Boston Bruins' President Denounces The Fans' Post Game Racist Tweets

[Initech]

WILMINGTON, Mass. -- Boston Bruins president Cam Neely on Friday denounced those who directed racial slurs at P.K. Subban via social media after the defenseman scored in the second overtime to lift the visiting Montreal Canadiens to a 4-3 victory Thursday night in the opener of an Eastern Conference semifinal series.

"The racist, classless views expressed by an ignorant group of individuals following Thursday's game via digital media are in no way a reflection of anyone associated with the Bruins organization," Neely said in a statement issued by the team. Game 2 is Saturday.

Subban, who is black, scored his second goal of the game at 4:17 of the second overtime. Afterward, users on Twitter posted racial slurs disparaging him. Subban's younger brother, Malcolm, was drafted by the Bruins in the first round in 2012.

http://espn.go.com/boston/nhl/story/_/id/10872728/2014-stanley-cup-playoffs-boston-bruins-cam-neely-blasts-fans-classless-views-pk-subban

[Cha]

1. I saw that last night buried at the link.. thanks for making it an OP, Initech!

[seveneyes]

2. Subban has a lot of class and did not deserve such hatred

Here are his comments on the affair...

http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/hockey-star-pk-subban-addresses-racist-tweets

[woolldog]

3. Why would he defend the boston fan base?

Everyone knows they're awful.

[MissMillie]

4. I take exception to that remark

the Boston fan base is no worse or better than any other fan base.

[Jamaal510]

5. Agreed,

and I'm not even an NHL fan at all. In football, I can't tell you the number of people I've heard generalizing all Raider fans, for example, as "classless", "thugs", "cholos", etc. Neither me nor any other Raider fans I know act like that. Like you said, the fact of the matter is that any fan base out there has its share of rowdy people.

[woolldog]

6. Boston fan base has a lengthy racist history.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Do some research.

[MissMillie]

10. the "base?"

or a few outliers?

[woolldog]

12. Discussing the same type of incident in Boston , 2 years ago

"No, this wasn’t the whole Boston fan base, not at all. But it’s not a coincidence that Bill Russell, the biggest sports winner in the history of Boston sports, absolutely loathed the city and a fan base that he saw as racist."

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/deep-sixer/KG-fair-weather-beats-bigotry-any-day.html#bQbLdbSvpDrEBq6M.99

[woolldog]

7. Boston fans did the exact same thing 2 years ago,

With another black NHL player:

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/04/26/wards-agent-appalled-disturbed-by-racist-tweets-following-bruins-game-7-loss/

“You think we’re the fair weather type, do you?” Mitchell wrote. “OK, to that I say that it’s better to be fair weather than to be anything remotely akin the cretins that unleashed their racist vitriol via Twitter upon Washington Capitals defenseman Joel Ward, a Black hockey player, last month after he eliminated Boston’s Bruins from the NHL playoffs with an overtime goal.”
For background, after Ward (who is a forward, not a defenseman, for accuracy’s sake) scored a series-clinching goal in Boston, some people took to Twitter to spread racist, hateful messages."

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/05/23/philly-writer-boston-sports-fans-are-racist/

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

14. Had Joel Ward scored a series winning goal against Philly or the Rangers....

....do you want to put money down that there would be no racist tweets?

Never mind that the funny thing about social media is, there's no guarantee they came from the team's actual geographic location....

[woolldog]

15. I guess those are the only two times

a black has scored the game winning score against a team?

Poor Bostonians. It only happens to them. That explains their racism. That's why Bill Russel called them a racist fan base. That's why their fans have been caught more than once making those types of tweets. And that's why they have plenty of apologists, apparently.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

16. If we're talking hockey, in the playoffs it pretty much probably is....

There aren't many black players in the history of hockey, nevermind ones who've scored series winning goals.

But the first was Willie O'Ree....with the Boston Bruins.

And Subban's brother plays in the Boston organization, for Providence. Love watching him play, great goalie.

But apparently, as a Bruins fan, I'm therefore a racist according to you. I guess I fully endorse every racist tweet that was made and Cam Neely is a lying sack of shit too.

Look, I know it's easy to hate Boston. Trust me, I hate every sports team and their fans up there besides the Bruins. But smarten up, really. You didn't answer my question, because you know the honest answer. Hell, the fine people of Ottawa once threw a banana at Wayne Simmonds.

[woolldog]

18. I didn't answer your question because it's stupid.

We're not talking about 1 tweet, or even a handful or one fan throwing a banana or saying something stupid

We're talking about an avalanche of tweets following the event. So much so that on Twitter Boston the n word was the #1 trending item, afterwards. I don't believe that would've happened in Vancouver or LA or Philly. Moreover I don't care. It didn't happen in Philly, it happened in Boston. And it fits in perfectly with Boston's history with respect to sports & race, from the Celtics (one of the Celtics biggest legends flat out called the Boston fan base racist. YOU ignored that), to the Red Sox, to the fact that the same damn thing happened 2 years ago. And I strongly reject your attempts to normalize it and explain it away.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

21. So what's the real story here?

C'mon, why do you really hate Boston?

By the way, Bill Russell seems to have moved on from it.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nba/news/20131101/bill-russell-statue-boston/

I strongly reject being called a racist for rooting for the Boston Bruins.

[woolldog]

30. My goodness....

first of all I never said I "hated Boston." That's a huge leap from anything I said.

Second, nowhere did I call you a racist for rooting for a hockey team. In fact, aside from that nasty habit you have of putting words in my mouth, I'm sure you're a nice person. It just so happens you're part of a fan base that's bottom of the barrel.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

31. Why don't you list your favorite clubs then?

Let's go and pick apart your team's history and see what bad apples we can find?

[woolldog]

32. Begin....

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

33. Well, Jerry Buss helped bring Donald Sterling into the league back in '80

He told him he should buy the Clippers, although I'm sure he didn't expect them to move to LA. Whether Jerry knew he was a bigot and a slumlord is another story.

Plus, as far as a fan base in general, you can't win a championship without flipping over a car or two.

[woolldog]

34. So...

basically you've got nothing.

Why is it so hard for you to admit that Boston and Boston sports have a long problematic history with race? It's not the end of the world to admit that. In fact recognizing there's a problem is the first step towards solving it.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

35. Isn't that what the OP is about?

You're the one who decided to ignore it and tell people Boston sucks and say this doesn't happen anywhere else.

And again, I showed you where racist tweets were coming from New York about Wayne Simmonds. You were not interested. Because of course, no other city does it, right? It's impossible!

I also pointed out the Boston Bruins has the first black player in the NHL. You were not interested.

By the way, the Celtics....also drafted the first African American player in NBA history.

Boston has a sorry racial history. But to act like the majority of Bruins fans in Boston (The BASE, that's what you said) were anything other than repulsed by what went on there is pretty low. Cam Neely said what needed to be said. You continuing to shit on us happily is what's not needed. It's an old line that's dragged out whenever someone does something racist in Boston as "part of the culture", yet it's seemingly "just a few bad apples" when others do it.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

24. Oh, by the way....

http://www.crossingbroad.com/2014/04/flyers-fans-give-carcillo-the-finger-rangers-fans-call-simmonds-the-n-word-and-a-monkey.html

Now you can rant against New York too.

[Initech]

13. I call it "visiting stadium mentality".

Your team can have the nicest fans on the planet. I've met all kinds of fans from teams with bad reputations. But then they come to your home stadium and they just turn into obnoxious douchebags! Case in point: I was at the Ducks and Kings game last night. You cannot put into words how obnoxious the Kings fans were. Even though the Kings won, still no kind of excuse for that behavior.

[msanthrope]

9. You've obviously never been to an Eagles game. nt

[AngryAmish]

11. Boston is considered the most racist town in the US

I know several black dudes who refuse to set foot in it.

[DemocraticWing]

19. Bill Russell doesn't go there.

Wonder why?

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

22. He doesn't?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nba/news/20131101/bill-russell-statue-boston/

[DemocraticWing]

28. Boston has gotten better.

And it does seem he'll make occasional appearances now. But to pretend that his complaint about racism in Boston throughout the decades simply don't exist would be ridiculous

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

29. I think every major city has had it's race problems, especially when you tie it to sports.

Remember, Curt Flood refused to be traded to Philly because the team and city was considered more racist by some than St. Louis freaking Missouri....

[Blue_Tires]

17. In your unbiased opinion, of course?

There was the Joel Ward thing two years ago, so there is a trend...

[Ishoutandscream2]

8. Wait, but only racists exist in the south

DU tells me that all the time.

[kelliekat44]

20. The apocolyptic presidency of BHO should tell you that racism not only exists all over but thrives

the USA. And all of the hate sends negative vibes into the atmosphere and we all are suffocated by it.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

23. Yeah, but something tells me Masachusetts isn't really the problem

http://www.boston.com/news/special/politics/2012/general/mass-us-president-election-results-2012.html

[Dorian Gray]

25. Good for him....

and what jerks. I'd be embarrassed to have that associated with my team. (I don't follow hockey so I don't really have a team.)

[PeteSelman]

26. This is a recurring thing with those creeps.

When Joel Ward scored against them in 2012 there was an identical reaction.

Ranger fans did nothing of the sort when Wayne Simmonds scored a hat trick against them last week.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

27. Oh, really?

http://www.crossingbroad.com/2014/04/flyers-fans-give-carcillo-the-finger-rangers-fans-call-simmonds-the-n-word-and-a-monkey.html

NSFW