Flames GM Brad Treliving Investigating Coach Bill Peters’ Alleged Racial Slur Against Akim Aliu

Calgary Flames General Manager Brad Treliving said this week he is looking into an allegation that head coach Bill Peters used a racial slur ten years ago.

The former player who accused Peters is Akim Aliu, a Nigerian-born player that Peters coached from 2008-10 on the Rockford Ice Hogs, a minor league team affiliated with the Chicago Blackhawks and that plays in the American Hockey League.

Aliu claims that Peters and him did not get along because of the coach’s distaste in his music. Aliu tweeted on Monday that the protege of former Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock had “dropped the N bomb several times towards me in the dressing room in my rookie year because he didn’t like my choice of music.”

Aliu also said he was the “first to rebel” against Peters because of his alleged use of the racial slur. The Flames are looking into this because Babcock was Peters’ coach in college.

According to Aliu, he was having a very good season that year for a 20-year-old and was on pace to score 20 goals. He claims Peters called two Chicago Blackhawks executives who were trying to get him demoted.

“Instead of remedying the situation he wrote a letter to John McDonough and Stan Bowman to have me sent down to the ECHL,” Aliu wrote of Peters.

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Aliu was ultimately sent to the Toledo Walleye of the ECHL during the 2009-10 season. Aliu, who is originally from Africa, was raised in Canada and Ukraine. Later in his career, he ended up playing seven games in two seasons with the Flames.

“We’re aware of the tweet from former player Akim Aliu. Obviously we’re playing so I haven’t had the chance to sit down with Bill or our people internally to talk about this and get to the bottom of it.  We take these matters very, very seriously, ” said Treliving. The Flames said they would address the issue after they had an opportunity to discuss it internally.