Intent to Injure
I once had a friend tell me that he could tell what kind of kid a child was off the ice by the way his parents acted when he did something wrong on the ice. I agree with him.
When a child makes a blatantly illegal hit on the ice and the parents jump to his aid and criticize the referee for making the call, they will say: “I am defending my child.” This is the blanket justification used by a lot of parents who have read Ayn Rand or the Cliff Notes of Atlas Shrugged and missed the enlightened part of “enlightened self-interest.”
I would love to live in a world, where my actions were always right and everyone else was wrong. My favorite parents are the ones who justify intent to injure fouls by saying that “the kid had it coming to him.”
Maybe the kid did something wrong, but is trying to paralyze a child for life over a hockey game ever justified?
There are hundreds of legal ways to “punish” an opponent in hockey short of trying to break their neck. Higher skilled players will fire a puck at someone’s melon, legally or borderline legally hit a player from the front, Gordie Howe used to like to slash players on the back of the legs.
None of these will end someone’s career, life or leave them permanently disabled. These borderline plays will get the point across and isn’t that what someone really “has coming to them?”
Hockey is a game of strength, force and intimidation, but when parents and coaches defend blatantly illegal checks from behind and intent to injure fouls, they are making a mockery of the game. They also may be legally liable, especially at the Minor Hockey level where children are involved. While the game allows legal contact, violent contact with a bona fide attempt to injure is usually classed as a criminal offense.
As for my friend’s comment, he is probably right. Parents who “defend a child’s illegal behavior on the ice” probably will defend illegal behavior off the ice. Learning crime and punishment in a penalty box is better than learning it in a jail cell.