Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin, two premiere forwards for the Dallas Stars, have found themselves in a bit of controversy as a result of some comments they made on a radio show in Dallas this week.
Benn, 25, and Seguin, 23, appeared on the Bob and Dan Show on Ticket Sports Radio, where – for some reason or another – the conversation turned to Benn’s relationship with his older brother Jordie, who also plays for the Stars. The hosts asked Benn whether he and Jordie lived together, which eventually led into a discussion about the Sedin twins in Vancouver.
Here’s a transcript of the exchange:
Host: I bet you the Sedins room together.
Seguin: Well, yeah…that’s the Sedins.
Benn: Who knows what else they do together…
Seguin: Seriously.
Host: And in no way am I implying that you have a “Sedin-type vibe” about you, but okay.
Host 2: Don’t they shave the exact same…?
Host 1: Dude, it’s creepy. In fact, it’s a good example to future brothers in the NHL on how not to do things, in my opinion.
Host 2: Are they weird?
Benn: I don’t know, I can’t say.
Seguin: They look funny. They look weird.
I posted a link to the audio on my Twitter account this morning and a lot of people took offense to the comments made by Benn and Seguin, calling them homophobic or casually homophobic.
Is it an overreaction? Though Benn and Seguin could have handled the situation with more maturity, it seemed to me that the comments were born out of joking around to appease the hosts, who probably shouldn’t have led them down that path in the first place.
It probably doesn’t help that Seguin and Benn are two young players who already have a “frat boy” type of persona attached to them already (Seguin especially, who deleted his Twitter account following a homophobic tweet right after his trade to Dallas) but to call them homophobic as a result of this exchange seems a bit harsh, especially considering the comments centered around incest more than homophobia.
A lot of people have told me I’m wrong in seeing it that way (and I’m certainly open to listening to arguments against that view) so I’ll let you give your two cents below.
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