A little over a month ago, a junior hockey match was played, the events of the final moments of which are still being investigated.
Here is the summary of the events.
The 13-year-old boy of the Lahti Pelicans team told his coach with tears in his eyes that he was the target of a racist insult. Pelicans coach Juha Sokka as a result, commanded his team’s dressing room and demanded the referees of the match to clarify the situation.
According to Soka, one of the judges said that he heard the insult, but said that he could not name the shouter. The game ended in mixed moods. However, according to Soka, the referees did not demand that the Pelicans team continue the match.
What was the Ice Hockey Association’s response to the events of the match? Sokka was suspended for three matches. Pelicans was fined a thousand euros.
Why was the handling of the alleged racist insult forgotten?
– When it’s word for word, we have to rely on our rules and available means, comments the competition manager of the Jääkieksliitto Pirkka Antila For Ilta-Sanom (you switch to another service).
The case was thoroughly opened in the Urheiluhullut program heard on Radio Finland.
According to Soka, they have several witnesses who heard the racist scream all the way to the stands in the hall. The Ice Hockey Federation was not interested in this. The matter was not resolved.
Wake up now in the ivory tower of the Ice Hockey League!
So you are more interested in the fact that the last minutes of the under-13 junior game (which had already been decided in the form of goals, and there was no doubt about the winner of the game) are played according to the rule book to the last detail than that you intervene in the suspected racism, of which there is unfortunately strong evidence.
Does the Jääkiekkoliitto, or more specifically its competition manager Antila, conclude that the boy who was insulted is lying? Is the team coach also lying? Are all those who heard the scream lying?
Coach Sokka told Urheiluhullui that this was not the first time that the player in question had to endure racist yelling. This time the boy said the insult contained two words. The first starts with the letter v and the second word is the worst insult, the n-word. In the past, among other things, he has been required to return “to where he came from”.
Every human being with an iota of humanity understands what that kind of thing does to a teenage boy approaching puberty. Playing sports should be safe for everyone. Sports is the last place for racism, like the author Minna Lindgren the issue in Urheiluhullui summarized.
But it doesn’t seem to interest the Ice Hockey Federation one bit. The most important thing is that the games are played to the nearest second according to the match schedule and rules.
The tears of a little boy cannot be found on the pages of the rulebook. They should be taken seriously. It would require that the Ice Hockey Association find someone who cares about more important things than sports.
– The claim that the Ice Hockey Federation takes a dismissive attitude towards racism is completely false and subjective. The association takes a serious view of all kinds of discriminatory and offensive behavior, competition manager Antila told IS.
On paper, everything certainly looks as good as Antila describes. The president of the Jääkieksliitto has also repeated the same phrases in connection with the case Harri Nummela.
Those lofty phrases are unfortunately light years away from what is actually happening. And it’s creepy. When such a serious matter is left uninvestigated thoroughly, we are on the road to destruction.
It would even be Kalervo Kummola rolling around. But no. There is only deafening silence.