This brings me to the biggest cheating and lying facing all Canadians; kids hockey. This likely applies just as much to kids soccer, baseball and all else. In my case, I have a 9 year old hockey fanatic. I go to his games. I see what happens. I even got involved and coached kids myself. I love coaching kids hockey. Unfortunately, I don't like dealing with the adults. Most of the adults are fine, but too many are not. These adults are prepared to cheat and are prepared to F-bomb the ref in front of 7 year old kids.

I volunteered my way from water dad to parent rep to head coach and all the way to the BYHA (Brampton Youth Hockey Association) board of directors. I thought I could make a difference, but it turned out that cheating in kids hockey was more deeply rooted than I thought. I've always been naive that way.

At my 2nd board of directors meeting, the VP introduced a rule to cap extra icetime at 60 hours per year. Seemed reasonable to me and others and the rule was voted in. What the VP failed to disclose was that he was doing this to cap the icetime of a competitive team to one he coached and his son played against. A parent had donated 5000 dollars to a team in the VP's league to give the entire team an extra 25 hours of icetime.

When I was told about his failure to disclose the conflict of interest, I was shocked. I started asking around to confirm the truth. Inadvertently, I asked the wrong people and it got back to the league that I was asking questions. This resulted in several members of the board harassing me on a weekly basis. In a stroke of bad luck, the convener of the league I coach was the wife of the VP who failed to disclose the conflict of interest. She was trainer of his team and also a member of the board of directors. She twice called me on the phone and accused me of cheating and threatened to forfeit my games. She never could tell me which rule I violated.

I met with several members of the executive to discuss the problem. They not only dismissed the obvious conflict of interest, but they started attacking me for suggesting this was a problem. We resolved that I would file a formal complaint that would be reviewed by an independent person from the issue.

I filed the complaint and the harassment got amplified. More harassment from the convener and now a reprimand letter from another VP (not the husband). I filed a 2nd complaint against this VP. Then I got a letter from the president of the league dismissing my complaint and asking me to resign from the board. They were clearly resolved to harass me into giving up on my complaint.

I just have one thing to tell them, "You are teaching your children."