Bob CollinsI’m generally not a big fan of comments attached to news stories on websites, but I make an exception when the subject is hockey and the website is the CBC.
Today, for example, the CBC reports that police had to be called to a rink in New Brunswick because a 13-year old referee ejected a coach and a hockey mom for repeated verbal abuse of his allegedly missing calls during a game between teams of 11-year-olds.
Hockey Canada has a zero-tolerance policy regarding verbal abuse of on-ice officials.
Reached by the CBC, the hockey mom says she doesn’t regret her actions
Normally, a pretty simple topic. But not in Canada and not when the subject is hockey.
Let’s visit some of the comments.
How can a young official ever get to be a senior official if you the parents go crazy on him at 13. If and when your kid makes it to Midget and there are no officials think back to your screaming in the stands and forcing all the kids to never get better.
I encourage any screaming parent to go to a corner of the rink alone sometime and watch the stupidity that is going on in the stands. I have a kid who plays pee-wee and i cant go near the parent during a game for all the screaming. If you stand in the corner and really watch the game ( and I don’t mean just when your kid is on the ice) you will see that most calls made are usually the right one and you just don’t like them is the real issue.
parents are gone nuts over kids hockey and for what??? This official made the right choice to throw out parents that are screaming. If there was more of this by officials i think people would start to calm down or just don’t come. If you want to watch your kid play hockey them keep your mouth shut.
When my son was around that age, he was called every name in the book and threatened by a group pf parents and one parent yelled over the glass what she was going to do to him when she met him in the parking lot. It was even a younger gtoup of kids than this. The Association did nothing.
To this day, when parents see him go onto the ice………..they start in on him. When he started reffing, they were 9 other boys that started with him………..they have all quit, but him. Most of them said it was because of the yelling.
At this rate, there may not be a game for our kids to play. My son will tell you…yelling is fine, but when it becomes personal and inapproriate language is used, then it becomes an issue.
Lets get a few things straight. Since your all such knowledgeable people and you weren’t there let me run this by you. If 2 children go into the penalty box at the same time and there penalty ends at the same time that means they both come out at the same time. KV child comes out of box our child comes out of box but ref blows whistle and tells our child his penalty isn’t over and to get back in the box. If your a coach are you not going to question this , yes you are and that is what our coach did and boom hes thrown out of the game. Our children were terrified at this point to step sideways because this ref was calling any little thing he could on them at this point. You want to hear the funny part of all this. This all happened within the last 6 minutes of the game. We just wanted this game to end and all he wanted to do was keep blowing his whistle. He went on a power trip, and as you all keep saying its about the children. Well noone is thinking of my child who was very upset by all this. This ref certainly wasn,t thinking of the children and thats because he obviously wasn,t mature enough to be reffing a game of 12 year olds, and another thing I heard this ref was 18 years old not 13 he didn,t look 13. Also I don,t appreciate people saying that we,ve been difficult parents to deal with. We cheer our children and some of us may cheer louder than others, but we’re not there constantly yelling at refs as it is being implied.
Find the story and comments here.
rantingparent Hockey Mom “Up and At ‘Em” from rantingparent.com on Vimeo.
