Some Ontario hockey leagues tackling referee abuse as season begins

As young hockey players across the province hit the ice for a new season, some leagues in Ontario are looking for ways to fight an age old sports problem: people yelling at referees.

The Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL) and Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA), which both have tens of thousands of players, are providing arm bands for first-year or teenage referees that are meant to make parents or coaches consider who they're criticizing. 

Dave Wedlake, chair of the officiating program for the OMHA, said refs face common insults like, "Are you blind?" Some are flat out told they don't belong in the profession, should go work somewhere else and that teams would be better off without them. He said verbal abuse can cause some to question if the job is right for them.

"I hope [parents and coaches] pause and stop and think for a minute that that individual they're yelling at could be their very own child," Wedlake said. "As they're in the building watching these young kids play, we also have young people officiating. So remember to take a breath."

Hockey is not the first youth sport to grapple with the issue of referees facing verbal abuse. Last fall, Ontario's soccer association outfitted some refs with body cameras meant to act as a physical deterrent for verbal abuse. 

The OMHA's armbands, which say "No ref, no game," will be worn by on-ice officials under the age of 18, while the GTHL's will be worn by refs in their first year. While the OMHA's program is beginning this season, the GTHL began having house league refs wear armbands last winter and will expand the campaign to its competitive levels this year.

'People tend to give up' 

Eighteen-year-old GTHL referee Harry Smith has enough experience to no longer require a green armband, but he still remembers initially feeling anxious the first time a coach really lashed out at him three years ago.

After the game, he said he went home and reminded himself he was a 15-year-old being screamed at by a grown adult.

"And I'm not in the wrong," he said. "I'm just trying to do my job right."

Smith said the yelling takes a while to get used to and not everyone he knows has been able to handle it as well as he did. 

"They want to do their best. And when there's a lot of pressure being put on them when they're just trying to learn, trying to figure out how to do things, it's really difficult," he said. "So people tend to give it up." 

Scott Oakman, executive director of the GTHL, said it's hard to say if the issue is getting worse, but it certainly hasn't been getting better in recent years. 

"We live in a generation now where you hear stories about people in authority being treated with different levels of respect than perhaps they would have been a generation ago," he said.

He said hockey is a game based on respect and this is an opportunity to remind people of that.

What's causing people to yell at refs?

Rebecca Bassett-Gunter, an assistant professor and the director of the LaMarsh Centre for Child and Youth Research at York University, said there are several factors that may lead to verbal abuse against refs. 

She said the fast pace of the game creates an atmosphere of intensity that parents get caught up in, which is combined with a low tolerance for mistakes. She also said the way some families approach the game can lead to inflated stakes. 

"We do see sort of a trend towards earlier and earlier specialization in sport. I think that plus kind of this nonsense of like a professionalization of youth sport, there's this sense that there's more investment from families, more time, more money," she said. "And I think that that can lead to a heightened sense of importance."

When it comes to the arm band idea, Bassett-Gunter, said yelling at the ref is engrained in the culture of hockey, which will make it difficult to change.

But like league officials, she hopes the bands will make people stop and think before they yell. She also said they could help more level-headed parents remind those with short tempers that they're yelling at a teen or inexperienced official.

"I also wonder if it might serve as a tool to the referees themselves to sort of remind them and boost their own confidence that they're not expected to endure abuse from parents or coaches or players."