Dave Randorf suspended for sledge hockey remarks

TSN has suspended Dave Randorf for two weeks without pay after the veteran broadcaster made insensitive remarks during a Paralympic sledge hockey game.

The incident occurred in the 1st period of Canada’s 10-1 win over Sweden on Sunday when Randorf mocked the height of the physically disabled athletes.

“Sweden has four guys who play 43 minutes or more,” said Randorf in an attempt to set-up his joke. “They’ve got a very, very short bench.”

(In sledge hockey, athletes who don’t have working legs sit on a metal frame affixed with two skate blades while using two sticks to move around the ice and shoot the puck.)

Not even a minute later, producer Greg Sands made the decision to cut Randorf’s mic. (In the clip below, you can hear the broadcast go dead, be taken over by Sportsnet studio hosts, then get thrown back to Randorf.)

“I just asked him who he thought he was,” said Sands. “The guy’s four-foot-eight and he’s making short jokes about people who in some cases don’t even have legs. Pathetic.”

Randorf and his broadcast partner Jake Snyder may have been able to avoid suspension if they had stopped there. Instead, just five-minutes later, Snyder chimed in with this zinger.

“Sweden’s just going to sit back and trap,”said Snyder before breaking into laughter.  “I don’t think they can match the speed and strength of Canada, especially with such a short bench.”

Rick Chisolm, executive vice president of broadcasting for Canada’s Olympic broadcast media consortium, called the comments unacceptable.

“Here we are trying to pretend we actually care about the Paralympics, and he goes and says this,” sighed Chisholm. “When we’re only showing 27 hours in English, compared to the more than 4,000 hours of coverage we gave to the Olympic Games, we have to make every second count.”

Brian Williams, considered the dean of Olympic sports broadcasting in Canada, said he blames himself for the incident.

“If I acted as studio host for the Paralympics and showed that I actually cared about these courageous athletes, then maybe none of this would have ever happened,” said Williams while counting his money on a beach in St. Barts. “It’s just that I worked almost three weeks this year. I’m way too exhausted.”

Xavier Gonzalez, the executive director of the International Paralympic Committee, said although he’s disappointed in Randorf’s remarks, he’s not surprised.

“The CTV-Rogers Consortium, as well as the Canadian people, have shown they have no interest in our Games,” said Gonzalez. “Nevermind that hack Brian Williams, where’s the sense of excitement? Where are the lame Stephen Brunt video essays on patriotism? Where are all the annoying tweets and Facebook updates?”

“Canadians should be ashamed of themselves.”

Worried his remarks may have incidentally got all Canadians in trouble, Randorf apologized.

“I’m sorry for what I said, but at least I’m in Vancouver,” said Randorf, pointing out that instead of Williams, CTV had Ken Reid, a guy TSN hired a month ago, hosting the Games out of a studio in Toronto yesterday.

“Besides, who’s endured more short jokes than me? Even on sledges half these guys are taller than me.”

(This story has been made up for your enjoyment. While Randorf and Snyder did say those things during the broadcast, they said them without malice and without snickering. All other quotes were completely falsified.)