Saturday, December 02, 2006

The hockey-related rant I promised last week

As mentioned in earlier posts, my Minor Bantam team was in a tournament last weekend in Syracuse.
On Saturday night, we played against a team from Connecticut that has an abusive, power-hungry maniac for a coach.
From beginning to end of the game, he hollered, and most of it was abusive. Twice, I heard him threaten to kill a kid. Another time towards the end of the game, a kid who said he was hurt wanted to come off the ice, but Coach Idiot said "I don't give a f**k if you're hurt, get out there!"
Now, I'm a very even-tempered guy who caused my own team to crack up a few weeks ago, when they heard me drop the f-bomb for the first time, but it took everything in my power not to climb the divider between our benches and choke the s.o.b. Our coach even noticed how upset I was.
The Connecticut team won the game and secured a later game time for Sunday morning, but there was no joy or jubilation from that bench. One the ice, it's a good team, but motivated only by intimidation and abuse. Those kids do not have fun playing hockey.
After the game, I met the referee in the hallway and asked him if something could be done about the idiot. He said he heard the coach tell the hurt kid to stay on the ice, and would consider noting it on the game sheet.
In Canada, there's no way he would get away with any of that crap. The rules and policies intended to prevent sexual abuse of players include all forms of abuse.
I was part of a discussion with our parents in the lobby after the game. Coach Idiot was so loud, everyone in the rink heard him. Our parents were unanimous: they would not let someone like him coach their kids. You might as well keep them home and abuse them yourself, if that's the way you want them to be treated.
A mother from the Connecticut team overheard our conversation, and actually defended the idiot, calling him a great man! I had to leave, before I heaped some verbal abuse on her.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Makes me glad that we live in a country where that sort of thing is not tolerated. He should be relieved of duties and replaced by someone who is there to instill the love of the game and not the outcome...

Ma Horton said...

I would love to put Coach Idiot in one our busy Tim Horton drive -thrus with a line up of morning madness a mile long , orders up to his rectum and see how long he lasts before he is told to puck off .