Steve Simmons tears into NHL activist Akim Aliu.

Toronto sports columnist Steve Simmons has never been one to shy away from a controversial take on any subject, and he is currently facing a ton of backlash on social media for his latest controversial take.

This one comes on the topic of a prominent National Hockey League activist in the form of Akim Aliu,  a former NHL player that once again came to prominence after he outed former NHL head coach Bill Peters for using a derogatory racial slur directed at Aliu. Since then Aliu has been a vocal opponent of racism in the sport of hockey, but it would seem that his activism has not been well received by everyone in the hockey world.

In his most recent Sunday Notes column, Simmons laid into Aliu for speaking of matters that Simmons feels Aliu could not possibly have any real knowledge of, while also expressing doubts regarding how much race played a factor when it came to Aliu's struggles fitting into the hockey world at large. Before making the statement though, Simmons made it clear that he knew a take of this nature would lead to the backlash he is now facing.

From Simmons:

No one wants to say this because of the politically correct police and all, but those who coached Akim Aliu must cringe every time they see him in a news report or a commercial talking about what’s wrong with hockey. Like he would know. By my count, Aliu played for 23 teams in nine different leagues in 12 professional seasons and rarely finished any season with the same team he started with. If that was colour-related, how is it that Wayne Simmonds spent just about the same 12 seasons playing in the NHL?

As the author predicted, several pundits have come out to balk at the statement made regarding Aliu.

 Toronto Maple Leaf Wayne Simmonds has of course been very open about the challenges he has faced as a black man in hockey and has himself expressed a desire to see more positive changes made in that direction and has even partnered with Aliu on some of these matters.