Wayne Simmonds
Wayne Simmonds, seen left as a King, had a banana thrown at him last Thursday. Chris Moorhouse, the subject, was arrested and charged for the action. Reuters

A black Philadelphia Flyers forward had a banana peel thrown at him during a preseason game in Ontario on Thursday night.

Wayne Simmonds, the only black player on the Flyers, was skating toward the goalie for a shootout attempt when the flying banana landed near him.

I caught it from the side of my eye, Simmonds told the Philadelphia Daily News. It was a banana. Hopefully, that wasn't directed towards me being black.

Because if it was, that's just somebody being ignorant.

The banana peel came from the upper decks of the John Labatt Centre during the shootout portion of a game that ended in a 4-3 Red Wings win. The Daily News reports that another fan had attempted to throw a banana peel at Simmonds earlier in the game, but that it didn't make it onto the ice.

For Simmonds -- a black player in a sport dominated by white athletes -- this ugly incident wasn't a shock to him.

When you're a black man playing in a predominantly white man's sport, you've got to come to expect things like that, said Simmonds. Over the past 23 years of my life, I've come to expect some things like that. But I'm older and more mature now, I kind of just left things roll off [my back]. I try not to think about stuff like that.

Other players weren't quite as gracious about the situation, according to the Daily News. The newspaper reported one unnamed Flyer said he would have went and kicked that fan's ass myself.