IF I WERE KING of hockey, we would cancel the continued practice of the kangaroo court. Hold on a second, did SafeSport not already address that ridiculousness? That’s right you silly brain surgeons, SafeSport did mandate the end of the silliness.
This is junior hockey and SafeSport can’t mandate out a time-honored tradition that delivers beer money for the veterans, can they? Yes, and they already have. Simply said, the continued practice of bullying, hazing, and the kangaroo court can put any chance of going to college hockey in serious jeopardy.
How are they going to find out?
That’s funny because some of you are just ignorant enough to use applications like Venmo and CashApp to collect fines for the kangaroo festivities. There’s a word for such tragic mistakes of judgement…evidence.
Now, just imagine how such an outstanding team leader is going to explain away his junior hockey extortion earnings to the SafeSport investigator. We are not talking about just a few bucks here and there, some of these fine young men are collecting hundreds of dollars a week in fines.
One such player recently even skated out of town with a pile of his teammates’ money. Interesting that none of that money ever made it back to the team it was extorted from. What are the kids going to do, tattle to the coach?
Here’s the fun part, parents are starting to get smart. They can almost use the scam as a forced savings account. They can let little Tommy continue to Venmo his fines to the captain for the entire season and then file a SafeSport hazing complaint just before the last weekend. The parents can then present the payment log to the coach and presto… the captain’s family will be forced to return all the money or have their little angel face the consequences of an easy to prove SafeSport violation.
Why? What is the purpose of wanting to continue the very unsophisticated bullying and hazing antics if the result can easily soil the team leaders’ reputation for ever.
Here’s the really ridiculous part of this issue. We are not just talking about the pay-to-play leagues doing this baloney. The antics are common across the entire continent.
If the purpose of the kangaroo court is to curb behaviors, why not take the military approach to correct the issue? Instead of fines, force the entire team to run for an hour outside or in the arena. Maybe a 1,000 push-up count after practice. There’s also planks, wall squats, and leg-lifts. Lazy and not really interested in all that? Maybe everybody goes outside and picks up trash for an hour. In other words, make the team take full responsibility for one another. It’s amazing how well that works.
Here’s what’s going to happen when teams ignore this message: I’m going to ask parents send me copies of the Venmo payments and I’ll be the one letting leagues know there are problems with certain teams.
Here’s a quote from a former NCAA Division I coach regarding the issue.
“I would have to question the character of any player that has his name attached to team bullying, hazing, and court fines. This would include those players in the room allowing the behavior to happen in the first place.”
Stephen Heisler 