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.
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