Jets’ Wheeler challenges Trump

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This article was published 21/02/2018 (2255 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Blake Wheeler spoke Thursday not as a team captain but as a father and human being.

He spoke out on the need for gun control south of the border.

The Winnipeg Jets’ captain and all-star forward responded to questions following the club’s morning practice about a tweet he sent out Wednesday night. It was his reply to a tweet from U.S. President Donald Trump, who had just spent time with surviving students of last week’s deadly mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla.

Trump had sent out: “I will always remember the time I spent today with courageous students, teachers and families. So much love in the midst of so much pain. We must not let them down. We must keep our children safe!!”

Wheeler, who is from Plymouth, Minn., then tweeted, “Well… then let’s stop letting them down, Mr. President.”

He was asked why he felt it was important to take to Twitter.

“Regardless of where people stand, we can probably all agree that what’s been going on in the U.S. — the amount of school shootings — we’ve got to find a way to remedy that. It’s been going on too long without anyone really doing anything to help. It just seems like something that should be fixable,” Wheeler said.

Tonight, the Jets (35-16-9) play their first road game in nearly a month when they battle the St. Louis Blues at Scottrade Centre. Game time is 7 p.m. The Stars will be their adversaries Saturday in Dallas.

Winnipeg wrapped up a 10-game homestand Tuesday with a 4-3 loss to the Los Angeles Kings. The Jets were 6-3-1 during the stretch and occupy second spot in the Central Division.

Wheeler said the 17 deaths at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — 14 students and three staff shot by a teenager — has sparked conversation within the dressing room.

“Probably the most we’ve chatted about important things going on in the world. Clearly, everyone has different feelings about everything, and it’s a great thing because it just opens up the dialogue and you can kind of figure out why guys feel a certain way and what’s important to them, try to put yourself in their shoes. So we’ve obviously chatted about this quite a bit,” he said.

The Florida Panthers, playing their first home game since the attack, honoured the victims Thursday when they hosted the Washington Capitals at BB&T Center. The game included a moment of silence and pre-game ceremony, while the Panthers have also initiated a blood drive and fundraisers.

Some of the Florida players live in Parkland and had kids in schools not far from where the shooting took place. Veteran goalie Roberto Luongo’s son, Gianni, 7, was in lockdown in a closet for three hours in a nearby school.

Wheeler and his wife, Sam, are raising three youngsters. He said parents shouldn’t have to fear what might happen when their kids head to class.

“It’s too much. It’s been going on too long,” he said “As an American, I have three kids now. You start to get scared about thinking of them going to school in the United States. It shouldn’t be that way.

“My wife and I talked about this (Wednesday) night, actually. And we agree that the gun laws in Canada seem to prevent a lot of this from going on. And if there are steps to be taken to prevent this from happening in the future in the United States, why wouldn’t you explore that?

“(His son) Louie’s going to be in kindergarten next year. And you can’t help but think along those lines. When it’s happening to you, then all of a sudden it becomes a real thing. We need to start putting a little bit of thought into it.”

While Jets head coach Paul Maurice noted he hadn’t read the tweet, he said Wheeler, 31, who spent three years studying and playing hockey at the University of Minnesota, makes a habit of speaking thoughtfully and intelligently.

He said the team’s U.S.-born scoring leader (17 goals, 52 assists) is well within his rights to take a stand on gun control back home.

“I think it’s a good thing, as long as there’s a responsibility to the comments,” Maurice said. “I’m not a real big fan of casual opinions about really serious subjects in the media, especially by athletes or actors or people in the public. I don’t think your public persona means you necessarily have the right to fire up whenever you want. But I don’t think Blake’s casual about anything that he says. He usually speaks right from the heart and he’s a very bright man and he’s discussed those things.

“Simple rule in our room is our players get to say whatever they want, they can talk about whatever they want. And that’s a good thing.”

Maurice chose not to weigh in directly on the hot-botton issue.

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“My personal views on the subject are maybe different than maybe others. I grew up with guns in the house and my dad’s a (firing) range officer, so it’s part of the way we grew up, I guess,” he said. “But even with that I’m not educated enough, I don’t think, to fire an opinion out.”

It’s not the first time Wheeler has weighed in on a political issue. In September, he was the first NHL player to publicly disagree with controversial remarks made by Trump, who publicly ripped athletes who kneeled during the American national anthem to protest race inequality in the country.

Wheeler said he understands his comments then about peoples’ freedoms to express themselves might now seem contrary to his feelings now on gun control and Americans’ right to bear arms.

“Now it’s contradictory, because I was talking earlier about defending our constitutional rights. Times are different now than when the constitution was written,” he said. “Abolishing guns from the world is not happening, not possible. But if there’s a way to make our schools safer, make our kids safer — there seems to have been steps taken around the world. Different countries have had success doing it. The United States is a little bit behind on that.”

jason.bell@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @WFPJasonBell

Jason Bell
Sports editor

Jason Bell wanted to be a lawyer when he was a kid. The movie The Paper Chase got him hooked on the idea of law school and, possibly, falling in love with someone exactly like Lindsay Wagner (before she went all bionic).

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