Paul “BizNasty” Bissonnette weighs in on Jess Allen’s ignorant comments on hockey players, invites her out to dinner

In case you missed the news yesterday, a comment from CTV correspondent Jessica Allen describing hockey players as “white boys” and “bullies” on CTV’s The Social has thousands of hockey fans on social media calling for her to be removed from her position. 

In fact, so many people have taken to Twitter to complain that the hashtag #FireJessAllen is now trending in Canada.

While filling in this week for regular host Lainey Lui, Allen went on a bizarre anti-hockey rant that was prompted by the news of Don Cherry’s dismissal from Rogers Sportsnet and CBC. 

Allen said that while she has been told that Cherry “is a Canadian icon and a symbol of the great sport of hockey,” she personally does not “worship at the altar of hockey.” She went on to describe such people as “a certain type of person in my mind, and in my experience, who does” and “they all tended to be white boys who weren’t, let’s say, not very nice.”

Allen then added, “They were not generally thoughtful. They were often bullies. Their parents were able to afford to spend $5,000 year on minor hockey: $5,000 is a lot of money. You can do other things besides than spending time in an arena. They could go on a trip and learn about the world. See other things, eh. The world is a big place. Get outside of that bubble.”

Here’s the video:

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Here’s the thing… in Cherry’s rant this past weekend NEVER did he mention race. Allen did. Explicitly. 

Neither The Social nor CTV, who happens to own Sportsnet rival TSN, have commented on Allen’s comments. Interestingly enough though, Allen herself has taken to social media to defend herself but fans are having NONE of it.

Check it out:

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Again… the thing is… hockey IS closely linked to Canadians’ national identity. Jessica Allen admits she has a difficult time reconciling that, yet still feels qualified to speak about hockey fans and hockey players. The hypocrisy is baffling.

As you might imagine though, this story is making headlines not just in the Canadian hockey world, but south of the border too. On today’s episode of The Spittin’ Chiclets podcast with former NHLers Paul Bissonnette and Ryan Whitney, BizNasty himself took the high road and even extended an invitation for Allen to attend an NHL game.

After playing the clip of Allen’s comments, Biz implored his listeners to take the high road, as well.

Check it out: 

“We have some listeners who are very passionate hockey fans and who are upset at what you heard. Instead of going online and attacking her, maybe write her and say, “Hey, I’m sorry of what your experience was and those few fuckin’ assholes who maybe gave you a bad perspective of the hockey culture and what we’re all about.” Reach out to her and say, “It’s not all like that. There are a lot of good people involved.”

“Instead of attacking, let’s show her what we’re about. I’m done with the back and forth of all this bullshit because no one’s going to understand each other if it just continues to be finger pointing.” 

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Biz went on to even invited to fly Allen out to Arizona to attend dinner and an Arizona Coyotes game with him so she can see for herself.

“I’ll even extend an invite to a hockey game. I’ll fly you out to Arizona, you can come watch a game, we can have an in depth conversation about it, I’ll even pay for dinner.”

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You got a Biz20 promo code for all this, Biz? 

In all seriousness, kudos to Biz again for taking the high road. It's easy to get dragged into the mud over BS like this. Respect.