Favorite Stupid Things You See/Hear At An Arena

littleD

Registered User
I've done and said a few things at games I'm not proud of. Probably true for most people who have watched any hockey.

I remember when my cousin was young, like 10 or 11, I'd go watch his games and get riled up for the smallest things. This was before anyone was talking about parents abusing refs/opposition players. So it was a little more crazy at times. There was more than once that I thought I was going to get into fights with some 40 year old parent on another team. (I would have been 17-18 at the time.)

I've calmed down a lot since then. :D

I'm not sure the worst things I've heard or seen. Never saw any fights in the stands or anything. There's always at least one parent who's walking around muttering "why don't the put my son out there" when there's a powerplay or something. And then the people who talk about "best" and "worst" players at any house league level. Come on - there just out there to skate around and have some fun. When your son is 20 years old, and playing juvenile house league, NHL dreams should pretty much be over, so don't worry if the "worst" player is getting any ice time over the "best" player.
 

Hockeymom67

Registered User
Aug 24, 2004
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Montreal
Probably a father throw a garbage can on the ice because a bad call from a ref made on his son ...therefore nearly hitting another teammate and traumatisizing that kid forever..We're talking Atom level here:shakehead
 

jacklours

Registered User
Mar 5, 2003
1,222
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Magog
I hate when I'm a linesman at some games and parents or even coaches are telling me: ''Common ref you did see it.''
 

Hedberg

MLD Glue Guy
Jan 9, 2005
16,399
12
BC, Canada
I find a lot of 6-8 year goalies wear the goalie pads on the wrong legs. The parents have no clue how to put them on.
 

Oilers Chick

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Jun 7, 2002
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Philly in April 2014
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Worst: Has to be some of the idiotic hockey parents. It's bad enough when they yell and berate the refs but when they do it to their own sons, that's just wrong! I saw it happen at a local pee wee game a few years back and fortunately one of the other player's dad stepped in to stop it because if he didn't I was going to! Demoralizing your kid, especially after a loss does nothing for him except build up resentment toward the game and you, the parent.

Stupidest: Gee, I have a few but I guess my two favorites are...

1) A fan sitting in the row in front of me at a SJ Sharks game last season said "Yeah, Matt Carle was a great player at COLORADO COLLEGE." I politely said to him (which BTW took all my will to do so) "Um, Matt Carle went to the University of Denver NOT Colorado College."

2) One I get a lot is "Women don't know anything about the game and just want to check out the players." Then when they proceed to test me, they get P.O.'d because I can answer all of their questions correctly.
 

BCCHL inactive

Guest
Parents. Parents. Parents.:banghead:

Parents think they know everything about playing and officiating. Some local parent wrote a letter to the MHA last week complaining about how his son got some "undeserved penalties", among other complaints about the game. He wrote how he expects the referee to be suspended for "failing to control the game", as if the players and coaches had no responsibility for it themselves.

MHA responds to the letter saying "the officiating supervisor had a meeting with the referee of the game". That's only half the truth as the meeting happened, and the senior official completely justified his calls, and now the parent is going to think the referee was punished, and he's not going to stop and think twice about complaining the next time he think his son's penalty is "undeserved".

Minor hockey associations hold players, coaches and officials accountable for their actions. Why not the parents? Personally, I would have mailed this parent a rulebook. Then again, 9 out of 10 coaches in minor hockey don't even have one.
 

Ceteris Paribus

Registered User
Aug 2, 2005
189
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It always bugs me when players start swearing at the refs. It does not achieve anything. By the time you're in midget you should realize that telling the ref to F-off will only get you a misconduct, and possibly a suspension, yet I've seen it happen so many times.
Some hockey parents also need to control their temper. One time after our team had finsihed a game, a parent of one of the kids on the other team slapped one of my teamates in the face.
 

Mr Jiggyfly

Registered User
Jan 29, 2004
34,243
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I used to coach 7-10 year olds... what a nightmare.

The kids where great and I loved our practices, but the games where living hell - because the parents where there.

My best player, John had a crazy-insane father who would yell at him everytime he made a mistake. He once took a penalty in a playoff game and his father was behind him in the stands yelling at him. John started to cry and I had to call a timeout to talk to his father and let John know it was ok.

Funny thing is, we would all play in pick-up games after practice and John was a better skater/player than his dad who was 30+ lol.

I had a mother of a lesser talented girl on my team, who would sit in the stands and yell at her the whole game. "I'll beat your *** if you don't start moving!"

I had to talk to the mother and tell her that behavior was counterproductive.

Once I had to call up a player from the 4-6 year old division because we had a short bench that night.

The father of the child sat on the bench with us, and yelled at this poor kid the whole game. He was doing really well, seeing as how he was playing up a division. About the second period I had to ask the father to leave the bench area...

I would also ref for the whole league...giving up more of my time...but that didn't matter to alot of coaches and parents. You would have to listen to why you didn't call this or that...why you didn't give little billy the second assist when the puck banked off his face.

We had coaches who would run up the score...I would ask them to call off the dogs, and they would roll their eyes. God forbid their team didn't win by 25 goals.

Of course these where the same guys who would get all excited in the coaches game when they scored on a 12 year old goalie with a slap shot.

I finally quit after a ridiculous incident...

I was reffing a game in the 11-13 year old division between two teams coached by the two parents I respected the most in the league. The one guy, Mike, ran the whole league, in fact.

They got so involved in the game they where jawing at each other the whole time - and they where friends!

At the end of the game during the handshake, they jawed some more, and where about to fight each other when I had to step in.

It really is ashame how parents ruin things for the kids.
 

Ti-girl

Registered User
Jan 29, 2005
7,913
1
Merida, Mexico
I agree with Mr Jiggyfly.

I know of a parent who insisted he worked the stat sheet for his son's Bantam AA games. It was really interesting to see his son on the scoresheet all the time, even though everyone on the ice knew that he didn't touch the puck.

My friend's little boy got moved up to play in the 7-8 age category (he's 5) and he was playing really well until a father on the other team yelled at his son to "take him out".
Poor Tyler didn't know what to do. He had scored a goal and didn't want to get hurt. He started crying on the bench until his mom went over to talk to him.

I coached lacrosse for 13-14 year old boys and one father proceeded to tell his son to "take the head off" one of my leading scorers, who happened to be about 5 inches and 100 lbs lighter than him. Thank god my kid wasn't seriously hurt. He got a lacrosse stick to the neck and a concussion, but he came back and plowed the other kid.

Parents cause so much trouble.

I always tell my parents before the season starts what my goals are and how I plan on acheiving them and I make them sign a parental contract stating that they will allow me to run my team/club as I see fit.
Never had a problem since I started that.
 
Just a few beer league gripes since I'm too old to remember minor hockey and the complaints on this page have totally killed any desire I had towards having kids:

Goalies who throw their arms up in the air after every goal and yell at their defenceman after the goal. Drives me nuts.

Softball guy. You know, the guy who was a star once upon a time and now floats through the whole game unless he has the puck. Than he tries a ridiculous move which of course backfires, so he slams his stick against the boards and slowly skates back or takes a dumb penalty. Yeah. That guy. For some reason a high porportion of those guys wear #69 'cause they are so funny.

Refs who feel the need to prove to everybody on the ice that they are the boss by calling every little thing and giving extra 2 mins if you so much as open your mouth to object.

Players who feel the need to whine and complain every single time a ref makes a call against their team.

Losers who start headhunting (and running goalies) at the end of games they are losing.

Anybody on the ice who slewfoots, hits from behind or highsticks intentionally.

Anyone on the ice or off who cheers when somebody has clearly been hurt.
 

Gert B Frobe

Registered User
Nov 18, 2003
7,358
1,799
Chester County
I went to a lot of Penguins games back in the late 80s early 90s when they started to play well. EVERY game I went to the fans would boo icing because they thought it was a penalty. EVERY time Lemieux was touched/checked/fell down they cried for a penalty. Fans walked up and down the aisles during play and the ushers didn't stop them and nobody said anything to them - I did and got crap for it.

Went to a Pens game last year and the fans had improved but for the most part knew nothing about the game beyond their own team.

I like the Pens but their fans completely blow.
 

BCCHL inactive

Guest
We had coaches who would run up the score...I would ask them to call off the dogs, and they would roll their eyes. God forbid their team didn't win by 25 goals.

Been there, done that.

My best story on this subject happened a couple years ago in a midget rep game. Team A was up by 8 goals with 15 minutes left. I pulled the captain aside and told him that I can't stop them from scoring more goals, but I can give them Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalties if they celebrated after scoring another goal. The instruction was to either skate to your bench for a change, or line up at centre ice immediately.

They thought I was joking. Three Unsportsmanlike minors later, and a Game Misconduct to their coach to boot ("YOU CAN'T DO THAT YOU PIECE OF ****!", they found out I wasn't playing any games.

Refs who feel the need to prove to everybody on the ice that they are the boss by calling every little thing and giving extra 2 mins if you so much as open your mouth to object.

God help rec league referees in the near future. Soon, it will all be sanctioned by Hockey Canada, meaning that new standard everybody LOVES in the NHL will have to be enforced at every level of sanctioned hockey.

Players who feel the need to whine and complain every single time a ref makes a call against their team.

Yet you wonder why the refs will slap on an extra minor for whining about their penalty?

I quit reffing rec hockey after one player threatened to slash me in the head after I gave his teammate a Gross Misconduct for using the infamous "have a donut" comment that Jim Schoenfeld used on Bill McCreary. The player threatening me got the Match Penalty the book calls for.

I didn't quit because I was scared or felt threatened (though I would have been well within my rights to call the cops and charge him with uttering threats). I knew he didn't have the nutsack to do it. I quit because there is zero respect for anybody in the rec league here, and although the guy who runs the league would speak up for you, he'd never do anything meaningful to help the officials out. I have better things to do with my time.
 

Roughneck

Registered User
Oct 15, 2003
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Calgary
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This one is for Van:
One game we had a ref who called a penalty on our number 14. Even though we didn't have a 14, after explaining it to him, the ref was getting annoyed, telling us that if 14 didn't go to the penalty box, he'd get a delay of game as well. We continued to explain that we had no number 14 (we did however have a 4 and a 24, neither of whom were on the ice). The guy had had enough, he threatened to throw the coach out of the game. After deliberating with his linesmen and checking with the scoresheet, he demanded that a player from the ice serve the penalty. It wasn't a pretty scene.

My personal favorite.
At a tournament in Cranbrook, we were playing Crosnest Pass, a team that cared more about hitting than playing hockey. Anyways, after levelling one of their players, our bench celebrated (more in a response to how they acted after every measly bit of contact between players), one of their players skated by and said "Why are you ****ers so happy, just look at the scoreboard." To which one of our players replied "So we can see that we're winning?" Their guy looked up to see that we were up 4-0 (which made it even more comical) and replied "Man, you guys are a ****ing joke."
 

Artie

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Mar 1, 2002
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Montreal, Que
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My favorite moment

Coaching novice hockey (8-9 year olds).

There is a scrum in front of the net. The puck rolls in and the referee signals a goal. But there is some confusion and the officials huddle to discuss. They were actually discussing who got the goal. The ref goes to the timekeeper to report the goal and starts talking.

One of our players (after the delay and huddle): I think they are going to call upstairs to get a video review of the play"
 

bayrider

Registered User
Jun 4, 2006
599
0
Montreal
My favourite is that little annoying ***** who comes to games 2-3 hours early and hangs out with the staff (more like he just annoys them) and struts around the rink like he owns it. He goes into every room, office or behind any counter as if he is at home. He talks to everyone that walks into the building as if they know him or like him. He also thinks he's tight with the management, refs, coaches and the staff, when in reality he's just a loser with no friends.
 

Dwight

The French Tickler
Jul 8, 2006
8,181
0
West Island
Anyone ever had a team captain who took his captaincy too seriously? My captain's a center, I'm Left wing and then we've got a right wing to complete the line(obviously). So the 3 of us were talking and he suggested a strategy. THe right wing disagreed, so the captain got PMSed and started accusing the right winger of 'not respecting his captaincy'.

There's also a D-Man on my team who always calls for the puck, even when one of our guys is on a breakaway.
 

mooseOAK*

Guest
a few years back at a Sens game i had 4 drunken irish business men sitting behind me. throughout the whole game they kept yelling "punch him in the face!" after every bodycheck.

That's nothing special, I once had 4 sober Irishmen sitting behind me at a game.
 

stoll_16

Registered User
Jul 13, 2006
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people who wear #69
people who complain about penalty when its CLEARLY a penalty
parents who yell at referee's
slashers
i could go on a rant but i would rather not.:biglaugh:
 

BuddehJuS

Registered User
Nov 25, 2006
2,472
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When I was younger, I was at a Panthers game, sitting in the nosebleed section. When someguy started cursing and then a different man proceeded to yell at him due to the fact the man had cursed in front of his children. The original gentleman kept going, so the Dad being the smart man that he is decides to get out of his seat and "stand" right front of the guy who is seated and start threatening him till he went back to his seat. What makes this so stupid is the fact that the dad is in NOSEBLEED, it's steep up there. If a fight broke out, that Dad was flying down from the nosebleed. You gotta pick your battles.
 

Oilers Chick

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Jun 7, 2002
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Philly in April 2014
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More on the parents...

I find it very amusing when talking to a parent who says their son is going to be the next Wayne Gretzky or Bobby Orr or Partick Roy....and the kid can't play and/or skate if his life depended on it.

Others I find quite amusing are:

1) the so-called 'fans' who say "yeah, I've been to many hockey games, but it's so barbaric." My question to them is..."then why in the world do you keep coming back?"

2) the girls who insist on showing up at games in skimpy clothes without a coat or jacket in the middle of winter who constantly whine about being so cold.
 

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