from Jeff Blair of Sportsnet,

It’s great that hockey’s having this moment, that topics such as inclusion, bullying and hazing have been pushed into the forefront by the forced resignation of Bill Peters as head coach of the Calgary Flames stemming from allegations of racial epithets dating back to his time as a coach with the AHL’s Rockford Ice Hogs.

But for this conversation to result in anything substantive, to go beyond whatever findings and action the NHL takes once its investigation is complete and not simply disappear amid the churn of an NHL season, then current and past NHL players need to refrain from this “bad guy” narrative that is seeping into the conversation not only on Twitter, but in the mainstream media.

It’s the idea that a player with what his peers may deem to be a checkered past either on or off the ice should somehow not speak up. That somehow only the game’s “good guys” – “good” as defined by hockey players, executives or media – carry any real weight. That somehow, observations by players who made their living on some of the nastier edges of the game – yes, I am talking about players such as Daniel Carcillo – shouldn’t carry weight because of real or imagined past transgressions.

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