Keagan Gaywish fell in love with the game of hockey as a young kid, and now he's playing with the Minnedosa Chancellors high school team as they compete in the Westman High School Hockey League.
On October 31, the team hit the road for a game against the Swan Valley Tigers. It was a game that Keagan was looking forward to but events during the game, almost had him wanting to quit playing for good.
Throughout the game, while he was on the ice and in the team's player box, he could hear racist comments that were directed towards him. Then when he was leaving the ice, a teammate also heard racist comments directed towards him.
"It was really emotional, I wasn't expecting something like that to happen," said Gaywish. "I wanted to stop playing the game and just quit. It made me feel bad as a person, just an awful experience."
Just more than a week after the incident, Keagan says he's feeling better because so many people reached out to him after they found out what happened. According to the arena, the fans that were saying racist comments have been banned from the facility.
From the Rolling River First Nation, Gaywish has been playing hockey for 11 years and he hopes that no one has to go through what he did. And while quitting hockey was something he thought about, his father Roger Brightnose says his son will continue playing.
"We had to sit down as a family and talk about what had happened," said Brightnose. "We reassured him that he's a good hockey player and we didn't want him to give up something that he's enjoyed so much. You see racism far too often these days, it's pretty sickening."
Roger now wants you to step up. If you see someone being harassed by racism, he is hoping people will step up so it stops.
And at the Swan River Centennial Arena, a parent will now sit behind the visiting team's bench.
