Coach Greg Walsh pulled his Peterborough minor league hockey team off the ice after an opposing player hurled a racial slur at one of his teenaged team members and no one apologized.

Two weeks later, Walsh is watching his house league team from the stands while he serves an indefinite suspension from the Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA). Meanwhile, the player who used the taunt and his two coaches received three-day penalties and are playing again.

Because of a Hockey Canada rule on “refusing to start play,” Walsh could be barred from coaching for up to a year.

“I acted in the best interest of the kids I represent as coach of the hockey team, and I’m prepared to accept any punishment that was given, he said. “Whether it’s fair, whether its not . . . that’s not my decision.”

Others are less diplomatic. “We’re supposed to be in it for the kids, but we’re just running into hurdles of bureaucracy,” said John Gardner, president of the Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL).

The target of the slur, Andrew McCullum, 16, is simply angry. “He wanted to make a statement that he does not tolerate racism,” McCullum said of his coach.

The incident occurred at a Nov. 15 game between two Peterborough Minor Hockey Association teams. McCullum, who has played for Walsh’s NAPA Auto Parts team for years, and a boy who plays for the Austin Trophies got into an on-ice confrontation.

They were sent to the penalty box for two minutes, where “we were chirping each other,” McCullum recalled.

The other boy then called him “the N-word.” The referee didn’t hear it, so couldn’t impose a penalty.

The Austin Trophies coach benched his player for part of that period. But when the boy was put back on the ice the next period without offering an apology, Walsh was furious.

“In order for us as a team to protect our player from that, we said that we weren’t going to play and we went to the dressing room. Simple as that,” he said.

Walsh’s players were changing out of their uniforms before the referee’s two-minute window for the team to reconsider was over. “They seemed pretty angry,” McCullum said.

According to the Hockey Canada rulebook, any official responsible for a team withdrawing from the ice and failing to return may be suspended for up to a year. Walsh is prevented from coaching until a hearing to determine the extent of his punishment for breaking that rule.

OMHA executive director Richard Ropchan said that while Walsh may not be suspended for an entire year, he expects the coach will suffer some penalty. “He has breached the regulations, and that’s suspendable, so I don’t know how long it’s going to be.”

Ropchan agreed the rule is “harsh,” but added: “It’s really clear on what happens if you remove a team from a game, for whatever reason.”

The OMHA merely enforces the rules set by Hockey Canada, he said, adding Walsh didn’t have to force the game to end for the Austin Trophies player and coaches to be punished.

Other coaches have suffered suspensions under the same rule for removing their team from play when kids have been injured by much larger players on the opposing team, according to another OMHA official.

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Todd Jackson, a senior manager at Hockey Canada, said the regulation “allows the minor hockey associations to deal with different situations on a case-by-case basis.”

Walsh knew he could face suspension for the decision, and the referee warned him about the rule at the time. Asked whether he thinks the outcome fair, he laughed. “Under the circumstances, certainly not. But a rule is a rule.”

But the GTHL’s Gardner said that “we can be over-regulated.” He added, “I always say, if you want to do well in Ottawa politics, get into hockey for a year or two.”

McCullum said it’s the second time in two seasons another player has used the same slur against him.

Following a Star investigation into racism and violence in minor hockey last year, this season the GTHL changed the penalty for discriminatory taunts to an indefinite suspension — up from a three-game suspension like the one McCullum’s opponent received.

Carl Friday, a senior GTHL referee, said he thinks those penalties should be applied everywhere. “If every league were to go to that, it would show a unified decision,” he said.

Gardner agreed that “you’ve got to speed up in order to catch up with the times.”

Austin Trophies coach John Welsh said the offending player is a good kid who deeply regrets the incident. A letter of apology has been written and McCullum will receive it soon, he said, adding he thinks Walsh’s suspension is taking too long to be resolved.

Walsh’s team continues to play without a coach but still stands behind his decision, said manager Tracy Groombridge.

“We just want to play hockey.”