Confirmed Signing with Link: [VGK] F Kai Uchacz signs ELC with the Golden Knights (2 years, $845k AAV; begins 2025-26)

[ManofSteel55]

What he did is insanely offensive and a 16 year old knows better. If the victim doesn’t forgive him why should the hockey
World?

Do you remember what its like to be 16? 16 year olds are impulsive, and to be frank, do stupid things all the time because they don't think. They are also petty and do stupid things to people they don't like without realizing the extent of the consequences of their actions. The list of dumb things that 16 year olds do even though they "know better" would be pretty long if someone were to compile one. Does that make what he did ok? No, of course not, but if the kid put in the work to do better, and be better, then there has to be some chance for forgiveness from the hockey world.

The victim not forgiving someone is one thing. He is the one who was personally affected by the actions. We can understand why that person would choose to not forgive, while still understanding that the perpetrator put in the work to be better. For you to sit there and suggest that the rest of the world should just categorically say that there is nothing that Uchacz can do to make ammends for his actions, regardless of whether the victim wants to forgive it or not, seems pretty harsh to me.

Now, like I said, I don't know this kid. Maybe its all for show and he's a racist deep down, and if that's the case, it sucks, and I hope he doesn't make it very far. But he's saying the right things and it looks like has put in the effort to be better. It's not a Mitchell Miller situation where the kid just sat out and hoped it would go away.

 

[Kegs]

Do you remember what its like to be 16? 16 year olds are impulsive, and to be frank, do stupid things all the time because they don't think. They are also petty and do stupid things to people they don't like without realizing the extent of the consequences of their actions. The list of dumb things that 16 year olds do even though they "know better" would be pretty long if someone were to compile one. Does that make what he did ok? No, of course not, but if the kid put in the work to do better, and be better, then there has to be some chance for forgiveness from the hockey world.

The victim not forgiving someone is one thing. He is the one who was personally affected by the actions. We can understand why that person would choose to not forgive, while still understanding that the perpetrator put in the work to be better. For you to sit there and suggest that the rest of the world should just categorically say that there is nothing that Uchacz can do to make ammends for his actions, regardless of whether the victim wants to forgive it or not, seems pretty harsh to me.

Now, like I said, I don't know this kid. Maybe its all for show and he's a racist deep down, and if that's the case, it sucks, and I hope he doesn't make it very far. But he's saying the right things and it looks like has put in the effort to be better. It's not a Mitchell Miller situation where the kid just sat out and hoped it would go away.

I was never racist at 16. Racism always offended me.

 

[ManofSteel55]

I was never racist at 16. Racism always offended me.

Good for you. Racism offends me too. Unfortunately, I don't think all 16 year olds are perfect and completely virtuous. They make mistakes. And the best part about kids that age, is that they are still young enough to learn from major mistakes and grow as a person. I would expect that you are a very different person today than you were at 16, even if you never did anything racist. Racism is never okay, but a lot of 16 year olds get off on being controversial and doing things for shock value.

Another thing, kids are shaped by the attitudes of those who they learned from, and the communities they were raised in. I don't know where you are from, but in some parts of the world, sometimes there is more racism about than others. If racism is something that is more common in the area he grew up in, or in the people he grew up around, it wouldn't be seen as nearly as bad as it is to someone who grew up in a multi-cultural area where racism is tought to be a bad thing from a young age. Speaking from experience on this one, I grew up in a rural Alberta community. There were some people who were outwardly racist, and I always knew that was bad, but it wasn't until I grew up and moved away from there, and experienced multiculturalism that I understood exactly how bad it was. It could be the same here, we don't know what the guy had learned was "okay" before this incident. And it shouldn't matter, he did an awful thing, and we should look more at how he has learned and responded since he did it. It's not like we're talking about some 30 year old working professional being racist here. We're talking about a teenager, who took education on it, took lumps publicly over it, and at minimum hasn't had another incident reported in the 4 - 5 years since. That should count for something. Branding someone as a racist for something they did at 16 when they have tried to learn why they were wrong isn't how I want this world to function, that's for sure. Forgiveness is important.