Report: NHL star says he gets treated different because of his race.

He's viewed as a hot head, perhaps someone who is less than an ideal team player, and some would go so far as to call him a distraction.

However in a recent intweview with The Hockey News, current Buffalo Sabre Evander Kane seemed to indicate that perception of him around the league isn't due to his bad behavior, or even his poor attitude, he says it's for another reason entirely.

“There are a lot of guys I could point to that everybody knows publicly who have done a lot worse or been accused of doing a lot worse things than I have,” Kane told THN, “but they don’t look like me. They don’t look like me.”

While Kane has unquestionably been under a lot of scrutiny, especially following the blow up with the Jets last season, some would argue that all high profile athletes find themselves under such a microscope regardless of race.

The question now becomes do the National Hockey League, and by extensions it's fans, judge Kane more harshly because of his race?

[pub]