Ice hockey-Banana-throwing incident in Moscow game under investigation

By Dmitriy Rogovitskiy MOSCOW, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) is investigating a racist incident in the international competition when two bananas were thrown on the ice at the end of a game between Spartak Moscow and Medvescak Zagreb in the Russian capital on Wednesday. "The KHL are looking at the material in connection with the racist incident that took place during the game on Jan. 13, 2016," the organisation said on its website (www.khl.ru) without going into detail of proposed sanctions for those responsible. "The league believes that such behaviour has no place in the sport. After taking into account all the circumstances regarding the incident, the KHL will take the necessary steps in accordance with the regulations," it added. Game officials said they had recorded the incident in their report, while Medvescak forward Edwin Hedberg, the only black player on either team, believes he was the intended victim of the attack. "Things like this should not happen but unfortunately they do. This is the second season I have played in the KHL, but this is the first time I have come across something like this," the 21-year-old Swede told the R-Sport news agency. The general manager of the home team, Alexei Zhamnov, revealed that a culprit had been identified from television footage and was hopeful it would lead to a swift resolution. "We have a photo and video footage of the person who threw the bananas on the ice," Zhamnov told reporters on Thursday. "We will seek to ban him from games involving our club. We will make available anything that is needed to help with the investigation." The KHL involves 28 clubs from seven countries in Europe and Asia and is widely regarded as the second most prestigious professional competition in the world behind the North American National Hockey League (NHL). (Editing by John O'Brien)