Hockey Nonsense

Ok, so this isn't a marijuana related post, but it is about the government sticking their noses where they have no business, so it is related to many of my posts.

I want to talk a bit about Shane Doan, Captain of Team Canada at the World Hockey Championships. It appears he MAY have made a comment that MAY have been derogatory about the french. Apparently in 2005 during a game Doan MAY have made the comment "Fucking french did a good job" in a game between his team the Phoenix Coyotes and the Montreal Canadians in reference to the french referees in Montreal. Doan apparently claims what he said was "What do you expect from french referees in Montreal" refering to a bias in using local referees for home games.

This was back in 2005, and what was done about it? Well the NHL, the only organization with proper authority to investigate this issue cleared Doan. So why am I complaining about it now, two years after the fact? Because the government is calling Hockey Canada officials to a parliamentary committee to investigate the issue since Doan is Team Canada's captain the government feels it may reflect badly on Canada to have a bigoted captain. Ok I can see where that could be an issue, but is Doan bigoted, and even if he is is it the governments job to determine if Doan is a suitable captain?

This issue drives me nuts because it is another case of the government getting all moralistic on us. I am not saying that racial slurs are good, or should be tolerated, I am saying that this issue was already examined, Doan was cleared and the government should not reopen it. If what he said was illegal under hate speech laws then it would be up to the justice system not the MP's to follow through, but even at that, and even if the worst case scenario were true I doubt that Doan would be found guilty of anything except poor choice of words.

I am not alone in thinking this whole thing is just silly, there is a petition online to support Doan, I urge everyone who cares about hockey, and fair government to go to savedoan.ca and sign the petition, as well as pass the word on.