AHL announces lengthy suspension for player who used a homophobic slur

Today the America Hockey League announced a significant suspension against Rochester Americans' center, Ben Holmstrom. Holmstrom, 34, is a career minor league who only ever played 5 professional games with tvr Philadelphia Flyers.

The incident occured on March 30th.

Today the AHL issue the following statement:

AMERICAN HOCKEY LEAGUE ANNOUNCES SUSPENSION

SPRINGFIELD, Mass.... The American Hockey League today announced that Rochester Americans forward Ben Holmstrom has been suspended for eight (8) games as a consequence of his actions during a game vs. Utica on Mar, 30.

Holmstrom was assessed a game misconduct at 20:00 of the first period after using homophobic language.

As part of the suspension, Holmstrom will be participating in diversity and inclusion education. The American Hockey League is committed to building a culture that is safe, inclusive, and free from abuse, harassment and all forms of unethical behavior or misconduct.

Holmstrom has already served two games of the suspension.

This is unfortunately another event this year that resulted in a suspension for a player using prohibited language in minor league games. We've also seen other racial insensitive incidents occur both in the ECHL and in Europe over the past six months.