DARK SIDE OF THE RINK
Hockey parents share their stories about the not-so-wholesome side of ‘our game’
Parents dish the dirt on less-than-wholesome aspects of minor hockey.
Hockey parents will tell you they do not hang over the glass, bark at their kids and harangue the coach, but there are enough whispered stories to dispense with any illusion that minor hockey is as wholesome as it’s portrayed in nostalgic coffee commercials. What’s “our game” really like for families? We talked to parents across Canada to find out. These are their stories.
The Momma goons
Hockey is a goon game. The kids don’t know any better — they get all wound up and start running around and hitting one another. But it’s when parents get wound up that the real craziness begins. There was this one mother, a nurse who delivered babies for a living. She was as sweet as you could imagine someone who delivers babies could be. But not when you got her at the rink.
Maybe women can go crazy faster. Maybe it is our Momma bear instinct mixed with our hormones, but this nurse would start swearing at the parents on the other team and then she would go at them. Literally get in their faces. There were two times — at least — where she got into a fist fight. With the hockey dads, they might swear and yell, but it is the ladies in my experience who can truly go off the deep end at games.
Anonymous hockey mom, Whitby, Ont. Millionaires buy teams so their kids can play
You meet Ivy League-educated self-made millionaires, doctors and lawyers and visionary entrepreneurs through minor hockey, but the second they walk into a rink they lose every bit of common sense they have. One father bought into a team in the Greater Toronto Hockey League and his son, as a result, had to play on it. If there had been open tryouts for that team this kid never would have made it.
This kid was going to every extra skating class, every private lesson that you could possibly imagine, but it didn’t matter, because the poor kid just didn’t have it. So the coach wasn’t giving him a lot of ice time, and the dad goes straight to the other owners — and the coach gets replaced. The dad buying into another team and the kid played there. And he was a really bright kid, but his dad would use his money (the father denies this) to buy his son a spot on these teams.
A longtime Toronto area coach The goalie mom who can’t bear to watch her son play
Luc wasn’t a great skater. When he was eight the coach asked him to play goalie. I thought it was great, he would be less likely to get hurt in the net. But my husband, Henri, thought I was crazy — when things go wrong on the ice people blame the goalie. That first year I was fine with it. It was house league and the parents clapped at the games. Having fun was all that mattered. Then Luc moved up to a more competitive league. There was more pressure — which didn’t bother Luc — but I would go to these games and I would hear these parents talking and I would find myself not wanting to be there. The other moms would make me sit in the middle of the row so I couldn’t run out.
I don’t know if it is a mother thing, wanting to protect your kid from people’s comments or his own self-criticisms, but my kid was the kid that had to stay out there, in the net, when things weren’t going well.
Luc is a pitcher in baseball and I don’t get anxious. But with hockey, my anxiety has been getting worse. Now I am thinking about retiring from being a goalie mom. Luc is 16 now. He has a girlfriend. She can go watch.
Louise Roy, Moncton, N.B. The hockey family who lived apart for seven years
My husband Paul had begged me to sign our girls up for hockey when they were young, but I refused. I didn’t know hockey. I didn’t think I’d like it. Then I got invited to join a ladies hockey league. After the first game I was hooked. We pulled the girls out of ballet after that, all in one swoop.
What I loved about hockey was the fact that they were no longer going to be judged on their outfits, and how pretty they were or how skinny they were.
Winning was going to be about teamwork and working hard. After several years in the Medicine Hat minor hockey system, Logan, our eldest, found a hockey academy in Kelowna. She wanted to go in the worst way, so we let her — but it opened a real can of worms with her three younger sisters because they all wanted to go when they got old enough.
We have bought and sold property in Kelowna ( twice), Faribault Minn., Calgary ( twice) and rented condos/ apartments in Ithaca N. Y., New Haven Conn., Vancouver (twice) and Montreal (twice) — all in the name of hockey. Paul and I even lived apart, part time, for nearly seven years, because of hockey.
Was it all worth it, where did hockey get us? The girls all say yes and I am grateful that sports kept them all busy and out of trouble. But I do know I am going to be just fine when all the hockey games end and we get on with the next chapter.
Kim Murray, Medicine Hat, Alta. The parents who let loose at away games
Parents get caught up in all kinds of shenanigans at out-oftown tournaments, because of all the drinking.
The best hotels will offer parents a suite for you to have the shenanigans in. I haven’t quite figured out why other hotels haven’t figured this out sooner.
Karin Cooksey, Toronto hockey mom Team manager cheated with her son’s coach
We were at a tournament near Detroit over the American Thanksgiving weekend. All the moms made a plan to hit the malls at midnight on Black Friday, so they could get the deals — but one of the moms said she’d go on her own.
This mom was the team manager. Her son was on the team and her husband, for whatever reason, wasn’t on the trip. So all these moms go out shopping and when they get back to the hotel there is lots drinking and someone decides to go and check in on the coach. The coach didn’t have a kid on the team, but he definitely had a girlfriend. And the coach was in his room — with the manager.
All the parents started whispering about what had gone on the next morning. The manager wasn’t saying anything, but a week later she sends this scathing email to all the parents blaming them for spreading rumours and lies and ruining her life. She quit being the manager. After that, we never saw her again at a game or a practice — and we never saw the husband either. They wound up getting a divorce. But their son kept playing.
An anonymous hockey dad in a community east of Toronto The coach who made the $7,500 offer
Parents get blinded by the dream. Their kid scores 100 goals in a season and he is doing all these spectacular things on the ice when the other kids can barely stand up — and they think their kid is going to the show. Frankly, nothing matters until your kid hits puberty. Your kid can be a star at 8 and want to quit at 13. But parents get these unrealistic expectations, and coaches feed into this.
A few months ago, a coach from another team told me how he wanted my son to come and play for him and then he offered me $7,500 in cash. Hockey is expensive, but the offer made me feel so dirty, like I was being asked to pimp out my own kid, and he has just turned 11. I said no. But the truth is these kinds of things are happening in minor hockey because hockey blinds people. It is almost like a sickness.
An anonymous hockey dad in Toronto