Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
First of all...what? It wouldnt be yours? If one person treats you like crap its okay to flush your career down the toilet and just be bitter at them forever? Like...Aliu's not lighting it up in Europe or the AHL or the KHL...places where Peters has no influence.
Bill Peters might be a racist prick, but I hate to be the bearer of bad news...some people suck.
Nobody can let one guy sewer their entire career because they're a big racist.
Thats when you put on a show so dazzling that everyone thinks Peters is an idiot for doubting you.
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We can't say that it was "just one guy".
Just a couple years prior, his coach on the Spitfires (former NHLer, Moe Mantha) benched him for a few games after he had served his suspension for refusing to be hazed by Downie. Why would Aliu be benched after serving a suspension for a fight that he didn't even instigate?
The hockey world is insular. If Aliu was tagged as a "problem child" by members of that group, there's a lot more adversity that he would have encountered due to people's preconceived notions of him that we wouldn't have heard about.
Outsiders (e.g. a relatively poor, black kid like Aliu in a rich, white-dominated sport like hockey) always have to work twice as hard to get to the same spot as an insider, and that eventually wears on your psyche. Everyone handles it differently. Maybe Aliu makes the show as a fulltime NHLer if he has a little bit more support and coaching along the way.