Kids hockey should be about fun, not scores: minor hockey groups

Hockey groups across the country are looking for ways to managerunaway scores in a bid to keep the sport fun for kids.

The issue swelled for the Minor Hockey Alliance of Ontario aftera team of eight-year-olds from Kitchener, Ont. crushed the Cambridge, Ont. Hawk Reds 41-0 last month. At that point the Cambridge team was0-7 and had been outscored 132-4 this season.

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The lopsided score was very unusual, but the group still isconsidering a variety of measures to prevent a similar situation,said executive director Tony Martindale.

Those measures could include new rules or guidelines, andrevisiting how the teams are split up based on skill, he said.

"Our biggest thing here is that we don't want to turn kids offof hockey," Martindale said. "We want hockey to be a life-longadventure for the kids."

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The Kitchener-Cambridge game didn't result in a barrage ofcomplaints, he added, likely because the coaches found a way to keep it fun for the young athletes.

The winning team also implemented some rules to try and slow thepace when the score began to balloon, including requiring players topass at least five times before shooting the puck.

To score or not to score

Hockey Canada recommends that players under the age of nine playhalf-ice games and that no score is kept.No one from Hockey Canada was made available to discuss theguidelines.

Groups across the country use various rules for young players, with the Ontario Hockey Federation saying keeping score is optionalfor eight-year-old (novice) hockey. Hockey Alberta and BC Hockey donot keep score for teams made up of kids eight and under.

"Mis-matchesdo happen.'- Brad Lyon, Hockey Alberta

Young players should be learning skills like passing and how tobe part of a team, not focusing on the score or who has how manygoals, said Brad Lyon, spokesman for Hockey Alberta.

"We want to make sure that when those players are coming intotheir first or second year of hockey, that they've had fun, thatthey're coming off the ice smiling, that they've had the opportunityto learn and most of all, that they want to come back next week andnext year and hopefully decades into the future," he said.

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Hockey Alberta is also working on creating a standardized tieringsystem to better manage discrepancies in skill level and help teams determine what they'll be up against in any given tournament.

"Mis-matches do happen. We know there can be those big scores.So we're trying to reduce it," Lyon said.

Standardized tiering is also used in B.C., where most memberassociations don't post more than a five-goal deficit on anyscoreboard, BC Hockey CEO Barry Petrachenko said in a statement.

The group is also encouraging associations to redistributeplayers or teams if play is lopsided.

Martindale said his group is reviewing how and when teams aresplit into skill-based tiers.

Currently, the teams play a few games before the process starts.They will look at whether there is a way to do the tiering beforethe season begins, Martindale said.

The Minor Hockey Alliance of Ontario does not currently haverules or guidelines around blowout scores, he said, and may considerputting some in place for the future.

But it's unlikely any regulations would include a "mercy rule,"where the game would end if one team were winning by a set margin.

That could lead to valuable ice time going unused, Martindale said."I'd rather see us throw the sticks in the middle and have thekids play," he said, referring to how teams are often picked instreet hockey.

"At the end of the day, it's about development and it should beabout making friends and it should be about player experience."