Steve Downie

Steve Downie (born April 3, 1987) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey forward who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Philadelphia Flyers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Colorado Avalanche, Pittsburgh Penguins and Arizona Coyotes, with the Flyers having drafted him in the first round, 29th overall, in 2005.

Downie grew up in Holland Landing, Ontario, the younger son of Anne and the late John Downie.

He has one sibling, brother Greg, and attended Sacred Heart High School in Newmarket.

He played minor ice hockey for the York-Simcoe Express AAA organization of the Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA), and competed in the 2001 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with them.

Downie led his Express Bantam team to the All-Ontario AAA Championship in April 2002.

He was drafted in the first round, 16th overall, by the Windsor Spitfires in the 2003 OHL Priority Selection.

He later attended St. Joseph's Catholic High School in Windsor, Ontario, in 2004.

Downie was selected in the first round, 29th overall, in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft by the Philadelphia Flyers.

Not long after being drafted, Downie was suspended for five games early in the 2005–06 OHL season for an on-ice altercation with teammate Akim Aliu.

During a practice on September 28, 2005, Downie cross-checked Aliu in the face without warning, knocking out seven of his teeth, and then proceeded to fight his younger teammate.

The incident stemmed from 16-year-old Aliu's refusal to take part in a hazing incident, where he would have been forced to stand naked in a cramped bus bathroom with other rookies.

The team suspended Downie for five games and Aliu for one, and Downie was told to undergo professional counseling.

Spitfires Head Coach Moe Mantha Jr.. was suspended by the OHL and later fired by the team, and the team was fined $35,000 by the OHL.

Downie left the team, requesting a trade, and was eventually traded to the Peterborough Petes in exchange for Peter Aston.

Brent Sutter named Downie to the Canadian junior team for the 2006 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in Vancouver.

He made a name for himself at the tournament, contributing to Canada's gold medal-winning effort by scoring two goals and four assists in six games while also being named to the all-tournament team.

On May 30, 2006, the Philadelphia Flyers announced that they had signed Downie to a three-year, entry-level contract.

"It is unbelievable," said Downie in a Flyers press release.

"[Signing with the Flyers] was one of the goals that I had set at the beginning of the year and I am just very thankful for this chance. I’m a gritty, physical player and I also am an offensive player as well."

After attending Flyers' training camp in the Fall and playing in several pre-season games, however, the club returned Downie to Peterborough.

Downie returned to the international stage yet again in December 2006, participating in the 2007 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in Leksand and Mora, Sweden.

On January 5, 2007, Canada won the gold medal for the first time on European ice since 1997 with a 4–2 victory over Russia.

Throughout the whole tournament, however, Downie was involved in OHL trade rumours.

On January 8, 2007, Downie was indeed traded to the Kitchener Rangers in exchange for Yves Bastien, the Rangers' second-round picks in the 2007 and 2008 OHL Priority Selections, as well as the 2007 second-round pick of the Brampton Battalion.

In his first full professional season in 2007–08, Downie's professional career got off to an inauspicious start during a pre-season game against the Ottawa Senators on September 25, 2007.

He was involved in an incident in which he checked unsuspecting left winger Dean McAmmond into the boards, while his feet were off the ice.

Due to the extent of McAmmond's injury and having left his skates during the hit, Downie was suspended by the NHL for 20 games three days later for deliberate injury to McAmmond, as the NHL were cracking down on any play resulting in a head injury.

To date, it is the fifth-longest suspension given by the League.

One day after the NHL suspension was announced, the Flyers announced they had sent Downie down to the team's American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Philadelphia Phantoms.

Per AHL by-laws, Downie was considered automatically ineligible to play pending a review by the AHL (as the AHL honours NHL suspensions).

AHL President David Andrews suspended Downie for the first month of the AHL season as a result of the injuries to McAmmond.

After serving his suspension in the AHL, Downie made his long-awaited NHL regular season debut with the Flyers on December 5, 2007, against the Minnesota Wild.

He scored his first career NHL goal over one month later, on January 5, 2008, against Andrew Raycroft of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

During the game, Downie got into a scuffle with Maple Leafs forward Jason Blake.

While the linesmen were attempting to keep them apart, Downie got his left arm loose and sucker-punched Blake in the left eye while Blake's arms and hands were still tied up by the other linesman.

During a game against the New York Rangers on February 9, 2008, Downie was hip-checked by Rangers defenceman Fedor Tyutin, and his skate hit linesman Pat Dapuzzo in the face.

Dapuzzo required 60 stitches to reattach his nose, suffered ten facial fractures and was forced to retire as a result.

During the 2008 Stanley Cup playoffs, in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals on May 13, 2008, Downie hit Petr Sýkora as the play ended on Ryan Malone's goal that gave the Pittsburgh Penguins a 3–1 lead.

In 2020, Aliu would reflect on the incident in an opinion piece entitled "Hockey Is Not For Everyone".

Aliu described other hazing incidents leading to the attack and stated he viewed them as being racially motivated, calling Downie a "racist sociopath" and further remarking "He looked at me and saw a black boy with a weird accent — and didn’t like me because of it. I was attacked because of the color of my skin."