Canadian Youth Hockey Coach Fired for Nazi Facebook Rant
A youth hockey coach in suburban Vancouver was fired for posting Nazi propaganda on social media.
Christopher Maximilian Sandau, 33, was fired earlier this month by the North Delta Minor Hockey Association after refusing to remove the posts from his Facebook page, CTV News reported. He also denies the Holocaust.
Sandau’s Facebook page included images such as a photo of Adolph Hitler with the message, “Adolf Hitler: The Greatest Story Never Told,” and a swastika flag with the message: “If this flag offends you, you need a history lesson,” the Vancouver Sun reported.
“The posts contained extreme and objectionably material believed to be incompatible with an important purpose of our minor hockey association—to promote and encourage good citizenship,” NDMH president Anita Cairney said in a statement.
Sandau insists he never mentioned his Nazi sympathies while coaching his players who were in grades 6 to 9.
“The whole time I was coaching with these kids and interacting with the kids my focus was only on hockey,” Sandau told the Sun. “I wasn’t trying to impose this knowledge on anybody.”
In an interview with the Sun, Sandau, who said he played professional hockey in Germany, also denied the Holocaust, saying the Jews seen in newsreels were dying of typhus and that the Germans were “doing their best to save them.”
“My view on the history basically got me canned,” Sandau complained.
Sandau’s Facebook posts also included canards against Jews including that they control the banks, according to CTV News.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
