Junior hockey fights losing the battle?

The move to eliminate fighting from non-pro hockey leagues is gaining the upper hand in Canada - which will cause Don Cherry to shake his head.
The London Free Press reports fighting could be on its way out from junior hockey, making the game more like that played by Canadian universities.
Hockey is likely the only sport where teams sometimes tolerate, sometimes encourage, fighting. Teens with dreams of the big money of the NHL embrace it as part of their ticket to the show.
It's a little ironic that the debate resurfaces when a new hockey movie, Goon, pokes fun at the hockey culture.

Six-year-old scored hat-trick in final game

The hockey story we all fear spending so much time on the road driving to games with our kids - a six-year-old and his coach/volunteer dad dead after crashing their pickup truck on the way home from a game in bad weather.
Ryan Wood, who scored a hat-trick in his final game, was also a childhood cancer survivor.

Coach from hell?

Ever gotten stuck with a minor hockey coach from hell? We haven't, but I've seen them in action.
Never heard of anyone standing up against a coach on behalf of her 12-year-old son quite like this hockey mom from British Columbia, though.

Kids and concussions

The Toronto Star has an interesting Tale of Two Concussions, telling a story most hockey moms and many hockey dads worry about.
I suppose in retort, Toronto Sun columnist Steve Simmons, a longtime minor hockey volunteer, offers a retort. (Scroll to the end of Simmons' column.)
We got off easy with head injuries, but not so several of my son's teammates over the years, including one who was drilled into the boards by a boy of much larger body size during their first year of bodychecking and another, in midget, the pinnacle of minor hockey, who not once, not twice, but three times came back too early only to see his entire city and high school seasons fizzle.

Hazing involved 12-year-olds

It's the story that never stops: Hazing in sports.
From now-pro hockey players stuffing naked major junior hockey players naked into a bus washroom while coaches ignored it to heavy bottles tied to boys' genitals, minor hockey players too often continue to think sexual exploitation is a team bonding technique.
They should be content with hitting the showers.
The latest example of hazing gone public - although the details from the school are not public and transparent enough to change the world - comes from Montreal where a school hockey team with boys as young as 12 was caught in a hazing ritual. Maybe it was an "elephant walk" where naked boys parade in public in a line holding each other's private parts. Maybe it was forced streaking.
CBC has a story, and note how the team coach failed to deal with it.

Funeral for 15-year-old hockey player

Today's the funeral for 15-year-old minor hockey player Tyler Kerr, who collapsed last weekend during a hockey game in the rural Carp, Ont., arena near Ottawa. He died later in hospital.
Cherish your life, cherish your sport, cherish your child.

15-year-old player dies of heart attack

One doesn't expect a teen athlete to collapse and later die at the rink. It happened in Ottawa, despite efforts to save him.
Condolences to his family and team.

Ray Wylie Hubbard "Screw You, We're From Texas"

Last fall when I was in Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio on a travel writing jaunt, I expected to hear songs like this at least a dozen times from the various honky tonks and barbecues I visited. But most of the music I heard playing in the background wasn't about Texas pride and wasn't even country. Mostly vintage rock and roll and more than once I caught tunes by classic Canadian rockers Bachman-Turner Overdrive and, of course, Rush - one of the most popular bands in the state.

Go figure.
I was also a little ticked they took a gaggle of Canadian travel writers to the massive Cowboys Stadium yet didn't mention the NHL or Dallas Stars. When I asked where the arena was, it was kind of a wave of the hand and a "over there near the airport" dismissal. When I was in Toronto with an international group of writers from Mexico, China, Hong Kong and Dubai, Toronto Tourism to ok us to a Maple Leafs-Edmonton Oilers game and encouraged a self-guided tour of the Hockey Hall of Fame near the Air Canada Centre.
To be fair, there was a hockey component to the Cowboys Stadium tour. The guide said the facility is making a pitch for a future NHL all-star game with an eye to setting an attendance record. Sure. It's the one hockey game no one cares about, even Canadians, and Dallas can't even fill its regular hockey rink, wherever it is, for Stars games despite being a recent Stanley Cup winner.

Strike threatens minor hockey playoffs

Luckily for minor hockey players and parents in Toronto, a strike of city workers have been averted.
Had the strike happened, city-owned arenas would have been shuttered, ending the approaching playoffs and deep sixing any tournaments. Only games at privately owned rinks, where the hourly ice rental is usually higher, would continue.
London, my centre of the minor hockey universe, face the same situation during my son's peewee year. He was lucky enough to be on a team that was clicking and anticipating great playoffs so the anxiety level during negotiations was high.
Along the way, minor hockey made its rinkside influence felt. Turned out many London city workers were hockey parents, too. Initially the buzz was that arenas would be allowed to stay open in the event of a work stoppage. Then, happily for all and just like in Toronto, a strike was averted.
Never underestimate the power of minor hockey to bring people together.