I wanted to honour what my parents had always taught me at our home in Pierrefonds, Que. — never give oxygen to a coward. Do not allow him to breathe. If you act as he wants you to, you justify his purpose. Be proud of who you are. Do not let anyone walk over you. Do not let a weak person weaken you. Even as I was counting the steps separating me from the guy, and the time it would take me to get to him.

I’m not going to lie — I was close to tears. And the insults kept raining down. I was just 17 years old in the spring of 1995, still a child. It was my first season in junior hockey. That night, in our first game of the semifinal series, I had only one shift on the ice. So I was not a factor in the game.

I played hockey all my life — minor hockey in the West Island, junior hockey in Hull, and seven seasons in the NHL. But by the age of 10 or 12, my teammate Jason Doig — who is also a black man — and I had already heard whispers, uncool comments and questions, like “why don’t you play football or basketball instead of hockey?” You can also imagine that I heard all sorts of ignorant comments during my years in the NHL.