Moron (4 page)

The Respect in Sport initiative is a great place to begin. It is a great tool for parents to understand the behaviours that are acceptable, respectful, and disrespectful. It really focuses parents on policing themselves, but also gives parents skills and em­powerment so that, when they see something that's inappropriate, they will know what actions to take. When parents see Spider-Man climbing the glass, or two moms duking it out in the stands, other parents need to step up – they can’t just sit back and be oblivious.

If you see disrespectful or inappropriate behaviour, you have to step up, and you have to communi­cate with your local minor hockey association, which can give you tools for these situations. Do not allow yourself to be bullied, and if you don’t get immediate help, keep going up the ladder until you get answers.

Also, we need to empower parents to communi­cate with coaches in the same way they should communicate with other parents. If coaches aren’t keeping things in perspective, they might need a little tug on their pants just like Spider-Man did. Look at that coach, and realize that he has a
Moron Helmet
on. Remind him that this isn’t what we are all here for – it’s about the kids, and the love of sport. Tell him that he is not modeling the be­haviour he should be in front of impressionable children.

Let’s not forget Spider-Man. I know I won’t. Im­agine the number of people who were affected by his behaviour that day. There were 19 kids on each team – that makes 38 total. The stands had more than 200 people in them. That’s 238 people total. And two twelve-year-old officials on the ice, who were being yelled at for a missed offside call. All of this during an eleven- and twelve-year-old Peewee hockey game.

I would hazard to guess that, if I could find Spi­der-Man today, I'm quite sure that he would look back and say, “You know what? I really did have
Moron Helmet
on that day. I really did behave like a moron.”

Spider-Man probably would be a little embar­rassed, and might even have changed his behav­iour since then. But the damage that is done by that type of behaviour inside of a rink filled with so many impressionable kids is irreparable. Such reckless disregard for Respect in Sport has to be stopped. I challenge you to help me get started.

_________________

³
Respect Group (
www.respectgroupinc.com
) was started in 2004, and has as its mission to “recognize and prevent abuse, bullying, and harassment through interactive, online certifi­cation.” They work in collaboration with the Canadian Red Cross, and their e-learning platform has the goal of “inspir­ing a global culture of respect.”

Chapter Two

BODY CHECKING

J
une 2011. Welcome to the role as President of Hockey Calgary. First motion of business: pro­posed wording of the following motion.

The Hockey Calgary Executive Committee is instructed by the membership to establish a sub-committee at the start of the 2011 / 2012 hockey season for the purposes of reviewing the impact of body checking in all levels of hockey where body checking is currently al­lowed. The sub-committee is to report back to the Board of Directors with recommendations on how to enhance player safer with a focus on injury reduction associated with potential continued inclusion or removal of body check­ing in Peewee hockey.

Rationale for changing the motion:

The sub-committee is expected to review cur­rent research and studies that are available on the topic in order to finalize once and for all an association wide position on the sensitive issue of body checking in minor hockey.

The previous motion is the actual request from the members at large going into my year as President. Little did I know what lay ahead. At the time, this motion seemed to be a crystal clear mandate. In­deed, if we are actually desiring the way forward to enhance player safety, then the answer is crystal clear. Unfortunately, our “mandate” was built on a foundation of sand.

There is no way that you will send your son to a school that is 33% more dangerous than your oth­er choice. You won’t introduce him to a babysitter who is 33% more likely to hurt him. And you won’t give him food that is 33% more likely to cause cancer. So, why would you want your son to engage in body checking in Peewee hockey, when you know that he is 33% more likely to get hurt?

I recently heard the argument that people die in cars, and that hasn’t stopped us from driving. Sorry, but that is the type of moronic comment we are up against. You would be shocked if you knew who said it.

We are talking about major injuries here, defined as injuries that mean lost time from the game of hockey, including broken limbs, concussions, and many other terrible possibilities. We will talk about concussions more in Chapter Three, but they are a big consequence of body checking in the minor leagues.

When it comes down to it, we know our kids will get hurt far less often if we simply cease to allow them to body check until they are older. We will reduce the number of concussions, and all physical injuries. Why do we want them to continue body checking one another in the face of all of the evi­dence? It’s moronic.

It was easy for us to commission a study that re­searched the effects of body checking. But do we have the strength to act on those results? After countless hours of research, review, and a seven-year timetable, two scientists came back with in­credibly significant results. We decided that their findings were significant enough to create a com­mittee that would investigate the matter.

An important point to reference here is the mem­bers were already surveyed by an independent firm, Provoke. 3600 people participated in the survey and Hockey Calgary broke the data down by community. All of the information was made readily available to all and continues to be availa­ble on
www.hockeycalgary.ca
, the Hockey Calgary website. A majority, more than 50 percent of those surveyed, wanted a safer environment from body checking for children in Peewee.

The committee’s 52-page document basically told the Hockey Calgary Board,
Remove body checking
. Here’s where things get strange. What happens as a result? Was the proposal accepted by the heads of the hockey associations that were a part of Hockey Calgary? No. Eight of the 24 hockey associations in our organization decided that they didn’t like that message. They wanted to keep body checking, despite the risks.

Believe it or not, those presidents and leaders de­cided not to engage families in their associations, and instead, decided to derail the entire debate, and bully some of the other presidents into joining them.

What was their argument against body checking? They had three main points:

1. Kids wouldn’t be allowed to play in tour­naments, because other associations had body checking.
   
2. The young players’ hockey development would be negatively impacted.
   
3. Let others implement these changes first.
   

My answers to those three points are as follows:

1. Kids would be able to play in tournaments without any trouble; the reality is that tournament play amounts to three or four games of a 20-game season, and there are plenty of areas to go to play in tourna­ments that likewise would not allow body checking.
   
2. NHL players have come out to talk about this, and studies also show the opposite of what our detractors believed. Young play­ers might even show better development when body checking is not in the equation during development years. Additionally, USA Hockey had just completed a study clearly identifying that children in this age category do not have the cognitive learning ability to successfully include body check­ing in their game play.
   
3. The data show that our children will be safer with a few common sense regulations. There’s no reason to wait.
   

Long story short, when all of the presidents and leaders in Hockey Calgary came together, they took a vote that was not indicative of the general public’s desire to eliminate body checking. They overturned the decision that the Board of Hockey Calgary had made. Body checking would stay, at least for now.

Let’s talk about body checking for a moment. In­juries don’t just happen when body checking is done illegally. A legal hit can cause serious dam­age to kids this age. We’re not talking about some wingnut’s behaviour, throwing a stick around or hitting a guy in the head. We are talking about an open ice body check that results in a child being injured.

The purpose of a body check is to gain possession of the puck. Essentially, this means that you are moving the opponent off the puck for the sole purpose of gaining possession of the puck. It’s not as simple as it sounds. When two hockey players hit one another this way, they will do a few different (legal) things. They might rub you, push you up against the boards, or body check you on the open ice. And as long as your hands are down, and you’re not making any kind of upper body gesture to the person’s head or sticking your knee out, body checking is allowed.

For further reference here is the clearly articulated excerpt from Hockey Canada:

The Hockey Canada Four-Step Checking Model

• Step #1 – Positioning and Angling
  The first step in teaching Checking is to learn how to control skating and establish position to approach the opponent from an angle minimizing time and space for the opponent.
  
• Step #2 – Stick Checks
  The second step is to effectively use the stick, poke checking and sweep checking, lifting and locking the opponent’s stick.
  
• Step #3 – Body Contact
  The third step is to use the body to block the opponent’s way or take away the skating lanes of another player. The correct stance and effective use of leg strength are important parts of these techniques.
  
• Step #4 – Body Checking
  The fourth and final step is actual body checking. This step includes teaching techniques to check and receive a body check as well as safety and rules.
  

Unfortunately, body checking has taken on a life of its own, and sometimes isn’t used only to take control of the puck. In other words, Hockey Can­ada’s Four-Step Checking Model isn’t being fol­lowed. It’s become at times an aggressive act. If one player has his head down, skating with the puck, the defender is allowed to literally ram right into him on the open ice, throwing him off the puck. This can cause serious damage to the player being hit, especially if they didn’t see the hit com­ing. Although, according to the rules, that’s a legal hit because you did not hit the player’s head, you did not stick your knee out, and you did it with your body and your arms forward across your chest, you might have seriously injured the other player, especially if they are smaller than you are. In the eleven- to twelve-year-old Peewee category in particular, these children are still trying to learn how to handle the stick, pass the puck, and skate, not protect themselves from body checks on the open ice.

At the end of the day, they are just kids. We are talking about Fourth and Fifth Graders – that time in life where everyone varies dramatically in shape and size. One little guy is scrawny and barely tall enough to go on amusement park rides, and another one looks like he’s already in full-blown puberty.

Furthermore, these kids are just learning how to body check, and are highly reliant on their coach to teach them about this strange and frightening new aspect of the game. We rely on volunteers to teach kids about body checking, and hope that they receive consistent training, but we can’t be sure. So, we have Fourth and Fifth Graders on the ice, most of them have never had body checking ever in their life, and most of them have not had the full-fledged coaching experience they would need to teach them how to give and receive proper body checks. This situation is an accident waiting to happen.

I recall one situation quite vividly, involving a ra­ther large boy and a relatively small boy, both of them in their first year of the Peewee category, during the third game of the season. The smaller eleven-year-old was skating out of his defensive zone during the game, and clearly had his head down. As he crossed the blue line, the larger boy did a textbook job of body checking the small boy, and stood the kid right up as he skated towards him. This was a legal body check. The large boy’s arms were down, and he didn’t hit the smaller boy’s head. He simply made a good, solid body check.

Of course, what happened to that small child is that he was thrust down on the ice in a very, very impactful way. He lay there motionless. The air left the room as the stands became silent.

An NHL player never would have put himself in that position. First off, he would have had his head up, and he would have been looking around. And second of all, the opposing player wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to give that kind of body check.

The problem here is that you have a system, in particular in the Peewee age category, where you have young or less seasoned coaches, and young players who are inexperienced with the concept of body checking. There are ways of educating the giving and receiving of body checks, but coaches aren’t doing it correctly all the time, so there are big risks to these kids as a result.

In Hockey Calgary, we were responsible for 1,500 Peewee children, who mostly had coaches with very little experience. Layer that on top of Moms and Dads (particularly Dads) who were probably raised in an environment of “Suck it up,” and “You just got your bell rung.”

Little Johnny was lying motionless on the ice, and several of the parents had now come closer to the glass, to see if Johnny was going to be okay. Pre­sumably one of those parents was Johnny’s mother, gasping and horrified at the thought that her son was lying there motionless on the ice, facedown.

At the same time, from the other side of the rink, Coach Smith is scooting across the ice in his tennis shoes towards little Johnny. The referees were standing 20-30 feet away, talking to one another. These teenaged boys would have been scared that they had missed a call that might have led to this moment.