The son of the current Philadelphia Flyers interim general manager Daniel Briere was caught on camera throwing someone’s wheelchair down a flight of stairs. NCAA hockey player Carson Briere was seen committing the despicable act by millions after the video was posted to Twitter yesterday.
The video shows Carson Briere in a backwards cap first sit in the wheelchair and then callously toss it down a lengthy flight of stairs. The wheelchair was reportedly left at the top of the stairs while its user was carried to the bathroom downstairs by a friend.
Of course, the fact that the perpetrator is the son of not only the Fliers GM but a 17-year-veteran of the NHL makes it all the more reprehensible. As if that wasn’t bad enough, reports are coming out that the younger Briere was previously dismissed from the Arizona State University men’s hockey team for rule violations.
Sounds like there’s a lot of perks to having a famous Dad in hockey, including getting to ruin someone’s wheelchair and not have any repercussions at all. Once the video started circulating, both the senior and junior Briere’s rushed to make apologies.
Sounds like the older Briere is more concerned than the younger one’s apology, which sounds like he just cut and pasted it after Googling “how to apologize.”
Chanel Keenan, current community manager for Hockey of Tomorrow, and the former intersectionality consultant for the Seattle Kraken, wrote a piece on Medium about the incident called “What’s so funny?”
“A good friend helps out by carrying their friend to the bathroom because the establishment isn’t wheelchair accessible. ‘Hey let’s tuck your wheelchair here, out of the way but easy for us to put you back into after you use the bathroom.’ Only to come back to it at the bottom of the stairs… in pieces. What’s so funny about that?”
She also touched on how hard it can be to get a wheelchair if you’re disabled, and how your chair is an extension of your body.
“What’s funny? What’s funny is how long it takes to get a wheelchair. I’ve been lucky to get one within six months. Depending on how or if insurances are involved it can take longer. What’s funny is how my power wheelchair costs about half as much as a brand new car. What’s funny is how little disregard we have for disabled people, really, for people in general. It’s made us so cruel.”
We’ll keep you posted on how nothing is going to happen to this kid at all, probably.