I have to say that I wasn’t too surprised when I read the news report that the minor hockey league on Vancouver Island is considering banning parents from the stands. The loudmouth hockey parent has become a bit of a cliché in Canada. Every week, there’s another news story about awful behaviour from some parent at a hockey game.
Go out to any minor league game in any arena in Canada, remember that these are kids playing and reffing, and then stand back and watch objectively. You’ll be taken aback.
I’m new to minor hockey. I didn’t play as a kid nor did any of my peers. My kids were not hockey players, and it’s just been in the past four years that I’ve gotten a taste of the culture. One thing that’s clear is that hockey is a passion in Canada.
But this passion is the stem of some of the problems. Watching from the stands, fans shout out missed calls because they think that they know better. The fans (i.e. the parents) are – or believe themselves to be – connoisseurs of the game. They yell at bad plays or missed assignments.
If it were just an understanding and appreciation of the game, then one would expect to hear horror stories of soccer parents, and basketball parents and baseball parents, but I’m not sure that it’s as prevalent in those sports. So there must be something about hockey.
And here’s what I think is the crux of the issue: Hockey is still struggling to find a way out of the mire of the ’70s – remember the Hanson brothers and Broadstreet Bullies? And although there have been improvements, there remains something at the core of hockey culture that honours the goon and the cheap shot.
In most sports, if you were to intentionally break the rules to get an advantage, you’d be called a cheater (um, Lance Armstrong?), but in hockey, it’s OK to cross-check, hit from behind or slew-foot another player, as long as you don’t get caught. It’s even better if that player retaliates and gets a penalty, thereby giving your team an advantage. You’re not mocked or jeered for this “cheating” – you’re celebrated because in hockey we’re told it’s “part of the game.”
Hockey is a beautiful and tough game. At its best (think World Juniors, Olympics) the game can keep us on the edge of our seats; unfortunately, too often we accept far less than the best for our kids.
