Remembering Clark Gillies, Olympic Rosters, and, Sadly, Yet More Racism in Hockey

With the Sens playing back-to-back games on the weekend, most of us were likely not paying too much attention to the on-goings in the wider world of hockey. If you find yourself in that camp, you might have missed a few things. But fear, not we’ve got the Links, News, and Notes to catch you up:

• In some sad news, New York Islanders legend Clark Gillies passed away on Friday at the age of 67. Prior to their Saturday night match-up against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Isles paid a touching tribute to Gillies.
• Though nothing has been officially announced yet, there were several leaks on the weekend around Team Canada’s roster for the men’s Olympic hockey team. Multiple sources indicated that Eric Staal and Buffalo Sabres’ phenom Owen Power, among others, will also be named to the squad.
• Speaking of Olympic rosters, the Russian men have officially announced their team. There are some familiar names like Artem Anisimov and Slava Voynov (pretty damn gross), but you might also notice the absence of the much-discussed Andrei Kuzmenko. Take from that what you will.
• Bruce Boudreau coached in his 1,000th game on Sunday, though he was likely hoping for a better outcome than the Canucks falling to the St. Louis Blues.
• Over at the Athletic, Ian Mendes has a nice write-up of Tim Stützle’s recent success, in particular his work with Alex Formenton.
• Lastly, there were a couple of incidents on the weekend that served to highlight how far hockey still has to go when it comes to racism in the sport. First, after the AHL handed down a 30 game suspension to Krystof Hrabik for making a racist gesture towards Boko Imama, Imama had this to say in response:/

Enough is enough! pic.twitter.com/bETzUXEPGo

— Boko Imama (@bokojr) January 22, 2022

It’s worth noting here that this is the second time in the last two years that an AHL player has been suspended for racist actions against Imama after Brandon Manning uttered a slur during an altercation between the two players. When Imama says this “keeps happening over and over again”, that’s exactly what he means.

• The second incident involved Jordan Subban, P.K Subban’s younger brother, as he was the victim of racist abuse in an ECHL game on Saturday night. The transgressor, Jacob Panetta, has been suspended indefinitely and was also released by the Jacksonville Icemen. P.K had lengthy comments about the incident, and racism in hockey more broadly, after the New Jersey Devils’ game on Sunday night:/