There’s an adorable story about Wayne Simmonds and a young black hockey player, presumably from the Philadelphia area, that’s going around on Tumblr today.
It’s told by a 22-year-old Tumblr user from Philly named Samantha, or patriceberg. Here, unedited:
so today my professor told us how she found her 8 year old neighbor crying on his way home from school last week and when she asked what happened, he told her that while he was at hockey tryouts these white boys called him the N word and told him that black people couldn’t play hockey. she felt so bad for him because she said he was always sweet and well mannered to her. she convinced her brother to give up his tickets to see the Flyers vs Habs game so she could give it to her neighbor. somehow he ended up meeting Wayne Simmonds and the boy’s father told him what happened.
apparently Wayne had a really sad look on his face after he heard what happened but he told the kid to not give up even though people’s words can hurt. and when Wayne told the kid that he believed in him and that he could be the greatest hockey player in the world and maybe even play for the Flyers one day if he didn’t give up, the kid started to cry. later Wayne gave the boy his email address and said that if those boys ever messed with him again, that he was to email him and that he would have his back.
after the boy and father thanked Wayne, he had a big smile on his face and just said, “us handsome fellas gotta stick together, eh?”
Just wanted to share that. Terrible that this little boy had to deal with that, but Simmonds has been there too, and it’s great that he can be there to help a kid through a tough thing like this.
