Hockey Abuse Reckoning

[Geeoff]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Its disturbing to me.


There's a difference between a demanding coach and a abusive coach.



While at the amateur level I haven't seen any signs of gross abuse on the teams I've coached for and I've coached football for a loooong time. I have seen things that I don't like on other sidelines, especially from the older school coaches, but I want to put a rider on that as well that I'm seeing less and less of that.


Last year I took real offense with something that I saw on the field with one of our sister teams and I addressed it in the hardest possible manner.


Its up to the coaches and even the various sports bodies though to do a way better job of teaching coaches and policing coaches.

It's also worth noting that the difference between demanding and abusive might also be different for every player. Like one player might like it when the coach drops a bunch of f bombs on them, while another would be upset.

[btimbit]

Finding where the line is would certainly be a difficult part. Physical abuse, obviously not okay. Mike Keenan-esque mind games, no go. But not every time feelings are hurt is abuse

[Puppet Guy]

Hearing and reading all of the stories coming to light, and I'm thinking how coaches like Bob Johnson and Roger Neilson are seeing this from The Celestial Rink and weeping bitterly.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Wastedyouth

I was/am heavily involved in Taekwondo as a coach/official, but was a high level athlete at one time.

The abuse and power dynamics of that sport make some other sports look normal.

We moved our son out of a karate dojo because the sensei was using corporeal punishment on the 8, 9 year old kids who weren't paying attention or messed up. Other parents pulled their kids too.

The dojo he's at now manages to be popular, effective, and disciplined without striking kids when they mess up.

[Johnhitbox]

Originally Posted by Puppet Guy

Hearing and reading all of the stories coming to light, and I'm thinking how coaches like Bob Johnson and Roger Neilson are seeing this from The Celestial Rink and weeping bitterly.

I was fortunate to have a private teacher. He was on sharp with me when he needed to be. But nothing harsh at all.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Wastedyouth]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

We moved our son out of a karate dojo because the sensei was using corporeal punishment on the 8, 9 year old kids who weren't paying attention or messed up. Other parents pulled their kids too.

The dojo he's at now manages to be popular, effective, and disciplined without striking kids when they mess up.

Striking any student, regardless of age, is ridiculous. Even in self defence and sparring, which requires contact, an instructor should not be striking a student with any force.

I bop the kids on the head with a foam blocker or target randomly during drills to test their defense and even then I am leary of about making contact with them with anything because you just don't know what is going on in their homes and the damage you can do to their psyche by being physical with them in any way.

Martial Arts should be taught at the highest level with respect for each others bodies. Negative and positive feedback can be used, with often pushups something equal used for final punishment, but often making them sit out on the fun is the best punishment around.

And positive reinforcement goes further than any negative. Any good instructor or coach knows this, unless their head is so far up their ass they don't want to see the truth.

Anyone that tells you different, has something wrong in their brains or in their training.

[tvp2003]

People say it's long overdue, and I'm not suggesting I disagree with them, but I don't think this can happen 10 or even 5 years ago, before all of the awareness and acknowledgement of mental health as a real issue, including for athletes.

Bullying is no longer tolerated in most situations, and while sports has lagged somewhat behind, I think we're starting to see that change.

[UKflames]

It is interesting that Hockey is now catching up to other sports and entertainment in this regard. We have seen issues raised with TV/film personalities, gymnastic coaches and other sports, including soccer. Here in the UK there have been a number of coaches that have been found guilty of abusing young boys, who were supposed to be in their care as they were away from home.
I do not play sports at any level any more but I get the impression that this is more of a ripple in Soccer rather than a wave. A few cases here and there but still dealt with very much on the hush hush, so I still wonder if the sport has pulled ranks together to stop more coming out.

[flamesfan1297]

Originally Posted by jlh2640

Wow this is a significant reckoning possibly. I do tire of Carcillo though

I agree, I ignore his tweets and opinions. His heart might be in the right place but his execution is awful and seems like a publicity stunt. To me he has lost any credibility he once had

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

We moved our son out of a karate dojo because the sensei was using corporeal punishment on the 8, 9 year old kids who weren't paying attention or messed up. Other parents pulled their kids too.

The dojo he's at now manages to be popular, effective, and disciplined without striking kids when they mess up.

So is that guy in jail now? Using pain or physical punishment as teaching methods for young kids is against the law is it not? I thought only parents or guardians could inflict corporal punishment.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by UKflames

It is interesting that Hockey is now catching up to other sports and entertainment in this regard. We have seen issues raised with TV/film personalities, gymnastic coaches and other sports, including soccer. Here in the UK there have been a number of coaches that have been found guilty of abusing young boys, who were supposed to be in their care as they were away from home.
I do not play sports at any level any more but I get the impression that this is more of a ripple in Soccer rather than a wave. A few cases here and there but still dealt with very much on the hush hush, so I still wonder if the sport has pulled ranks together to stop more coming out.

The first few times it's just ripples, ripples, ripples, without not much changing. With #metoo it took literally decades. But those ripples always create cracks in the wall of silence and apathy. Then at some point the wall will have so many cracks that a big enough push will just break it down.

Of course the difference here is that #metoo already happened. People in power now know that kind of stuff can happen, that with social media it's a lot harder to kill these stories. They've also seen how it can bring down people who thought they were untouchable.

Eventually people in power will figure out how to handle a #metoo-like wave, but right now they're genuinely scared by this stuff, and might actually try to react by forcing change from the top down. Because nobody wants to be employing the Harvey Weinsteins of hockey when his bomb goes off, let alone be remembered as one of those guys.

[JohnnyB]

Back when I played rugby for university during undergrad, there was hazing. I had played competitive team sports my whole life and it was the first time I had encountered hazing rituals. I didn't feel too bad about it at the time as I made a laugh of most of it, but there were things that happened that I imagine could have left some lasting emotional scars for some guys or at the very least some awful memories.

At the time I just saw it as part of the culture. We were also all adults, and the coaches weren't the ones who initiated any of the worst stuff, though they a part of some of the embarrassing stuff. In retrospect, I don't believe any of it was necessary at all for us to come together as a team. Some friends and teammates suffered needlessly out of it.

I've since spent my career throughout my adult life working in the area of developing young people and I have no patience for abuse of power. If abuse of power is part of the culture, then the culture needs changed and people who don't want it to change or who actively perpetuate it need to go. People in power have a responsibility to protect the young people in their charge. Anyone doing the opposite deserves to be shamed and to lose their place in the community.

[Savvy27]

I do hope that people treat this reckoning with some compassion and understanding for the coaches in addition to the players. Especially the older coaches who were trained in the environments that people are now trying to change.

Obviously, there are and will continue to be stories of abuse that are extreme or so terrible that the coach would deserve the criticism and vitriol. I'm talking about the cases that are more borderline, where a bad decision or action is used to completely define a person and undoes every other thing they have done in their coaching career.

The other thing that a mob mentality does (imo) is it discourages people from reporting issues because they do not believe that a coach deserves to have their reputation completely destroyed or their career ended over a mistake (even if that mistake caused significant damage).

Being a coach is a difficult, but rewarding task. It is undoubtedly a position of power and accountability is important because of that power. One positive that I am able to take out of this moment is an appreciation for the coaches I have had in life who were great and had a very positive impact for me.

Overall, I just hope that people remember that this 'reckoning' should be focused more on the changes that will improve athletics for everyone and less on the spectacle of tarring and feathering people.

[Wormius]

Does the line really need to be that fine? Can people not be coached without the aggression? Do players even need that kind of negative motivation? I think a lot have an inherent desire to succeed. Shouldn't a good coach be able to help the athletes achieve everybody's desired goal without resorting to anything other than being constructive?

[indes]

Agree with the annoyance of Dan Carcillo. Not every time a player got yelled at or wasn't played "enough" counts as abusive coaching. He's going to end up making people not care by lumping all these stories together.

Playing hockey or when I started working construction, you messed up, you got yelled at. I hope everyone can take the time to realize that when dollars are at stake or you've volunteered your time to be in a high level sport there is probably going to be some intense moments. I hope Carcillo stops watering down the real cases of people crossing the line with cases where people are just upset.

It's a new world. Anecdotally I just did a 9 month project and fired 11 people over the course of it. Every. Single. Person. called HR and filed a complaint. 11/11 people who were fired with cause thought it was unjust.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Savvy27

I do hope that people treat this reckoning with some compassion and understanding for the coaches in addition to the players. Especially the older coaches who were trained in the environments that people are now trying to change.

Obviously, there are and will continue to be stories of abuse that are extreme or so terrible that the coach would deserve the criticism and vitriol. I'm talking about the cases that are more borderline, where a bad decision or action is used to completely define a person and undoes every other thing they have done in their coaching career.

The other thing that a mob mentality does (imo) is it discourages people from reporting issues because they do not believe that a coach deserves to have their reputation completely destroyed or their career ended over a mistake (even if that mistake caused significant damage).

Being a coach is a difficult, but rewarding task. It is undoubtedly a position of power and accountability is important because of that power. One positive that I am able to take out of this moment is an appreciation for the coaches I have had in life who were great and had a very positive impact for me.

Overall, I just hope that people remember that this 'reckoning' should be focused more on the changes that will improve athletics for everyone and less on the spectacle of tarring and feathering people.

This stuff is always going to be messy, and if anything will actually come from this, there's going to be tar and feathers. There's just no way around that.

The way I see it however is this: most of the people tarred and feathered are going to be rich guys in their fifties, but there's not going to be that many of them, and most of them are going to be people I really can not sympathize with. On the other hand, a big reckoning could help countless young and vulnerable people every year.

Do I hate the fact that it has to be a tradeoff? Yes.

On the other hand, everyone who is going to get caught up in this (if something does actually go down, which I think is far from guaranteed at this point) will be someone who has participated in this culture. It's going to hit people who at the very least have risen through the ranks while staying silent about the problems around them. They might not deserve to be tarred and feathered, but they've been complicit.

It's not fair, but it's not super unfair either.

Do I enjoy the tar and feathers part? No I don't. As a rule I'm against internet lynch mobs. I forcefully support the idea that punishments should be limited to removing abusive people from positions of power, and nothing more. They don't deserve to have their personal lives destroyed, they don't need to be isolated from society as a whole, they don't need to be financially ruined.

But it will likely take at least the threat of a lynch mob to force a change in the culture.

[sempuki]

Originally Posted by Geeoff

It's also worth noting that the difference between demanding and abusive might also be different for every player. Like one player might like it when the coach drops a bunch of f bombs on them, while another would be upset.

I dunno man, seems to me there's a world of objective difference between "holy #### that was a ####ty pass, pay ####ing attention and do it right" and "hold #### you're a ####ty player, I'm going to ####ing ruin your career"...

[flames_fan_down_under]

Originally Posted by sempuki

I dunno man, seems to me there's a world of objective difference between "holy #### that was a ####ty pass, pay ####ing attention and do it right" and "hold #### you're a ####ty player, I'm going to ####ing ruin your career"...

Thank you for this. I don't think any of us are advocating for coaches to not swear or yell, I think that is fairly expected in a professional highly competitive sporting atmosphere. I would think a lot here understand that dropping F bombs in the locker room to address how a team is playing, or motivate a team etc is very different from singling out players because of their skin colour, purposefully humiliating rookies in front of their peers or physically assaulting players because of their performance. Like I am all for finding ways to motivate a room of people to win, but #### like that is ####ing disgusting and has no place in any environment.

[corporatejay]

I think the line is this:

Criticism of play = Good (That was a terrible pass. That was a lazy backcheck, that play in the corner was too soft, you have to go in harder than that.)

Criticism of person = Bad (you suck, you're lazy, you're a p**sy).

[Flamenspiel]

Well there is now a lot of daylight between Babcock and Peters. Babcock comes off an a**hole that was very successful, he will probably get another job.

Peters so far could be a rascist and possibly physically abused his players. On top of that his career has been a mixed bag. He is probably done.