I was at a youth hockey tournament over the weekend. Yesterday midway through the 16u midgets championship game, shortly after the visiting team's coach was ejected for dropping the F bomb at a ref, a line brawl went down. Fans of both sides were screaming obscenities and creating all sorts of commotion. Cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria! I was captivated by the scene, to say the least.
From the drop of the puck it was a chippy game. There were several players from both teams who were immediately looking to mix it up. One cannot deny the officiating was terrible for a midgets game. Players wound up policing the game early on, and nothing good comes from that. In my experience with youth hockey this sort of thing tends to happen. Part of it is, "that's hockey", but there's certainly plenty of room for visible improvement. While I understand referees are the ultimate authority at any given tournament (even basically above the tournament directors), it would be nice if the directors of the tournaments made the proper request to perhaps keep things a bit tighter. This is not just about midgets either, for f***'s sake, mites might be the f***ing worst of it all! Of course, I am also unaware of the experience and the confidence of these particular officials, as I have witnessed in the past referees being intimidated by fans/coaches to blow the whistle. Can be tough for newer refs sometimes. I get it. We're humans.
The visiting team did come out playing as the better of the two early on but that changed near the end of the first period and the home team scored a couple as the ice tilted. Visitors seemed to be more physical, but both teams were dishing them out.
Then the home team got more of a lead in the second period, and it's 4-1. A player on the visiting team had 2 penalties at this point in the game (4 gets a skater a game). So this kid then midway through the second came across the ice and laid one of the biggest hits I have ever seen in midgets hockey on one of the home skaters. Destroyed him. Well... that'll do it. He got a double minor and ejected. Taunted the bench, taunted/pumped the crowd, you name it. From seeing it myself and from talking to the head coach briefly of the home team, we both mentioned how it was an unclean hit due to the shear amount of force the kid delivered. It did not appear to be a high hit, he did not jump, he did not check him from behind. "Clean" in the spirit of the game, but f***ing downright vicious at this level.
Refs failed numerous times early on to keep the game under control and make sure this type of nonsense doesn't continue or escalate. Derp.
After all of the screaming and commotion, and the skaters brawling, and the scorekeeper slamming the horn for what seemed like 2 minutes straight, and the two refs trying hard to break it all up but failing, and the home team's goalie getting ejected for what I'm pretty sure was taunting the officials/shit talking other team, the mayhem stopped. The home team didn't have a backup goalie either. From talking to the tournament director, I do believe there was some leeway in them being able to acquire a random EBUG of sorts somehow, but that did not happen.
Despite being up 4-1 midway through the second period and after the commotion settled down a bit, the head coach of the home team quickly decided it was absolutely necessary to shut the game down. Good thinking. The USA hockey refs did not make this decision. Some more derrrrp decision-making or lack there-of by the officials.
The home team skated off and agreed to leave with the silver medals and silver trophy cup, and then got the f*** out of dodge as fast as they could (I guess essentially forfeiting despite their 4-1 lead). I have never seen kids change out of gear and out of a locker room more quickly than that.
The visiting team left with chocolate, golden medals and their gold trophy cup.
And that was the end of my very, very long weekend.
