Don’t touch female players, coaches told
TORONTO — A Toronto girls hockey league has told coaches they cannot touch players while on the bench — not even on their helmets — in a zero-tolerance policy that critics say may be doing more harm than good.
Following a complaint about a congratulations doled out by a volunteer parent, the Toronto Leaside Girls Hockey Association sent coaches an email this week noting restrictions on when men can be in dressing rooms, a ban on social media interactions and strict rules regarding email communication.
“On bench behaviour — under no circumstances should there be contact with the players, in any way,” reads the email from John Reynolds, who runs the house league. “Putting hands on shoulders, slapping butts, tapping them on the helmet, NOTHING, this can make some of the girls uncomfortable and you won’t know which ones, so no contact, period.”
Dr. Michael Ungar, a Dalhousie University social work professor, said a question of reasonableness has instead become a zerotolerance policy.
“That’s where we actually seem to be doing more disservice to children than helping them,” said Ungar, author of Too Safe for Their Own Good: How Risk and Responsibility Help Teens Thrive. “Do we really want a world where children are never touched in a friendly way by a stranger, and therefore can’t distinguish good touches from bad touches?”
Leaside sent the email after a complaint about an “on-bench congratulation that wasn’t deemed appropriate,” said association president Jennifer Smith. It involved a parent volunteer slapping a player’s bum and squeezing a player’s shoulders, Smith said. It wasn’t considered to be serious, but it was taken seriously nonetheless and addressed with the individual.
Although not explicitly stated in the email, fist bumping or high-fives are allowed, Smith said. “What we recommend, what Hockey Canada recommends, is you do a fist bump, like a high-five, end of story. Not tapping kids on the head, because you tap a kid on the head, even when they’re wearing a helmet, you could conceivably give a kid a concussion,” she said.
Smith said the organization is following the lead of Hockey Canada, the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association and a widely used training course called Respect in Sport.