Colorado Avalanche Rival: Blackhawks Announcer with Racist Comment

The Colorado Avalanche’s Central Division rivals, the Chicago Blackhawks, made a racist observation about an Hispanic player in Germany.

I have to say with full certainty that the Colorado Avalanche’s play-by-play announcers, first Mike Haynes and now Marc Moser, have been very good about keeping their comments clean and appropriate.

Their rival announcer, not so much. Recently, the Chicago Blackhawks were in Berlin for one of the NHL’s Global Series games. They played against the Eisbären Berlin hockey club.

Well, as often happens when a player is good enough to go pro but not quite NHL material — or not anymore — he goes to play in Europe. The Eisbären Berlin club happen to have a player from Escondido, California — which is just a couple hours away from Long Beach Native Matt Nieto’s hometown of, you guessed it, Long Beach.

Anyway, the young man playing for the Eisbären is right wing Austin Ortega. The now-25-year-old spent his teen years playing in the USHL system before completing four years of NCAA hockey for the University of Nebraska, Omaha. He did a brief stint in the AHL with the San Diego Gulls before heading to Europe. He played one season for the Växjö Lakers HC of the Swedish Hockey League, and now he’s with the Eisbären.

So, the Blackhawks were in Berlin for an exhibition game against those selfsame Eisbären. And, a little ways into the third period, Chicago play-by-play annoucer Pat Foley uttered this in relation to Austin Ortega:

"“Ortega, who sounds like he out to be a shortstop…”"

It’s at the 6:12 mark in the video below:

So, Ortega “sounds like he ought to be a shortstop.” Now, why would that be? Did he express before the game that he thought about playing pro baseball instead of hockey? Well, no, the comment then would have been, “Ortega, who might have made a good shortstop…”

Is it because Austin Ortega looks like he has the right skills to make a good shortstop? Again, that doesn’t follow because the comment would have been, “Ortega, who looks like he’d be a good shortstop…”

No, we know why “Ortega” sounds like he should be a shortstop — because the name is Hispanic, and Hispanics play baseball, not ice hockey.

In other words, once again, Hockey is NOT for Everyone. It most certainly isn’t for a young Hispanic man named Austin Ortega. Because, you know, Hispanic.

I am highly surprised this racist comment has caught so little attention. I’m going to guess it’s because the game was a preseason one, and in Berlin to boot. Though Chicago Blackhawks games usually get an absolute circus of publicity, maybe this one issue flew under the radar.

Because saying a player with a name like Austin Ortega ought to be a shortstop is exactly the same kind of racial slur Chicago Blackhawks fans laid on Devante Smith-Pelley when they taunted him with “basketball, basketball, basketball.” Because black athletes play basketball the same way Hispanic athletes play baseball.

I’ve never listened to the Blackhawks feed of a Colorado Avalanche game. I wonder if Pat Foley thinks Nieto should be playing baseball, too. Or maybe he saves his racial slurs just for players with obviously Hispanic names — poor Alec Martinez of the LA Kings.

Hockey Is For Everyone — whether the old guard likes it or not. And in this day and age of the internet recording every single thing for posterity, racist utterances are there forever.

Shame on Pat Foley.

Meanwhile, as I stated, our Colorado Avalanche play-by-play announcers would never consider letting such an utterance pass their lips — I’m confident of that.

Additionally, I’d like to see the Colorado Avalanche — and especially the Chicago Blackhawks, thanks to the above — do more to reach out to Latinx viewers, perhaps with Spanish heritage nights and some broadcasts in Spanish. More Hispanics — more everyone — should be told that hockey is, indeed, for them, too.