Steve Downie (born April 3, 1987) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey forward who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Philadelphia Flyers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Colorado Avalanche, Pittsburgh Penguins and Arizona Coyotes, with the Flyers having drafted him in the first round, 29th overall, in 2005. Playing career Downie grew up in Holland Landing, Ontario, the younger son of Anne and the late John Downie. He has one sibling, brother Greg, and attended Sacred Heart High School in Newmarket. He played minor ice hockey for the York-Simcoe Express AAA organization of the Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA), and competed in the 2001 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with them. Downie led his Express Bantam team to the All-Ontario AAA Championship in April 2002. He later attended St. Joseph's Catholic High School in Windsor, Ontario, in 2004. He was drafted in the first round, 16th overall, by the Windsor Spitfires in the 2003 OHL Priority Selection. Junior Downie was selected in the first round, 29th overall, in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft by the Philadelphia Flyers. Not long after being drafted, Downie was suspended for five games early in the 2005–06 OHL season for an on-ice altercation with teammate Akim Aliu. During a practice on September 28, 2005, Downie cross-checked Aliu in the face without warning, knocking out seven of his teeth, and then proceeded to fight his younger teammate. The incident stemmed from 16-year-old Aliu's refusal to take part in a hazing incident, where he would have been forced to stand naked in a cramped bus bathroom with other rookies. The team suspended Downie for five games and Aliu for one, and Downie was told to undergo professional counseling. Spitfires Head Coach Moe Mantha Jr. was suspended by the OHL and later fired by the team, and the team was fined $35,000 by the OHL. Downie left the team, requesting a trade, and was eventually traded to the Peterborough Petes in exchange for Peter Aston. In 2020, Aliu would reflect on the incident in an opinion piece entitled "Hockey Is Not For Everyone". Aliu described other hazing incidents leading to the attack and stated he viewed them as being racially motivated, calling Downie a "racist sociopath" and further remarking "He looked at me and saw a black boy with a weird accent — and didn’t like me because of it. I was attacked because of the