Stan Bowman
Stan Bowman

Oilers GM condemns vile attacks and online hate aimed at his players

Stan Bowman is taking a stand against online hate after players and families were targeted with disturbing threats.

Chris Gosselin

Chris Gosselin


General manager Stan Bowman quickly found out how passionate the Edmonton Oilers’ fanbase can be. When speaking on the 100% Hockey Talk podcast with John Shannon and Daren Millard earlier this week, Bowman wanted to send a strong message to the fans who sometimes go on social media to attack NHL players. He called them out for their unacceptable behaviour, explaining how it can weigh on players and people in the organization.

“There’s so much emotion, and there’s so much passion, but there’s also sometimes just so much noise out there. And I think whereas 20 years ago there was just as much emotion and noise, but there was really no platform for these people to connect with other people that sort of felt similarly wound up. They just were sort of yelling out their window and nobody was connecting to it.

“Now, when someone yells out their window and they can connect to millions of people at one time, and even if they have no credibility and don’t know what they’re talking about, there’s a lot of other people and that’s the world we have to live with. So we can’t sit here and say it’s bad because there’s tons of great sides to it. But I think that is the downside, which is the passion and the emotion of the fans and the media has allowed some of this stuff to probably get out of hand. And we didn’t really have that, say, 20 years ago.”

While he can understand the passion, Bowman wants to make sure his players are safe. Unfortunately, it was not the case for goalie Stuart Skinner during the Stanley Cup playoff run as his wife Chloe Skinner had revealed during an appearance on the Breaking the Ice podcast that she has gotten death threats from certain individuals.

“There was times where security had to be involved. I specifically have DMs filled with death threats towards the kids, towards myself, from anonymous accounts [with] people hiding behind their screens,” she said then.

While Stuart Skinner does have social media accounts, he isn’t the one running them, and that may be the only way for some players to tune it out completely.

Such death threats or threats of violence happen all too often on social media and that’s mind-boggling to me. Most of us are on social media for work and pleasure. Let’s keep it that way.

I’m glad GM Bowman took a stand for his players, making sure the situation with Skinner and his family never happens again.

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