ECHL begins disciplinary process for Jacob Panetta following racist gesture directed at Jordan Subban

While no official length has been announced yet, the ECHL has announced that Jacob Panetta of the Jacksonville Icemen will sit until it is after a racist gesture directed at Jordan Subban on Saturday.

"The ECHL on Sunday announced that Jacksonville's Jacob Panetta has been suspended indefinitely pending a hearing under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, as a result of his actions in ECHL Game #474, South Carolina at Jacksonville, on Jan. 22," said the league in a release.

Both Jordan and brother P.K. Subban have spoken out against the incident on Twitter, with P.K. tweeting a video of the incident. Warning: fans can be heard in the video yelling the n-word at Jordan.

They don't call the east coast league the jungle because my brother and the other black players are the monkeys! Hey @jacobpanetta you shouldn't be so quick delete your Twitter or your Instagram account you will probably be able to play again that's what history says but things pic.twitter.com/8zOJ9q47pk— P.K. Subban (@PKSubban1) January 23, 2022

More like @JPanetta12 was too much of a coward to fight me and as soon as I began to turn my back he started making monkey gestures at me so I punched him in the face multiple times and he turtled like the coward he is. There fixed it 👍🏾 https://t.co/JtPqpN9wwE— Jordan Subban (@jordansubban) January 23, 2022

Update: ECHL team parts ways with Jacob Panetta following racist incident Saturday night

Why this continues to happen in hockey is a frustrating question. Just this week the AHL suspended San Jose Barracuda forward Krystof Hrabik 30 games for making a "racial gesture" at Tucson Roadrunners left-wing Boko Imama during a game last week.

It is expected that an official suspension for Panetta will be around the same length.