Dear Editor
Jan. 15, we escorted our grandson to a bantam hockey game held in the Battleford Arena. We were expecting to view another interesting and entertaining hockey game like countless others we have watched. It quickly became apparent that playing the body instead of the puck was the opposing team's strategy. We were shocked and dismayed at the amount of heavy and senseless body checking Battleford started out with. Spiritwood initially responded by retaliating on the scoreboard, which at the end of the first period showed the score 1 to 8 in Spiritwood's favour.
The aggressive nature of the game escalated as the Spiritwood team started to return some of the heavy checking with some of their own. Eventually there were two separate fights that appeared to be initiated by the Battleford players, with the result of two players from each team being sent off the ice. The referee was totally inadequate in this game, doing nothing to curb the disturbing tendency to violent behaviour that was clearly apparent to the spectators.
As the situation escalated in the third period, a stick came down on the back of the head of a Spiritwood player. He retaliated by knocking down a Battleford player. As a result two young people were baldy injured. An ambulance had to be called to take the Spiritwood player to the hospital.
Is this the kind of coaching and refereeing Battleford parents condone? Coaches can be expelled. Referees can be fired. Good, well played hockey is a pleasure to watch, but the travesty of this particular game was no pleasure for certain. Furthermore, it was definitely no pleasure watching a young person being wheeled out of the arena on a stretcher.
We can only assume the team parents do not realize to what extent their players are being encouraged to behave aggressively and how inadequately some of the games are being officiated. Won't someone please step up to the plate and do something to prevent an incident like this from happening again?
Incidentally, the playing-the-puck strategy was vindicated in the final score - Battleford 3, Spiritwood 13.
Torben and Sonja Nielsen
Spiritwood
