I give this unto you for your NHL section on the Onion. I think they should employ me.
Hockey World Confused by Banana
On September 22nd, a horrific incident marred the Detroit vs. Philadelphia game, when a fan threw a banana at the black player Wayne Simmonds during his shoot out attempt.
The League, as well as the town of London Ontario spoke out immediately against this racist action. Wayne Simmonds himself shrugged this off, saying that he's had to deal with these sorts of things his whole life.
The real problems ensued when one reporter asked Chris Pronger, the new captain of the Flyers, about what having the banana thrown at his teammate meant to him. "I don't know," he responded, flipping through webpages on his blackberry, "I just googled banana and nothing racist is showing up. No, wait, Urban Dictionary says it's for a person white on the inside and yellow on the outside. Are you sure that's racist?"
This caused a watershed of people admitting that they actually had no idea what having a banana thrown actually meant. "I was just doing it because I assumed it was something racist," said team president Ed Snider. "Everybody else was saying how it was terrible, so I just went along with it."
Gary Bettman, who originally reacted strongly to the incident, refused to comment when asked if he actually knew what a banana meant. When we visited his Phoenix offices, he did, however, mention that he refused to admit he was wrong, and then slammed the door shut in our faces.
Comments from around the league reflected this general confusion.
"Are you people doing a story that's not about me?" asked the league's media darling, Sidney Crosby.
"I still don't get it," said Phil Kessel, after reading the Urban Dictionary definition, who seemed excited to be asked for his opinion. "Are you sure this wasn't Ovechkin? This sounds like something he'd pull, not a racist thing."
"There's a black person on the flyers?" asked an incredulous Dan Byalsma, coach of the in-state rival Penguins. "Did they trade for Mike Grier or something?"
"Honestly, that sounds like an Asian slur, not a black slur," said Henrik Zetterberg of the opposing Wings during their post-game press conference.
The league's only Asian, Paul Kariya, was unavailable for comment.
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