Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 13, 2014, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A4 A 4 WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2014 TOP NEWS winnipegfreepress. com WATERFIGHT VIDEO AT - 40 The whole story... AND MORE Use Blippar. There's more to the story above embedded in this page. C ALL it the Fisticuffs in Fargo. Last weekend at a tournament in Fargo, N. D., several adults from two Manitoba hockey teams got into an old- fashioned hockey brawl. The incident unfolded something like this: Hockey mom and dad from one Manitoba team barges into the dressing room of another Manitoba team following a game, a confrontation ensues and punches are thrown; witnesses include a dozen terrified eight- year- olds. It's a horrible story, but not unprecedented. Most veteran hockey folk can, at the drop of a hat, relate stories about the three- alarm freakouts, unauthorized incursions into dressing rooms and chest- thumping, glass- whacking grand mal seizures that regularly occur in arenas all over the province. Hockey Winnipeg and the area associations involved in the Fargo incident have promised to take action. Unfortunately, there is very little they can do. They could suspend the parents from future games. But if those parents wanted to fight those suspensions, they would find out hockey currently does not have much in the way of legal authority to discipline spectators. That is why the hysterical spectator is such an enduring part of our national pastime. We have made great strides over the years to change some of the ugly aspects of our game. But unruly spectators are a problem that has mostly defied all efforts at reformation. That's not to say we aren't still trying. This week, Hockey Winnipeg announced it would require one parent from each hockey family to complete Respect in Sport ( RIS), an online seminar that outlines acceptable behaviour in hockey. Many years ago, Hockey Canada made RIS a mandatory component for coaching certification. Hockey Winnipeg is following efforts by Hockey Calgary and other groups that are making parents take RIS in the hopes of curbing abhorrent behaviour. It is an admirable undertaking but not likely to do much good. Hockey has been telling spectators for years not to yell at referees, opposing players and their own kids. We have created parent liaisons to police the stands. The bad behaviour endures. What we haven't done is come up with an effective way of punishing bad spectator behaviour the way we punish bad on- ice behaviour. Hockey has always put a lot of work into its rules and regulations. Hockey Canada sets out the broad strokes in its official rule book. Provincial and municipal bodies contribute additional rules and regulations. However, none of these rules and regulations deal with spectators. Hockey has essentially adopted a policy that anything that happens in the stands before, during or after a game is not part of the game. Traditionally, hockey's only weapon against unruly spectators has been to eject them from the arena. The decision to eject rests with the referee, aided by the arena attendant or manager. The legal basis for ejecting fans has always been somewhat sketchy. There is nothing in hockey's rules or regulations that empowers referees to eject fans; it is seen as an extension of the rights granted by the owners of the arena to the group renting the ice. That is to say, for the hour a particular hockey association rents ice, it has the power to decide who gets to stay and who should leave. As noted above, that has been the tradition, but it's a pretty ambiguous and incomplete solution. For example, what if the fan refuses to leave? In some instances, the police can be called. Experienced referees will tell you they will, on occasion, threaten to suspend play, or assess bench minor penalties to the fan's team that owns the fan. That is mostly a bluff; the rule book does not include " failure to leave the rink" as a punishable offence. The greater concern, however, is the complete lack of response after an incident has taken place. Governing bodies or area associations do not, as a rule, keep records of spectators involved in altercations or ejected from arenas. Many incidents such as the one in Fargo are simply not reported to anyone in hockey officialdom. The combatants are separated, profanities are exchanged and everyone goes their own way. Sometimes a fan will be barred from attending games for a season or part of a season. But again, that is a penalty dished out without any formal authority. It's more like an odd extension of the honour system, where a spectator is told to stay away from the rink and he or she is expected to agree. In addition to more education, hockey desperately needs to establish a formal contract with parents and extended family - who constitute the gross majority of fans at a minor hockey game - that allows for specific, enforceable sanctions for bad behaviour. The rules should also be changed to give on- ice officials the power to suspend or forfeit a game, or assess penalties to a team, if a fan of that team is disrupting play. The hockey establishment may still be reluctant to get involved in fan incidents. However, as the eight- year- old witnesses to the Fisticuffs in Fargo will attest, what happens in the stands is absolutely, lamentably, part of the game. dan. lett@ freepress. mb. ca Off- ice education program doesn't go far enough DAN LETT I F you're a hockey parent wondering why the game isn't improving at the minor league level, take a gander at Monte Miller's office. Miller is the executive director of Hockey Winnipeg - the man who's supposed to oversee the development of the sport for thousands of boys and girls - and it seems the only thing he's developing is an ulcer. " You should see my desk right now," Miller said. " It's ridiculous. Probably the last month, 75 per cent of my day has been typing out incident reports, reviewing emails. It's conflict resolution and mediation." This is what it's come to for minor hockey executives and volunteers - spending more energy and hours trying to investigate and address conflicts that arise inside arenas - almost all involving overzealous and out- of- control parents. " How do I put this politely?" Miller began. " It's very frustrating as a sports administrator to try to develop programs... try to move the game forward, yet I spend all of my day dealing with incidents like this; parents arguing in the stands, people yelling at officials. Everything gets bogged down. You're so mired in the two per cent of people that can't behave themselves that it affects the other 98 per cent." On Wednesday, Miller announced a Hockey Winnipeg policy that will make it mandatory for hockey parents to complete a Respect in Sport online course beginning in the 2014- 15 season. The course will cost $ 12 and take approximately an hour to complete. Completion of the course by at least one parent will be registered in the Hockey Canada database, allowing the son or daughter to be registered to the local association. The Calgary- based program is already established throughout Alberta, the Maritimes and Regina and is expected to be introduced by the Ontario Minor Hockey Association, the largest in the country, next season. And Hockey Manitoba executive director Peter Woods, who attended Wednesday's press conference, strongly suggested the parental program will be mandatory provincewide " sooner rather than later." " If it's not next year it will certainly be the year after," Woods added. " I see no reason why we wouldn't introduce this program." One of the challenges for Hockey Manitoba, however, would be isolated northern communities where many parents aren't online. Registration would have to be done manually. " That would become very labour- intensive," Woods said. " That's one of the issues Hockey Winnipeg doesn't necessarily have to address because there's a little bit more technology available in the city than in rural settings." Regardless, Woods conceded it's an indictment of the hockey system that any program about treating other parents, coaches and referees with respect needs to be implemented at all. " It's a bit bizarre," he said. " I've been involved in this sport for a very long time and it's a bit disarming that we have to introduce measures like this to control our parents." Just last weekend, parents and coaches from two Manitoba minor hockey teams threw punches during a tournament in Fargo. That incident involved parents of eight- year- old boys from the River East Royals and coaches from the Selkirk Steelers and took place in a dressing room as the boys watched. Although Hockey Winnipeg officials refused to comment on the Fargo incident specifically, Miller said: " I probably couldn't tell you on TV or radio what I think. You probably couldn't publish it. It's very, very distressing. So something needs to be done. We think this is a good first step." Hockey Winnipeg president Don McIntosh conceded that completing an online course will not end incidents of violence or abuse. " It's not going to happen overnight," he said. " There's still going to be problems. It's about culture and education." In fact, a study on the Calgary program released on Tuesday by Mount Royal University showed only a " marginal decline" in curbing worst offenders. However, the same study found more than a third of 1,000 respondents said they would like to see the course repeated on an annual basis, along with awareness among parents about the problem. " We've noticed over the past three years a definite improvement, a change and shift in what has been happening both on the stands and what's been happening on the benches," Donna Reid, a mother to three hockey boys, told the Calgary Herald . " Parents are holding each other accountable." Woods added: " I think there's safety in numbers. When someone deviates from the rules, you can apply some collective pressures against those individuals. I think that will go a long way in managing this unacceptable aspect of our program. As a society, we're less tolerant of incidents like this. And we're a little more protective of our programs. If our sport is considered unsafe or unattractive, that affects our registration. " Any time we can put our members in a safer environment - either on the ice or in the stands - those steps need to be addressed." randy. turner@ freepress. mb. ca Putting the respect back in hockey Fed- up officials announce mandatory anti- violence course SCAN PAGE TO SEE ALBERTA'S RESPECT IN SPORT PROGRAM By Randy Turner BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS KEN GIGLIOTTI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Hockey Winnipeg's Don McIntosh ( left) and Monte Miller outline Respect in Sport Wednesday. 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