[sureLoss]

Another Ho-Sang article about Hockey Canada leaving him off the invite list:

http://www.montrealgazette.com/sport...089/story.html

Apart from that last bit, Joshua Ho-Sang’s story is P.K. Subban all over again. Brash young star rubs hockey people the wrong way despite his talent.

In another time, Maurice Richard was treated pretty much the same way. You would think hockey people would learn, that the examples of Subban and Evander Kane would teach them something — but in this gossipy little universe, learning anything new is a challenge.

In most cases, I don’t believe it’s a matter of bigotry or outright prejudice. As much as anything, it’s a matter of exposure. Hockey coaches and GMs don’t deal with the annual influx of African-American players you get in the NBA and the NFL, with their general disdain for the old-school rules. (Remember when the NCAA made the dunk illegal because old white men didn’t like the way young black players were flying high?)

Face it: No league that has endured Terrell Owens and Randy Moss is going to have a problem with Subban or Ho-Sang, who are both bright, articulate young men. Any student of obnoxious jerkitude has to be wondering how Johnny Manziel gets away with it, when a player like Subban can’t raise an eyebrow without creating a firestorm.

The answer is simple: Manziel is white and he plays in the NFL, not the hidebound NHL, where change comes at glacial speed. (See fighting, for instance, and the decades-long effort to do away with it.)

Speak up for yourself, as Ho-Sang did, and the sizable Cro-Magnon segment of the hockey media (the ones who haven’t liked anything since Clarence Campbell was king) will try to crush you. Show a little flash and dash, as Subban did during his rookie season, and cretins from Mike Richards to Don Cherry are lining up to slap you down.