Change sports culture to avert violence
Today hockey will be played in professional and youth sports arenas. And thousands of youngsters and pro athletes will enjoy the competition without getting hurt. Sometimes there are injuries. Most often, it's nobody's fault.
Yet there are times when pain is inflicted maliciously. That is what a Cook County jury decided last week in convicting a Schaumburg man of aggravated battery after he hit an opponent with his stick during a heated adult league hockey game last year. Or in the case of NHL star Todd Bertuzzi, who in 2004 pleaded guilty to an assault charge stemming from a hard hit on an opponent. In 2000, a Glenbrook North High School hockey player pleaded no contest to charges he left an opponent paralyzed when he slammed him into the rink's boards.
And yet another allegation of intentionally afflicted injury on the ice is in court.
The Illinois Supreme Court will decide whether two suburban hockey players, their coaches and the league should be held liable for a hit from behind that seriously injured a player in 2003.
The parents of the injured 16-year-old are convinced their son was a victim of brutality.
The hockey league feels otherwise. And it fears the court case could have a "chilling effect" as fear of lawsuits keeps good coaches and officials away from the game.
We're not about to decide who is right here or tell the court what it should do. But certainly we can't get to the point in a litigious society that every time an athlete gets hurt, lawyers pounce on the person who caused the injury.
At the same time, those who play the game hard, but right, have to be protected from those who aim to maim an opponent. There are such protections in laws against assault, that we have seen juries apply against out-of-control athletes. And depending on the outcome of the case before the Illinois Supreme Court, perhaps there will be a new civil remedy.
But there are actions to take out of court that can that stave off arrests and lawsuits.
It starts with creating the right sports culture, beginning at the very time children start playing competitive games. Youth leagues have to set firm rules to not only ban violence, but regulate the conditions that can lead to violence. This includes selecting coaches who keep winning in perspective, who set the right example by offering themselves as teachers and role models who can sell the virtues of competitiveness without losing their composure.
Coaches must demand sportsmanship not only of their athletes, but of themselves.
Pro athletes, too, are responsible to children in the way they conduct themselves, which is not to let the sticks and fists fly on national TV.
Young athletes themselves must keep cool when the heat is turned up. Of course this is hard to do if coaches and their own parents are applauding overt aggressiveness or if they overlook warning signs of anger-control problems in their athletes or children.
The games are still, for the most part, violence-free, competitive and fun. But all that is lost, when perspective, composure and sportsmanship are abandoned.