Toronto hockey league investigating teen's allegations of racial slur during game

A jarring racial attack has left a young Toronto hockey player contemplating whether he ever wants to play the game again.

"It broke me. I turned into a ghost. I didn't know what to do," 15-year-old Yonas Nicola-Lalonde said of the alleged incident. "After it ended, I skated off the ice and went to the change room and tried to recompose myself because I was in so much shock.

"I felt empty. I felt useless. It made me not want to play anymore and just retire from hockey."

The incident happened Sept. 30 in a game between Nicola-Lalonde's Humber Valley Sharks team and the Forest Hill Force, both of the Greater Toronto Hockey League.

It all started with a fairly innocuous play. Nicola-Lalonde's team was breaking out of its end and one of his teammates was body checked by an opposing player, though the game was being played under non-contact rules. Nicola-Lalonde retaliated with a cross-check.

Nicola-Lalonde, who is Humber Valley's only Black player, said the player then called him the N-word.

"I was shocked. I really didn't know what to do," he told CBC Sports.

A brawl broke out and in the midst of the melee, it's alleged the same Forest Hill player hurled another racial slur at Humber Valley's goalie, who is Asian.

Nicola-Lalonde has played hockey for many years and has been called the N-word and dealt with racial abuse a number of times before, but said this time it struck a painful nerve.

"When it happened to me the first time, I was only 10 years old and the player that said it at the time couldn't have understood how impactful and negative that word could be," he said. "But now I'm 15 and everyone knows how offensive that word is."

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