sit?
Well, he does have to undergo sensitivity training, which I'm sure will work wonders. Within a few magical hours, he'll be out on the ice asking the refs and opponents if they'd please allow him to express his feelings while respecting his 1st Amendment Rights. There are some things that are better left unsaid. In this case, Shaw is stupid for shouting fire in a crowded movie theater and being heard....or for whatever he said and being heard.
The reality is that on-ice banter, including "homophobic slurs" (to heterosexual targets) tends to cause less personal offense than personal barbs.
For instance, if a player has a child with a learning disability, having an opponent mock their child is something that even teammates frown upon but is something that a smattering of the game's most classless players resort to and then play off as gamesmanship. Yes, that has happened. There are also players who comment on opponents' spouses or girlfriends in ways that would make Slap Shot's Reg Dunlop cringe.
I can think of one ex-player who champions LGBT rights -- in and of itself, that's fine and admirable if he believes strongly in that cause. However, this same guy delighted in crossing the line into the most vile forms of taunting that sometimes made even his own teammates side with the enraged opposing player. There was and is massive hypocrisy in his sudden enlightenment.
Again, I am not saying that taunting is right. I am noting that times change and so do sensitivities.
I'm glad we've evolved from the 1968 days when Larry Zeidel, incensed at being taunted by Bruins players for losing family members in the Holocaust, got the stiffer suspension than the Bruin with whom he engaged in a stick fight (Eddie Shack, with whom Zeidel had a long-time violent rivalry but was not, by Zeidel's account, one of the Bruins who made the Holocaust taunts) and stony silence from league president Clarence Campbell in regard to taking any action against those responsible.
Afterwards, Zeidel said that run-of-the-mill slurs about his Jewish background rolled right off his back --- and admitted he wasn't immune from doing similar things to players of other minority groups -- but that the Bruins crossed the line with him by invoking the Nazi genocide.
Could you even imagine what the response to all that would be nowadays, and rightfully so, if the identical situation took place in today's NHL? Thank goodness, it'd be almost unfathomable.
In hockey, the sticks-and-stones credo reigned forever. Are we more enlightened nowadays? About some things, yes, but not across the board. I would not tell you as a rational human being that "homophobic slurs" should rightfully still have acceptability within the game any more than ethnic taunting, which thankfully has become less and less prevalent. It is so unacceptable in my opinion that I would have fought even my own teammates had they taunted Willie O'Ree or Mike Marson (if they dared, because he was tough as nails) and I heard it. Some things are never right nor are they ever going to be acceptable.
The Leagues hands are tied now by the changing landscape of broadcasts, microphones and an evolving landscape of political correctness. Good luck maintaining the vigil.
The truth is that the NHL has no real capability in trying to change society and culture. It can't. Doing it on its own would be impossible anyway. If the NHL issued a mandated list of words players cannot say on the ice, it would be treated like a George Carlin routine, with all of the variations and permutations being cannon fodder.
Change comes via society as a whole evolving. Hockey culture evolves, too, but usually an even slower pace than society. Things such as "You Can Play" help the process but it's hard to mandate sweeping evolution at will.
It's a slippery slope that will eventually, in the next CBA with the players, have to be explored and defined. Get your Thesaurus out, that negotiation will be a long lesson in semantics, synonyms and euphemisms, not goalie equipment or salary caps.
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Paul Stewart holds the distinction of being the first U.S.-born citizen to make it to the NHL as both a player and referee. On March 15, 2003, he became the first American-born referee to officiate in 1,000 NHL games.
Today, Stewart serves as director of hockey officiating for the ECAC.
The longtime referee heads Officiating by Stewart, a consulting, training and evaluation service for officials. Stewart also maintains a busy schedule as a public speaker, fund raiser and master-of-ceremonies for a host of private, corporate and public events. As a non-hockey venture, he is the owner of Lest We Forget.
Blogger •Former NHL Referee • 
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