Members of a Mi'kmaw hockey team in Quebec's Gaspé region say they were the target of racial slurs at a recreational tournament for adults over the weekend.

On Saturday night, the Gesgapegiag Chiefs were playing against a team from Chandler. During the first period, a Mi'kmaw player was fighting for the puck behind the net and said his opponent called him a "f--king Indian."

"I said 'no way, that's not going to keep on going, I'm going to go see the refs right away and put a stop to this,'" said Dave Condo, one of the players on the Chiefs.

Condo said he went to see the officials between periods and they told him they would hand out penalties if they heard similar insults. Before the second period began, Condo said the referees spoke to the other team's captain.

After the game, which Chandler won 3-1, Condo said players on the other team repeated the same remarks to him and his teammates while they made their way to the locker room.

"It felt like somebody punched me," he said. "Like if a car on the street stops, punches you and leaves."

He and a few of teammates went to the Chandler team's locker room to tell them to cut out the racist comments.

"I said, 'there's no way that in 2020 I'm going to be told racism like that. You guys need to get over it,'" he said.

Condo, a police officer in Gesgapegiag​​​​, said there's no place for that kind of talk on or off the ice.

"When you're playing the game and [someone says a slur], your anger is like, 110 per cent. You're not really having fun."

CBC has not been able to reach anyone from the Chandler team for comment.

Child heard similar comments

Tenika Boisvert-Martin, 12, was also at the game cheering on her dad, a player on the Chiefs. She was standing near a hallway with a friend when she said she heard similar comments from fans of the other team.

"They started talking mean about us," she said. "They were looking at us while saying it — 'these f---ing Indians, they don't know how to play hockey and all that, they shouldn't be playing.'"

Boisvert-Martin said she was frustrated and angered by what she had heard.

"They ... talked about like, my dad and his friends, about our culture and saying that we shouldn't be playing," she said.

"But the thing that made me the most mad was that they were calling us Indians."

Tournament organizer Rémi Whittom says this type of behaviour will not be tolerated at the event going forward.

"We are going to treat this the way it should be treated in 2020, with sanctions. We're going to take this seriously," he said.

Whittom said that next year, players will have to sign a code of ethics before they play, and he won't hesitate to kick out players or teams who don't respect it.

Condo's partner launched an online petition asking for local mayors to commit to a zero tolerance policy when it comes to racism in hockey arenas in the Gaspé. The petition has gathered over 1,700 signatures.