Hockey can be pretty daunting when one player is substantially
bigger and stronger than another
John and I play in a low to mid level skill league called HockeyToronto. It's a fairly loosely run organization of nine co-ed teams who are supposed to playing at a recreational level. On the whole it's a pretty good league and we've met some great people, which to John and I is really the primary purpose of recreational hockey. We get to have a night out together, get some exercise and enjoy some social beverages - all positive things!
Right now we're in the playoffs, which in itself is a bit of a misnomer, since we entered the playoffs tied for sixth place and the first place team is firmly entrenched in their dominance of the league. The league is touted as being co-ed, yet a few of the teams (including the first place team) don't have any females on their rosters (which in of itself is a whole other issue that can be explored at a later date). Yet by labelling a game a 'playoff' it lends itself to a whole aura of expectations and heightened tensions. At the game last night, the tensions boiled over and when all was said and done, John was ejected from the game and received a subsequent suspension. John hit a girl ....
For those of you who don't know John, he's the quintessential accountant. Quiet, reserved and dependable; he's middle aged, greying at the temples and wears glasses; conservative in views - both politically and fiscally; he loves his family, golf, and his dog (I hope I got the order right). He wears cardigans for goodness sake! In short he's everything you would envision an accountant to be (he also has a very wry sense of humour that you'd never expect an account to possess). John is also a very experienced hockey player who played competitive hockey growing up and even had some interest in him demonstrated by the OHL (he wisely chose the scholastic route instead). Until two years ago he hadn't played hockey in at least thirty years, though he has been closely involved in the game through coaching.
John is also physically imposing. He stands 6'4" and weighs 230 lbs. On top of that he's an excellent technical skater, with awesome puck handling skills (he once scored a goal while standing at his own blue line), but his strongest weapon is his intimate knowledge of the game garnered over thousands and thousands of hours spent involved in the game.
The reason John plays in the aforementioned low/mid league, is in order to play hockey with me. I can't bring my skills up (lord knows I've tried), but he can ratchet his down. John plays defense and focuses mainly on passing the puck to set other people up for goals. He's got a wicked wrist shot (no slap shots allowed), which he rarely utilizes since he's worried about hurting people and doesn't think it's fair to use it at this level. He might rush with the puck once during a game, but generally claims he's too lazy to do so. He relies on his long reach to poke check the puck away from onrushing opponents and is uncannily good at doing so, except for last night, where it all went horribly wrong ...
We'd just tied the game up with a few minutes left to play, tensions were running high. One of the better, bigger and faster (every team puts their best people on at the end) players on the opposing team came rushing with the puck towards our end. John took his position at the blue line, the onrushing player tried a head deke, but John was far too wise and went for the poke check, the opposing player careened right into John - John didn't fall (see aforementioned height and weight), but the other guy did. No whistle went, because John hadn't done anything wrong, he didn't have to get out of the player's way for goodness sake - he had the established position! John turned to get the puck but the player who had careened into him came up charging at John thinking that John had purposely hit him, whereas the puck carrying player should have been charged with body contact, instead he crosschecked John in the back, causing John to fall to his knees, while another player on the team started hitting John while he was down.
In all honesty, I think both players thought that John had purposely hit the first player, their own ignorance of the rules causing them to overreact. Of course everything happened so quickly. The ref tried to get hold of the player who had first swung at John, but his adrenaline allowed him to keep hitting John from behind, while the second player was hitting him from in front. John came to his feet and tried to escape when suddenly a third opposing player came right into the fight, instinctively John defended himself by crosschecking the third player - unfortunately the third person in the fight was girl, a rather small girl and John absolutely decked her ... she went down very hard. All hell started breaking loose.
First of all let me say that I think John was wrong in cross checking. The fact that she was/is a girl should have nothing to with it. The ref started freaking out on John in an extremely unprofessional manner about John hitting a girl, completely ignoring the fact that two of their players had hit John (had hit him hard enough to drive him to his knees). The ref completely ignored that the girl was the third man (girl) in, which should result in a game misconduct. I honestly have no idea what she was thinking in injecting herself in the middle of fight ... I highly doubt she'll do it again.
John was put in an untenable situation, the refs couldn't control the fight and a melee ensued.
Should John have been ejected and suspended for the crosscheck? I think yes, no matter how justified, it was still a major infraction. But what about the other players on the opposing team? All three of them were considered blameless and were allowed to play in the next game, while John had to sit on the sidelines. The major issue that the ref kept reiterating, was that John hit a girl. Yet John did not hit a girl, John simply hit an opposing player, who never should have been there in the first place. In the scant seconds in which the whole incident took place, John never had a chance to asses the sex of the incoming player, he saw the jersey colour only, plus she was wearing a full face cage, further obscuring her sexual identity.
If women want to play hockey with men, they should be treated as equals. I think in this situation the whole societal taboo of male hitting a female came to the forefront, and obscured the actual hockey rules that should have been in play. Nobody wants anyone to get hurt and thankfully she was shaken but OK.
John was a true man and apologized to the girl in question and made sure she was alright, and also apologized to the guys on the opposing team.
Nobody apologized to John.
