Very early this morning, after my son's hockey game, we stayed to watch the game following his. One team was a particularly dirty team that my son's team played a couple weeks earlier. When we had last played this dirty team, I wasn't very happy when I saw one of their players intentionally tripping, body checking, holding, etc. These are 7 year olds. Who would teach their kid those tricks at that age?

Today while watching this team, I noticed the same player was still body checking. I also noticed a new thing, he was running the goalie. Every time the puck went to the net, he would intentionally fall and propel himself into the goalie. There's no way a 7 year old was doing this without instruction from a elder (most likely his dad).

Worse, I noticed that one of the parents on that same team was yelling at his kid (the goalie) constantly throughout the game.  I can't imagine the kid was having any fun. Every time the puck came into his team's zone, the parent would yell at the kid to do this and that. It was apparent the kid was very nervous. On one occasion he almost shot the puck in his own net (hitting the post) and on another he accidentally passed the puck in front of his own net where an opposing player easily scored into the empty net.

Now, don't get me wrong. There's plenty of bad hockey parents, not just this one team. In fact, at the first practice for my son's team, a father said to the rest of us fathers that his son was intentionally trying to embarrass him. Then, he pulled his kid off the ice to get his kid's skates sharpened in the middle of the practice.

I sometimes want to tell these parent that their kids are just fine and would likely do better if they backed off. But I know they won't take it as constructive advice, but rather they'll turn it into a fight. This is the core of the issue. If you tell someone why they are wrong, they almost never get it. Instead, they justify the entire situation in their mind and attack you for opening your mouth. Deep down, I'm sure they realize they are wrong. At least I hope.