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Boston Bruins, Jordan Subban, Malcolm Subban, Montreal Canadiens, P.K. Subban, Ryan Reaves, St. Louis Blues, Vancouver Canucks
The publication is named The Vancouver Sun but the caption with the photo was hardly enlightening.
Defenseman Jordan Subban, the Vancouver Canucks’ fourth-round draft pick in 2013, scored his first-ever NHL goal in Tuesday night’s preseason game against the San Jose Sharks. After scoring the goal, a happy Subban celebrated with his teammates, a moment captured in a photograph published in The Sun’s online edition.
The picture was fine. The caption that accompanied it, not so much. It said: Vancouver Canucks celebrate goal by Jordan Subban (dark guy in the middle) against San Jose Sharks in NHL pre-season game at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, B.C. on September 23, 2014.
https://twitter.com/CBCCanada/status/514790859985137664/photo/1
“Dark guy in the middle.” Really? Glad the cutline cleared up that confusion.
Jordan Subban
To add some bones to the caption’s obsession with Subban’s flesh: Jordan Subban was the 115th player selected in the 2013 draft. He’s the youngest brother of Montreal Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban and Boston Bruins goaltending prospect Malcolm Subban.
Jordan was a top defenseman last season for the Bellville Bulls of the Ontario Hockey League. The diminutive 19-year-old notched 12 goals and 30 assists for the Bulls in 65 games. Big brother P.K., who won the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defenseman in 2013, on several occasions has said Jordan is a cerebral blue-liner who can teach him a thing or two about playing defense.
Last night we ran a photo caption that should never have been written, let alone run online. We apologize to @jordansubban. (1/2)
— The Vancouver Sun (@VancouverSun) September 24, 2014
The Sun is looking into this so we can make sure it doesn't happen again. (2/2)
— The Vancouver Sun (@VancouverSun) September 24, 2014
The Sun and Vancouver’s Province newspaper apologized for the insensitive caption, but it’s still the latest racially clumsy episode before the first puck drops on the NHL’s 2014-15 season. First EA Sports inexplicably depicts St. Louis Blues tough guy Ryan Reaves about 15 shades too dark in its NHL video game, now the crazy Subban caption.
Subban took the episode in stride.
“I heard about that,” he told The Province Wednesday. “I had a chance to talk to a representative from the paper and it seemed like a pretty honest mistake. Am I worried about it? No. If people should be talking about something, it should be the way I played last night rather than that. Hopefully, it will just die down.
“It was just unfortunate. I don’t think there were any bad intentions. It is what it is and I’ve moved on and I’m sure everyone else will, too.”
Subban is on his way back to Bellville. The Canucks cut him and three other players and shipped them back to their major junior hockey teams.
oufffff Micro Aggression at its best, I am certain that there was no true racist intent meant however the lack of knowledge some have remain mind boggling, usually we hear the comment “we meant no harm” do not be so sensitive or you took it the wrong way, some are even surprised that another may be upset for a comment because they are not truly understanding the effect/affect as they see or I should say do not see that there just may be something wrong with their comment, The Vancouver sun made immediate amends by stepping forward however my question is how did this comment get to press?
So readers it may simply be another attempt to make a stupid joke by an individual or two and the Vancouver Sun itself fell victim to one of its staff.
Wow, that was seriously an awful comment. Glad they apologized, but like John Paris Jr said, how did that comment get to press? How would the photog have written the caption if it was yet another white guy? Whatever the Sun’s statements say, this shows that we’re still waiting to make progress in terms of race and the NHL.
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Subban handled it with class. It was a dumb-ass thing for the paper to have done, but Subban did the right thing. I hope to see him in the NHL soon.