Written by: Connor Powell
Picture this. Some of your most revealing and personal messages you send with close friends gets released to the public for everyone to see… How would you feel? How would you handle it? Would it even be that bad based on what was said? Well, the worst of the worst in this instance happened to former National Hockey League player, Brendan Leipsic, just last year. Let’s take a closer look at the whole situation and decipher whether or not Leipsic truly got what he deserved.
Let’s first look at what exactly came out about Leipsic and why it is bad (after reading it will be blatantly obvious).
Where to even begin with this guy honestly, but I guess we’ll start with a message directed at his teammate Jake Virtanen. The former Vancouver Canuck forward posted to Instagram with some friends with the caption, “What a crew #Cabo” to which Leipsic shared to a group a friends saying, “Easily the worst crew in the world”. Next up in terms of teammate slander was when the Washington Capitals posted a podcast with two of Leipsic’s former teammates. Leipsic shared it to the same group of friends saying, “My linemates” which was followed up with, “F**k they’re losers”.
Personally, this just can’t happen in any way, shape, or form. Going behind someone’s back and saying things like this is bad no matter the instance, but to make matters worse he is saying this about teammates. These are the guys you go to war with on a nightly basis during the season to try and win the Stanley Cup, but you sure as hell won’t be accomplishing that with a teammate like Leipsic on your team.
Just when you think that was as bad as it got for Leipsic, there was questionably worse messages that came out about women. Now there is simply too many things to touch on in this blog, which is a problem within itself, but let’s touch on some of the worse messages by Leipsic. Just to take note of a couple of the messages in reference to women, Leipsic said things like, “lmao she’s so funny looking”, “look how fat Pearson’s wife is”, and “oink oink”. That is just a few of the misogynistic comments that he had used in Instagram private messages. There are far worse things said too, but in the interests of keeping this blog somewhat PG13, you can do that research on your own time.
Once the messages were leaked to the public for all to see, Leipsic’s hands were tied so this is how he responded. “I fully recognize how inappropriate and offensive these comments are and sincerely apologize to everyone for my actions. I am committed to learning from this and becoming a better person by taking time to determine how to move forward in an accountable, meaningful way. I am truly sorry.”.
To me, how Leipsic handled it wasn’t quite enough for me. Just stating that you are sorry and not showing how you are going to get better down the line doesn’t seem genuine to me. Nothing about that statement shows to me that he won’t just continue saying stuff like this again once the fog clears. He did get cut from the NHL almost entirely and now plays in Russia for the KHL, but here he is…still playing hockey professionally which is not okay to me. We can’t let this standard continue any longer for people like Leipsic because who knows, it might go one step further from just misogynistic comments to maybe domestic violence.