Did Andrew Shaw Get Caught Using A Homophobic Slur Again In The Penalty Box? Probably Not But That Won't Stop Hockey Twitter
So the other night, Andrew Shaw basically got mugged by Kevin Bieksa in Anaheim’s 6-2 win over Montreal. Bieksa lands a few heavy hits on Shaw, Shaw takes offense and gives him an extremely pedestrian little crosscheck to the kidney to say he’s not a fan, and then Bieksa just starts punching him in the face out of nowhere like a total scumbag. If anybody deserves backlash here in this situation, it’s Kevin Bieksa for being a psychopath. But it’s this clip of Andrew Shaw in the penalty box that has gotten the majority of Hockey Twitter riled up over the last 24 hours.
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Now here’s the thing. If somebody tells you that Andrew Shaw said “you’re a fucking fag”, then that’s immediately how your brain is going to tell your eyes to see this one. Those are the words that you’re then looking for Andrew Shaw to say and, yes, his lips certainly seem to match that. You’re also probably going to believe it because it’s not like Andrew Shaw has done any favors for himself in the past. Here he was 2 seasons ago pretty much using the exact same language from the penalty box.
But that was 2 seasons ago. Since that time, Andrew Shaw was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens and since being with the Habs, he has volunteered to be the team’s “You Can Play” ambassador. “You Can Play” is “dedicated to the eradication of homophobia in sports”. He could have just said he was sorry for using those words but he actually went out and actively did something about it to change. So now let’s look at that clip one more time. Only this time instead of somebody telling you that Andrew Shaw called somebody a “fag”, let’s look at it in a different frame of mind. Specifically starting with the fact that the NHL investigated this and have come out and said that no line was crossed.
So now what if somebody told you that Shaw said “Not fucking fair”?
Your brain does that thing again where it makes your eyes see what they’re told to see. And why would Andrew Shaw be saying “not fucking fair” to an on-ice official? Well how about because he just got mugged by Kevin Bieksa but also ended up with a 10-minute misconduct penalty. Seems pretty fucking unfair to me. And you want to know what else seems unfair to me? 75% of Hockey Twitter rushing to call Andrew Shaw a homophobe for something that he didn’t say just because they have their preconceived notions on Shaw and are incapable of understanding that people can change. Probably the least fair thing about this entire ordeal. A guy makes a mistake almost 2 years ago. Has done everything you could ask of him to understand his mistake and make amends for it. Then gets falsely accused of making the same mistake again because people just assume he’s a scum. Take a look in the mirror, Hockey Twitter.
P.S. – If your go-to insult in the year 2017 is to call somebody gay or to drop an f-slur, it’s just because you’re not smart or clever enough to come up with anything better. I don’t want to speak for the gay community but I feel like if I were gay, I wouldn’t even take offense to it, I’d just feel sorry for that person for being so poorly educated. Maybe that’s some straight privilege being able to say I wouldn’t be offended by it but I don’t know. The only people I know who still drop heavy f-bombs went to community college and hung around high school kids for about 5 years too long because everybody else around them had moved on. I feel like in order to really be offended by somebody, you need to respect them first and I have a hard time respecting stupid.