Report: IIHF working on finding a new pro team for Jalen Smereck after facing racism in UHL
Early Wednesday, the Ukranian Hockey League announced a very lenient punishment to Andrei Deniskin, the player responsible for delivering a reprehensible racist gesture to Jalen Smereck, a Black hockey player from Detroit, Michigan who had been playing in the UHL this season.
The league issued a 3+10 game suspension that could result in the 10-game portion of the suspension being dropped if Deniskin agreed to pay a fine of less than $2000 USD, leaving him with a mere 3-game suspension to serve.
Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman released an article on Wednesday afternoon, calling for the IIHF to take more appropriate action against the incident and the countries in which the various pro leagues reside in the event that those leagues refuse to deal with these incidents accordingly.
Per Friedman, these repercussions should include funding being withheld, or having changes made to the rules Olympic/World Championship qualifiers that could put those countries in jeopardy of being ineligible to participate.
Friedman also suggested that the IIHF should ensure that Smereck is being fully paid for the time he takes off to process the whole ordeal and that the IIHF should work in collaboration with Smereck and other pro hockey clubs to find him a more suitable country and team with which to continue his hockey career.
The Hockey Insider believes that the work is already under way to find Smereck a new team and apparently there are teams in the American Hockey League who are interested in accommodating.
If hockey truly is for everyone, then the IIHF needs to ensure they do right by Smereck, who has done nothing other than play his game and use his status as a professional hockey player to benefit an organization back home called Detroit Ice Dreams. The organization allows Black youth in the Detroit area to play hockey.
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