Parents and pucks don't always mix

Let's say you're a lawyer, which, I know, is a terrible thing to say about anyone. It's like accusing a person of being a sportswriter. But let's say you're a lawyer idling in your office in the upper reaches of the Canadian province of New Brunswick, the beautiful northeastern neighbor of Maine.

The telephone rings and a caller says, "I want to sue them for what they did to my boy."

"Tell me, sir, who did what to your boy?" you say.

"The trophy, it should be his," the caller says.

"Trophy?"

"They gave the New Brunswick Bantam AAA MVP trophy to another boy, not mine."

"And you want to sue about that?"

"My boy has suffered psychological pain."

Well, if not in those exact words, some such conversation with an idling lawyer must have taken place because Hockey New Brunswick, the province's amateur hockey association, now finds itself the defendant in a lawsuit filed October 8 by a teenager's father.

Michael Croteau of Lameque Island, New Brunswick, told the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper that his son, Steven, 16, was so disappointed after losing his league's MVP award in March that he lost his love for playing hockey.

To set things right, the elder Croteau wants the MVP trophy taken from the winner and given to his son; wants the top playmaker trophy snatched from another undeserving winner and given to his son; wants his son guaranteed a roster spot for the big-deal Canada Winter Games, and wants compensation for his son's suffering.

As to how much money would make the Croteaus feel better, the lawsuit asks for $300,000 in psychological and punitive damages.

Now let's say you're a sportswriter and you're idling in your office.

The telephone rings.

"… and I'm wondering what you think of this Croteau-MVP lawsuit," I say.

"Absolutely ridiculous," says Dave Ritchie, the sports editor of The Daily Gleaner in Fredericton, New Brunswick, the province capital and home to the province's hockey association.

"But if you know anything about minor hockey in Canada," Ritchie says, "you know about parents being belligerent with officials and coaches. It's quite a serious problem."

"What's the cause, you think?"

"Baby Boomer parents. They're much more protective of their kids than our parents were. And not just in hockey. It used to be teachers could discipline kids, and parents approved. But now parents have become the teachers' adversaries. The whole pendulum has swung the other way, in hockey, education, a myriad of things."

Dave Ritchie's voice carries a tone of exasperation, as well it should, for we are deep into a generation of parents who in search of fame and money have so corrupted child's play as to leave it a source of misery rather than pleasure.

It's sick. These parents are hairballs on the dinner plate of life.

Just this year, a Massachusetts man was found guilty of manslaughter for the beating death of a coach after their 10-year-old sons' hockey practice. In New York, a 10-year-old's father broke a coach's nose in a fight and is the defendant in a $4 million suit.

Now Michael Croteau wants us to feel his son's pain. After his good season, Steven Croteau used $50 of his own to buy a new shirt and tie for the awards banquet put on by the New Brunswick Bantam AAA league. The little guy (5-4, 119 pounds) had led the league in scoring with 45 goals and 42 assists in 27 games. He wanted to look sharp in the MVP pictures.

"It's quite obvious," Michael Croteau said, "he's the most valuable forward in the league."

Not so obvious, obviously, to the league's nine coaches and managers who voted on the award. MVP honors went to Lucas Martin, who had 21 goals and 39 assists for Moncton. Michael Croteau, who called his son "just humiliated," said the boy went home, threw his hockey gear in a closet and vowed never to play again.

Here's what to say about that: GOOD.

The fewer self-absorbed brats in our games, the better.

Get rid of their parents, too, such as the mother in Ontario who sued the Canadian Hockey Association because her son was benched during a tournament; she seeks compensations for registration fees and hockey classes as well as damages for mental distress.

The parents of a 15-year-old player in Saskatchewan filed suit for $105,000, claiming their son's career was derailed when he was denied a tryout with an elite team.

An Ontario judge last week dismissed a 9-year-old's claim for $10,000 filed — the parents said — after a coach threatened to "put a bounty" on the child's head.

Also in Ontario, the entire coaching staff of an Eastern Ontario Junior B Hockey League club was fired by the team president the day after the president's son was cut during tryouts.

All of which is to say that Daily Gleaner sports editor Dave Ritchie is too kind by far when he uses the word "protective." Any parent filing suit to gain awards/guarantees/$300,000 for a child is not protective. That parent is idiotic.

As if to confirm the idiocy, Michael Croteau told the Globe and Mail that he filed the lawsuit in hopes "it will be an example to others."

Yeah, right, just what we need.