A pink army invaded Calgary’s Saddledome Thursday on a mission to embrace kindness.
The fourth annual Hitmen #EndBullying game saw Calgary, the Winnipeg Ice and 13,172 fans standing as teammates against a bigger opponent: bullying.
“No one should ever feel that experience of being bullied,” Hitmen junior PA announcer Dallyn Schinnour said. “Always talk kind to others and treat people the way you want to be treated.”
It’s an issue that affects everyone from kids to pro athletes.
“People say some horrific things,” Calgary Stampeders alum and TELUS Wise ambassador Rob Cote said. “There’s a disconnect where they don’t feel athletes are human beings. Just because you can play a sport at a certain level, you don’t have human emotions, and that’s just not true.”
The two-time Grey Cup champ has seen the best and worst sides of social media through his time in the CFL.
He hopes the fans in attendance band together, much like a sports team, to support each other.
“We had a locker room, a support group where we were able to bounce these conversations off other people to say, ‘How can I even begin to respond to someone who would say something like that?'” Cote said.
Brigitte Lacquette is best known for winning a silver medal and the first Indigenous woman to compete for the Canadian Women’s Olympic Hockey Team.
Before she was on the podium, she had to rise above being teased for having eczema.
“I loved hockey. I loved being on the ice. I guess in a way, it saved me,” Laquette said. “I was able to focus on that and not focus on what other people thought about me or what they called me. I was focused on my goals and my success.”
The pros hope fans realize no matter what the score of the game is, kindness wins.
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