The Calgary Flames accepted the resignation of head coach Bill Peters on Friday, only days after he was accused of using racial slurs with a black player.
GM Brad Treliving made the announcement during a press conference on Friday after the 53-year-old coach issued a letter of apology to the team on Thanksgiving Day.
The decision resulted from accusations by former NHL player Akim Aliu who said that Peters used racial language in confrontations with him when both were with the Rockford Ice Hogs during the 2009-10 season.
The Nigerian-born Aliu said that Peters demanded that he stop playing his “n***er s**t” music in the locker room.
Aliu only made the accusations this year after a disappointing hockey career that Aliu feels was torpedoed by Peters over the racial incident ten years ago. But at least two of his former teammates backed up his allegations about the locker room incident.
The NFL immediately denounced Peters’ alleged behavior as “repugnant and unacceptable” on Tuesday, and the Flames said they had launched an investigation into the incident between the two.
But the investigation seems to have come to a quick end after Peters apologized on Thursday, Sporting News reported.
“Please accept this as a sincere apology to you, and the entire Calgary Flames organization, for offensive language I used in a professional setting a decade ago,” Peters said in his letter to the team, which he also sent to TSN’s Bob McKenzie and Sportnet’s Eric Francis. “I know that my comments have been the source of both anger and disappointment, and I understand why.”
Peters had been the coach of the Flames since April of 2018, having come to Calgary from the Carolina Hurricanes where he was bench boss.
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