Shanahan was a former player of Babcock, so he would have seen his style first hand, and he still hired him in Toronto.
Francis is a former player that didn't seem to have an issue with the physical nature of Peters coaching.
My take is that physical abuse was not out of the norm in the NHL in the past, especially for players that played in the 80s/90s that are now in management positions.
But now times are changing, we look at things differently as a society, and physical abuse is not something that we should tolerate.
For the physical abuse aspect I'm not sure if that's something that a coach did in the past (say D.Sutter or Babcock) that it should really be held against them now. IMO a kick on the bench was seen as acceptable in the past and only now is it really getting traction as being a poor behaviour.
It should be treated differently and discussed separately to the racist behaviour from Peters. Racism has no place in sport, and should never be tolerated and should not have been tolerated 10 years ago either. Had that been widely known knowledge then he should have been fired then and never hired again.
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