Kings prospect suspended for inappropriate comments on social media

Forward Jake Marchment of the Belleville Bulls, a Kings prospect who was taken in the sixth round of the NHL’s entry draft in June, and Greg Betzold of the Peterborough Petes have been suspended for 15 games by the Ontario Hockey League for allegedly making inappropriate comments on Tinder.

Tinder is a popular matchmaking mobile app.

Marchment’s back-and-forth messages with a woman included sexually charged insults, according to screen grabs captured on Twitter. Sunaya Sapurji of Yahoo Sports Canada reported that when the player felt rejected, “the other conversation becomes thick with misogyny and entitlement.”

His messages showed him calling the woman “a dirt ball.”

The messages were under the name of a teammate, Chad Heffernan, but Marchment came forward and took responsibility for the comments and apologized on Twitter:

“Even though it was a private conversation, my comments were inappropriate, disrespectful, and I accept full responsibility for my actions. I have embarrassed myself, my teammates, the Belleville Bulls organization and the city of Belleville. I truly apologize for my actions.”

The suspension of Marchment and Betzold was announced on Wednesday on the Ontario Hockey League’s website by Commissioner David Branch. Betzold also apologized on Twitter for “unacceptable private comments that were recently publicized -- they do not reflect my true values or views.”

Branch noted that recent social networking activity had come to the league’s attention.

“This most inappropriate and concerning activity contravenes the league’s social networking policy and a number of other policies including respect in sport (harassment and abuse) and diversity,” Branch said in a statement. “The OHL takes issues related to respect, diversity and harassment very seriously. The social networking conduct displayed by these players goes against what the league stands for and serves to highlight a sense of entitlement that we, as a league, have worked hard to try to eliminate.

“We believe these suspensions, going forward, will reinforce to our players that all activity, be it in person, on the ice or online, must be in keeping with our policies.”