If You Did the Time, They Likely Committed the Crime

What’s your daily routine like? You wake up, go to work, eat, sleep and repeat? One thing you presumably take for granted is that most people are indifferent towards you and don’t pay you much attention being different from them.

Yet, there are times, on occasion, where, at the workplace the age-old anti-Semitic vice comes into play; an issue we deal with in life that doesn’t ever seem to go away.

Welcome to the life of the American Hockey League’s Birmingham Senators’ Jason Bailey when he was skating for the East Coast Hockey League’s Bakersfield Condors between 2005 and 2009.

The former Anaheim Ducks’ affiliate was home to Bailey, 23, a Jewish hockey player selected in the third round by the Ducks in the 2005 draft, until things in Southern California soured so much that he demanded a trade elsewhere.

In case you haven’t yet heard the alleged violation: The appalling lack of desire to take his claim of anti-Semitism seriously.

Bailey alleges his then-coach Marty Raymond and assistant coach Mark Pederson were relentless in their derogatory anti-Semitic comments, forced him to travel separately from the rest of the team and denied him ice time in games, thus hindering his development as a player (two assists in 35 games played).

The lawsuit filed against the Condors and its parent club Ducks by Bailey’s attorney, Keith Fink, claims failure of preventive measures taken by the organizations that led to the continuous harassment by the coaches. Additionally, Raymond’s comment that Jews “only care about money and who’s who” acknowledged one of the mindless derogatory statements verbalized by the coach towards his former player.

Pederson, a former NHL player who has since moved on to coach in Europe, was allegedly even more forceful. After Bailey sent a friend request to Pederson on Facebook, the-then assistant coach replied, “Oh, I got a friend request from a dirty Jew.”

When the team was putting money together for a party, the lawsuit claims Pederson told a few teammates of Bailey, “I don’t know if we can trust him with the money. He’s Jewish.”

“It doesn’t surprise me this occurred,” the Los Angeles-based lawyer told the media. “What shocks me is the callous indifference management and ownership showed when confronted with this situation. They knew the coaches were wrong, but instead of standing up and firing them, they sent Bailey to hockey’s equivalent of Siberia.”

Not The First Time

The actions by the Bakersfield coaching staff may also help explain the infamous dirty hit a Bakersfield player dished out during the 2004-05 ECHL playoffs, fracturing the pelvis of defenseless Alaska Aces center Scott Gomez, the first Latino player in the NHL, playing for his hometown team during the NHL Lockout.

Guess who was coaching the Condors that season?

The same Marty Raymond.

As such racially-based happenings are rare in hockey; the recent incident is surely not the first either.

In the 1967-68 season, for example, Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Larry Zeidel – whose grandparents were cremated in a Nazi concentration camp – was taunted on the ice by Boston Bruins center Phil Esposito who reportedly said “you’re next for the gas chambers, Zeidel!” The comment prompted one of the bloodiest fights ever in the NHL (between Zeidel and Boston tough guy Eddie Shack, who stood in for his star teammate).

When the-then president of the NHL, Clarence Campbell, was notified of the incident, he responded, “I find it hard to believe it was anything more than baiting [from the Boston players].”

An even more recent episode pitted an extremely egregious application of anti-Semitism. All the more, the target was NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman. Toronto Globe and Mail columnist, Roy MacGregor scribed a fair and just article on the NHL boss. However, the caricature accompanying the column, illustrating Bettman with a prolonged nose and prominent ears, was eerily reminiscent of those from post World-War I Europe. That the editors overlooked the racially discriminating scribble severely brings into question one of Canada’s most prominent paper’s.

Origination

When Bailey first voiced his concerns to the team’s management and then to Condors owner Jonathan Fleisig, the lawsuit claims it resulted in Jason’s benching and a threat to send him to a lower league if he didn’t stop his complaints.

The equivalence of a “non-response” prompted the minor leaguer to seek out David McNab, the Ducks’ senior v.p. of hockey operations.

“Jason didn’t want to get a lawyer involved,” explains Fink. “He wanted the Ducks to remedy the situation. They were, however, completely unresponsive.”

The main reason behind the lawsuit, which follows a complaint filed with California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, was the Anaheim organization’s lack of assertive action (both coaches were suspended a couple of games in 2009) and that Raymond’s contract with the Condors was extended.

“Jason isn’t looking for money,” said Fink. “There’s no upside in this for him. There’s only one major professional ice hockey league in North America. What the Bailey family wants for their son is to have an equal opportunity to put his nose to the grindstone and try to make the NHL.”

Letters Of Regret

Both Pederson and Raymond wrote letters of apologies at the time of their team-imposed suspensions. Raymond scribed “it was not my intent to offend you” and his “intent was to have a jovial moment.” Pederson penned that he had “learned and became a better person.”

The letters, according to the lawsuit, claim both coaches “downplayed the entire affair as a joke.”

“It’s laughable,” Fink decried. “Raymond says he’s joking. These are virulent anti-Semitic comments not jokes.”

As Pederson put it, “before you brought this issue up I didn’t understand these types of comments were inappropriate.”

Oh, really!? Where have you been living since the dawn of time?

Anti-Semitism is as old as Father-Time himself!

Since Jews were Jews, they’ve been disliked, oppressed and mistreated.

Time may have lapsed and ideals changed, but Jewish distain and hatred has remained consistent; and the attitude towards Jews by the people around them resistant; and those implementing anti-Semitic attitudes persistent.

It’s moments like these that make me wonder if – not when – the world as a whole would only respect one another as individuals, what might we actually be able to accomplish.

Think about it!