Evander Kane is definitely one of the NHL’s biggest pests. He’s not afraid to mix it up on the ice, and he combines that grit with a scoring touch to become one of those multi-tool players that are extremely difficult to play against.
Unfortunately, sometimes Kane has to mix it up off the ice as well. You may remember him getting into it with a fan in Chicago who was making racist remarks to him while Kane was serving a penalty. The exact slur was allegedly “Stick to basketball”.
Kane was faced with the same comment on one of his Instagram photos. Instead of ignoring it, Kane decided to confront the user directly.
In a two-picture tweet, Kane calls out the user by showing their comment. He then posts a screenshot of a rant that essentially calls out racism in hockey as a more ignored subject than other sports.
"This is what I'm talking about, happens all the time just never publicly talked about and just ignored," Kane wrote. "This exact thing was shouted at me in the penalty box in Denver during game 4. It's racially motivated, IT IS a problem in society and in SPORTS.
"There is focus on racism in football, basketball and baseball. But in the Hockey world it's easier to ignore, dismiss and forget because let's face the facts hockey is a white sport. But there are black players in the league and other minorities in our sport. Time to notice it, and give it the attention it's deserves. The old way of thinking is done!"
It’s always a difficult subject, but awareness is one of the keys to stopping it. Following the tweet, Kane received lots of support from fans on his side.
