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Raising Kane: Jets winger makes no apologies for latest Twitter firestorm

By: Ed Tait

Posted: 12/20/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

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Evander Kane's controversial photo was taken on a trip to Las Vegas in November. (TWITTER.COM)

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Evander KANE makes no apologies for a picture on his Twitter account showing him in Las Vegas holding two giant wads of cash and pretending to call boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. -- even if the photo has heaped a ton of criticism on the Winnipeg Jets forward.

But if it's true that a picture is worth a thousand words, then some of the terms fired at the 21-year-old in light of the NHL lockout were: insensitive, callous and naive.

Kane's response?

"Some of the perceptions some people have, they obviously don't know me very well," said Kane in a telephone interview on Wednesday, as the photo was going viral. "I totally understand why some people maybe don't enjoy that tweet as much as others with what's going on. And maybe some people are more sensitive and I totally get that.

"But, at the same time, it's funny to me how I throw something out there as a joke and then I get all these tweets, many of them which I don't pay much attention to, which are racist. It's funny to me, if that person is so much more classy or responsible than you, they wouldn't say that. I've never made any comments towards anybody in a negative way.

"It is what it is. It's not the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last."

The picture, Kane explained, was actually taken in November during a trip to Las Vegas and was first sent to Mayweather with the message 'Hey @FloydMayweather pick up your phone cause I'm callin #imdifferent'.

While flying back to Vancouver with his father after visiting relatives in Halifax this week, Kane decided to post the picture through his account, @EKane9JETS.

"I just threw the tweet out as a joke while I was on the plane. I landed and saw everything... I guess it is what it is," said Kane.

"If you watched any of the (HBO) 24/7 show (Mayweather Jr.) did before his fight, he did that a couple of times with 50 Cent and was just joking around phoning each other with some money. I just reached out to Floyd as a joke on Twitter. It really wasn't meant for anybody else except Floyd but it just kinda blew up and took off.

"I guess some people have more of a sense of humour than others."

As for how the picture has been received by his brethren in the NHL Players' Association, Kane said nobody from the union has contacted him or asked him to remove it from his Twitter account.

"We're locked out as a union," Kane said. "My tweet has nothing to do with the NHL collective bargaining agreement or the negotiation. Like I said, it was a joke and that's all it was.

"I guarantee you if this was an NFL player or an NBA player or a celebrity like an actor, would this be a story? Probably not. If that's Roddy White in Atlanta posting that picture, does anybody care? But in the NHL there's a different mindset. I'm not talking about the NHL as a whole, just how people view it. I keep saying it: it was a joke and I'm sorry it was taken out of hand by some people."

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @WFPEdTait

kane's days are numbered d3

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 20, 2012 D1

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