Moron (3 page)

This is when the real “fun” began. I hit the road and talked with as many hockey communities as I could, educating the members on the decision the Board had made, and the recommendation that would be tabled at the June AGM. There were an overwhelming number of supporters of these new changes, but there was a very vocal minority that didn’t like the changes we were proposing, and would block them in whatever way they could.

At these various functions I began to learn the complacency that exists among strong supporters of the issue. It became clear to me that people un­derstood the importance of the issue, but in many cases didn't feel the need to express their point of view at meetings. Of course it made sense to take body checking out of the category of Peewee. All the data was clear. But the complacent majority failed to accurately gauge the aggressiveness of the detractors.

At every meeting, I was accused of “killing the game,” removing the chances of children in Cal­gary to make the NHL. My favourite line was someone who said I was the “champion of the
pussification
of hockey.” I was approached by hos­tile moms and dads, guys wearing “hit hard” t-shirts, and people with arms crossed over their chests who stared me down as if I was their direct enemy. Nevertheless, I continued to give invited informational sessions across the city.

Finally, we come to the night of my “Moron” blog post. On the evening of April 30, 2012 (seven weeks prior to the scheduled Hockey Calgary vote on body checking), I attended the Annual Awards Recognition Banquet for Hockey Calgary. It was a difficult time for me, as my father was in the hospi­tal, but I was looking forward to making the most of an evening that celebrated the key players in our organization. And I was happy that I wouldn’t have to speak about body checking that night. In­stead, I was given the honor of addressing the at­tendees, and I spoke from the heart. I expressed my affection for the sport, and how our organiza­tion made the great city of Calgary an even better place.

Later in the evening, we had two young hockey players go up onto the platform and speak about their experiences in minor hockey. They spoke very passionately about the game, and had a mes­sage for all of us. They didn’t care about all of the evaluations, what team they played on, and all the rest. They just loved the game. I was proud when they mentioned Hockey Calgary’s efforts at the time to champion the “Respect in Sport” initiative that had so much success – it was incredible to hear such optimism and encouragement from the mouths of our youth leaders. They truly believed in the simplicity of the game. They just wanted to go out and play hockey, and love the game.

At that moment, it was as if a pebble dropped into a pool of clear water. All of the crap I had been going through behind the scenes seemed ridiculous. The parents, coaches, Board Members, and I were all there to be custodians of the game, so that it would stay simple and beautiful for these kids. It was our responsibility to keep the game safe and fun. It was, and still is, so clear to me what was important to those teenaged boys.

The rest of that night, various people came up to me and reinforced their very vocal desire for us to lay off the body checking issue. They didn’t want this change, and they would do whatever was in their power to make sure it didn’t happen. I re­ceived their criticisms with a smile, and did my best to internalize all of their arguments. We had hashed all of this out before, and it was certainly not going to be the last time I took criticism.

I arrived home around ten p.m. that night, con­flicted. On one hand, I carried with me the incred­ible optimism and enthusiasm I had seen in the young men’s speeches. On the other hand, the ar­guments of a vocal (and angry) minority rang in­side of my head as well. I needed to process what I had heard, and what I believed, so I did what I often do. I wrote a journal entry for my friends and family, and posted it to my blog. I received a comment or two about it, but then I didn’t think about it again until five months later.

After I wrote my blog entry, several months passed. The body checking vote at the AGM came and went, and the motion to remove body checking was defeated. But there was still plenty of work to be done and the board was working hard on our strategic plan and direction. We focused not only on the body checking initiative, but on anti-bullying, and all kinds of reforms that would im­prove Hockey Calgary over the long-term. Let’s just say that I didn’t make friends in certain com­munities during that time; people who had been abusing the system and bullying players and par­ents were now being confronted, and it was not easy for them to make the changes we were asking them to make. These coaches and others acted as if they were not accountable to anyone; almost as if they were independent elites who were starting their own farm system for the NHL. We saw what this was doing to the kids, and we did our best to intervene.

Because of my work with the Board, and the countless hours of the time we spent trying to re­form Hockey Calgary for the better, a group of individuals rose up against me. In their opinion, I was making too many changes, too quickly (even though most of the members of Hockey Calgary embraced those changes). One individual in par­ticular (I’ll call him “Mr. P.”) had it out for me, and made it his mission to take me down. He also happened to be a newly-elected member of the Hockey Calgary Board, and was one of the “old guard” who was set in his ways, but rarely provid­ed any credible direction to the debates of the day.

In August 2012, Mr. P. got his chance when he was presumably trolling the Internet for dirt on me, and came across my personal blog. Even though only a handful of people had ever seen the entry I wrote about “Morons” on my blog, Mr. P. had found his pot of gold. He would publicize the en­try in order to discredit the work I had been doing with Hockey Calgary.

First, Mr. P. brought a printout of this blog article to the attention of the elite council, and shared it with all of the leaders there. I also had a couple of Board Members at that meeting, and they report­ed this back to me that there had been heated dis­cussions about this blog article. Apparently, they spoke about how they could “take me down.”

“Take me down?”

This was an interesting comment that resonated with me very much. I was a volunteer president who gave 30 hours a week to my duties, and they wanted to
take me down
. This was the opportunity they had been looking for to get me out of the sys­tem – they were hoping that I would then stop causing them problems.

Mr. P.’s next step was to contact Eric Francis, the sports columnist of a local newspaper, who covered a good number of hockey stories, and told him that he had a great scoop – one that would cause all kinds of controversy.

Francis held onto the blog entry for a few days, considering what to write. Then he called me. I vividly remember the conversation. He said, “Hey, Todd, how are you doing?”

I knew Francis from other media appearances I had done. He continued, “I wanted to talk to you, and get your opinion on the lockout that’s going on in the NHL.”

I knew immediately that Francis was up to some­thing. At the time, the NHL lockout was in full swing, but he certainly wouldn’t be calling me to ask about that. I said to him, pointedly, “Are you kidding me, Eric? Really?” It was obvious to me that he had called about something else. I asked, skeptically, “Are you really calling me up to talk about a lockout in the NHL?”

He then told me about the blog entry, and we had a frank and open discussion about it. I told him the truth, and I also told him that he had a choice whether to publish the article or not. He chose to publish, and I did what I had to do – I resigned my presidency, so that the Board wouldn’t have to deal with the fallout from this controversy.

Ironically, my foes thought that I would be out of the picture if they brought this “Moron” blog en­try to light. Instead, it has brought even more at­tention to the issue of body checking than ever be­fore, and has forged inside of minor hockey the energy and willpower to draw even more attention to its major problems. I now have been given a wonderful platform to talk about these issues, and am no longer encumbered by the mantle of Presi­dent, and can speak freely about what I have seen in minor hockey over my years there.

I have now done numerous interviews as the for­mer president of Hockey Calgary, and been called upon as an expert on body checking and other dangers in minor hockey. We received cards and letters from all across Canada, talking about why we need to ban body checking, and what we can do to change things. Thanks to Eric Francis, Mr. P., the elite council, and my other detractors, the topic is front and center once again.

As a result of my resignation, I am now able to go and do more things, and I don’t have to be sensi­tive to my former role as President of Hockey Cal­gary. I am just a Canadian citizen who has all the facts and data about this subject, and now I am able to express my opinion freely.

Hockey is a great game. It is a passionate game. It has been said that it is a religion in Canada, and perhaps there’s some truth in that. We watch the arenas fill up every single night, and every week­end, and we watch our kids go in, and for the most part, have an unbelievable experience. That is the way it should be. Throughout this book, you will hear me say over and over again, the problem is the adults and not the kids. Let’s take a pledge to make sure we keep our kids as safe as possible. Game on!

PART ONE:

THE GAME

Chapter One

WHAT RESPECT ?

S
uddenly, as I looked down the ice, I saw at the other corner of the rink a father banging on the glass, yelling at the young officials on the ice, screaming at the top of his lungs, “Are you blind? How could you make that call? You idiot!” He was pointing his finger aggressively at the teenaged officials on the ice.

My volunteer position at the time in Hockey Cal­gary was “league chair” – and part of my duty was to watch the behaviours of people and make sure that the respect component of the game was being upheld.

A league chair in the hierarchy of Hockey Calgary was basically responsible for looking after a partic­ular age category, and in my case it was two divi­sions in the Peewee category. So, we are talking about eleven- and twelve-year-olds. My role as a league chair was to go out and watch hockey games, talk to the coaches, and make sure that they were following the proper policies inside of the game. At the end of the game you would re­port the scores and do some administrative tasks to make sure that the function of hockey was, in my particular category, being fulfilled.

I started to walk towards the shouting man from 200 feet away. Moms and dads and sisters and brothers and grandparents were all in the stands that day as was typically the fashion, sitting on blankets or little seat cushions. They all turned their heads in the direction of this man.

As I began to walk more quickly, I could see that this father was violently angry. His face was bright red as he screamed, and the veins on his neck were popping. At this point, he put his leg up on the boards – he was a tall man – and he reached up, clinging to the glass. As a superhero (or super-villain) might have done, this irate father had Spi­der-Manned himself up the side of the glass at the side of the hockey rink, and was now peering over the top edge of the glass, yelling at the top of his lungs at the teenaged officials. He was screaming every name you could possibly imagine at these poor young referees on the ice.

I arrived at the scene, and tugged on the man’s pant leg, asking him to step down off of the glass. He abruptly turned to me, and asked me, “Who the hell are you?”

I replied, as calmly as I could muster, “I’m with Hockey Calgary. I’d like you to step down, and then we can talk.”

I was astounded at this man’s behaviour, and it didn’t seem possible that this grown man had climbed up the 15-foot tall wall of the ice rink to scream at the referees from what he saw as a bet­ter vantage point.

After a bit more screaming, he finally realized I was serious, and that I wanted him to step down.

After jumping down, I pulled him aside and I asked him, “Do you have a son out there?”

His voice laced with anger, he defensively offered, “Yes, I do.”

I told him, very simply, “I can’t imagine that your young son, eleven years old, is very proud of his dad at this moment.”

My calm, yet stern words seemed to resonate with him, and he seemed to calm down. We had a rea­sonable discussion about his behaviour, but at the end of that conversation, I asked him to leave the hockey rink.

After the game that night, I remember thinking to myself,
What’s going on here?
We are talking about a
game
that has eleven- and twelve-year-olds out there skating on the ice.

Unfortunately, this was not the only time I had to escort someone from a hockey rink. But it was one of the most memorable. I’ll never forget Spider-Man. But it really makes you wonder what takes over someone like that. His behaviour was moron­ic, and he was behaving at the level of intelligence of a child, without any rationale, and without any respect at all.

What happens to these people? They temporarily take off the hat of their everyday life and they put on a
Moron Helmet
. For whatever reason, near that hockey rink, they think that aggressive, asinine be­haviour is acceptable, for those few moments of watching their son or daughter play the game of hockey. Would they act like that in front of their boss, or at a family function? I hope not. But they do act that way at a hockey rink.

There is an incredible YouTube video by Miller Donnelly, who was nine years old when he first recorded it in 2008 (
http://bit.ly/magic-helmet
). He speaks about his
Magic Helmet
in that video. When he puts it on, suddenly everyone treats him like an adult, and he’s no longer a nine-year-old boy. Everyone is yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs at him.

As I mentioned above, in the same way the young hockey player feels like he puts on a
Magic Helmet
, his parents, coaches, and others put on a
Moron Helmet
, and do crazy things like scream at young boys playing a game on the ice. Or climb the glass of a hockey rink like Spider-Man.

Let me be perfectly honest here. I’ve had my
Moron Helmet
moments too. I understand it. We all have our moments in time where we experience some degree of behaviour that we, in hindsight, look back on and think,
Boy, that wasn't very respectful!

I get it. We all have those moments in life. The problem is that, in the game of minor hockey in Canada,
Moron Helmets
are far too common.

Contrary to some people’s belief, it is possible to change moronic behaviour, and it’s something we need to work harder on. I remember being at a meeting with some of the “old guard” in hockey at a Hockey Canada AGM, when one particular leader within the organization made a comment that it’s always been this way, and it will always be this way in the future. I don’t ascribe to that point of view. I believe that kind of thinking is just as moronic as Spider-Man’s behaviour on that glass.

It’s not just angry fathers that cause trouble in mi­nor hockey. There are coaches, mothers, grand­parents, and the kids themselves, sometimes caus­ing problems, fights, and so forth. Hockey Calgary has rules to take care of difficult situations, as do minor hockey associations across Canada. As we will discuss later, it is not about the rules, but ra­ther the disciplined application of the rules. In any case, there is something fundamentally odd about the
Moron Helmet
. People simply act differently around the sport of hockey, even when it is played by small children.

Another example I remember quite vividly of mo­ronic behaviour was when two mothers from op­posing teams got into a fistfight. Long story short, the two moms ended up in fist-a-cuffs, screaming at one another all the way out of the building.

I also remember a father who decided to stand up at the top of the bleachers and yell profanities at the top of his lungs – directed at the rookie twelve-year-old official who was on the ice. His behaviour was so disturbing, that the game had to be stopped, and would not continue until he was removed from the premises, escorted out by fellow parents in order for the game to proceed.

One very upsetting case involved a league chair, who asked a parent to calm down, and was physi­cally threatened. The league chair resigned on the spot, and was escorted through the Zamboni ice entrance by other parents to safety. The hockey rink attendant that day had to call the police in order to remove the angry parent.

The list goes on and on of the inappropriate be­haviour from people behind the glass, not to men­tion the issue that happens on the rink with coach­es’ behaviour towards on-ice officials. Unfortu­nately, I have seen file after file of disrespectful be­haviour from all types of volunteers at every level in the minor hockey system.

I recall one situation where a young official would not even go into the dressing room after a hockey game because the coach had completely chastised and been disrespectful to him, a 14-year-old boy. The coach had not stoped yelling at him at the top of his lungs, even when the team was shaking hands at the end of the hockey game. The coach continued to berate the official, telling him he had done a terrible job. By the end of it, the boy was in tears, and refused to go into the referee’s dressing room that night. The next day, the boy’s parents called Hockey Calgary and told us that their son had not even attended school the following day.

Anyone that hears these stories, or has witnessed these stories would absolutely agree that such be­haviour is moronic and has to change. It all starts with the majority; most of the people in that hock­ey arena do not behave this way, and if they start taking action against those who behave that way, we will be able to fix the problem.

One initiative that has had a great deal of success is the Respect in Sport program.
³
Hockey Calgary, Hockey Alberta, and then Hockey Canada have made this a part of their outreach into the com­munity. Unfortunately, this is not a mandatory program for all parents, and I seriously doubt that parents like Spider-Man will log in to the online training anytime soon. But it’s a start, and a great one.

We need to have a bottom-up approach. The rules and punishments are there, and they have been spelled out for many, many years in the different rulebooks that are available, whether it be the Hockey Canada rulebook or the particular branch rulebook or the direct association rulebook. In most cases those rules are well laid out and com­municated throughout the organizations. The problem is the ability to enforce the rules and em­brace the rules.

Here is the way we need to go about making change. There are three critical components to the success of this game:

1. On-ice officials who govern the on-ice be­haviour of the game, under the complete direction of the rulebook that is authored by Hockey Canada.
   
2. Coaches who have to be recruited by vari­ous hockey associations, are properly certi­fied, and are abiding by all the rules.
   
3. Adults: parents and volunteers.
   

You can’t rely on any of these three groups inde­pendent of the other groups. But when all three are well-regulated and respectful, the three-legged stool will stand firm. We all know what happens to a stool if it is missing a leg – it's falling over. Unfor­tunately, when I talk about the moronic behaviour that's happening inside the game of hockey, it's inevitably because one of those three legs is dam­aged, or has fallen off altogether.

The majority of on-ice officials, coaches, parents and volunteers are great people. I am not suggest­ing that they are all
Morons
, by any means. There are a few
Morons
in each category, but society has great success at resolving problems when “great” people get involved and address moronic behav­iour. There are vehicles and processes to follow to deal with the
Morons.

Too many great people in this game in all three categories don't step up to the plate and call out the problems. Often, parents won’t speak up out of fear, or because they feel that they don't want to get involved because “this too will pass.” I hear these kind of stories
all
the time. They all end with a sad statement such as, “If I do that my kid won't be on that team next year.” Who is being bullied in this situation?

All three parties should embrace the fact that they have an obligation to understand the rules, under­stand the consequences and keep things in per­spective. What it comes down to is that this is a game for children, of whom 99% are not going into professional sports. These kids are only on the rink for the full purpose of camaraderie, learning how to work together, engaging in some exercise, and darn it, just having some fun.