In early April, local newspaper stories reported that a 15 year-old high school hockey player from New Brunswick scored a goal in double-overtime to help her team win a high-school playoff game.
While she had her hands raised in celebration, an opposing player allegedly cross-checked the young girl.
The 15 year old has spent time in hospital, suffering from a lacerated spleen.
The 18-year old senior who evidently pushed, shoved or hit the younger girl has been suspended indefinitely.
Unfortunately, these incidents, while relatively isolated, are not all that rare, and they speak to a disconcerting attitude that afflicts ‘competitive’ sports, including youth sports.
We all say youth sports should be for the kids; should be about having fun; should be about getting a chance for all kids to play, regardless of ability.
Perhaps we are simply fighting human nature, as many people tend to be competitive to varying degrees, but the moment we “keep score”, playing a game for fun becomes almost impossible.
From supposedly casual so-called recreational or house-league sports programs to the various levels of competitive ‘rep’ or ‘elite’ sports, the demands and expectations placed on kids, teenagers and young adults is sometimes overwhelming.
As adults, we offer conflicting messages. We encourage our kids to have fun, and some people even suggest winning is truly unimportant, and mean it. Yet we put our kids in games, leagues and situations where there are so-called winners and losers.
In a society where we unfortunately still put a significant emphasis on who is bigger, faster, stronger or tougher, the moment a youngster shows a bit of skill, they are often encouraged to try out for a ‘higher’ level of competition. Pressure grows as expectations rise. (For some, it leads to the use of performance-enhancing drugs, but that’s a story for another day.)
Where does all this come from?
Well, we as parents certainly are part of the problem. Hockey Canada aimed a series of public service announcements at parents over the last couple of years, dealing with this very issue of parents taking youth sports more seriously than their kids do. The leading hockey organization in Canada was seemingly hoping to encourage people to look in the mirror and do a little self-reflection, and perhaps recognize that certain behaviours as parents and spectators were in fact harmful to kids. All this in the hope that we may all start to put the emphasis back on fun.
Yet in the same breath, Hockey Canada bent over backwards this year to ensure that Todd Bertuzzi was named to Team Canada for the 2006 Winter Olympics—despite his alleged assault on Steve Moore in an NHL game two years ago, an unquestionably dirty hit from behind that has been seen countless times by millions of kids across the country.
Bertuzzi can do that, and still be granted the greatest honour available to hockey players in this country, less than two years after the incident.
What messages does this send to parents—and to their kids?
If that kind of behaviour – and Steve Moore still is not healthy enough to play hockey to this day-- is not only tolerated and goes virtually un-punished by Hockey Canada (the NHL purports to have “punished” Bertuzzi with what amounted to a minimal suspension), what should hockey parents think?
Is it any wonder a youth hockey coach was allegedly grabbed around the neck in the fall of 2005 by an angry parent? Is it any wonder a young girl is hit violently enough after scoring a goal that she is seriously injured? We can talk about these things being isolated incidents, or suggest it’s just a matter of a few adults or kids with anger management issues. But it goes deeper than that.
Yes, parents have a huge role here. Parents teach and model the values of ethical thought, sportsmanship and acceptable social behaviour. No question.
Many people don’t like to lose. And many people spend a lifetime learning to accept defeat in life’s many forms, whether sports-related or not. Many never do adjust.
But reacting violently to the success of another is never acceptable, and it certainly isn’t acceptable in a youth hockey game.
You can spend millions of dollars on advertising in an effort to spread a positive message. But as many have said before, words are just that-- words. It’s what a person -- or in this case an organization in a position of leadership-- does that actually matters.
Hockey Canada dropped the ball on the Bertuzzi matter, when they had a chance to really send an important message. Instead they decided that trying to win an Olympic medal was more important than doing the right thing.
And they are the ones in charge of hockey in this country?
With that kind of leadership, should we wonder why we face the problems we do in the youth hockey world?
