WINNIPEG – Hockey Winnipeg will require at least one parent or guardian of each player to complete an online Respect in Sport course in the 2014-15 season.
“Because of what’s gone on, we need to institute this,” Monte Miller, executive director of Hockey Winnipeg, said Wednesday. “It’s what we need to do.”
Respect in Sport offers courses for coaches and parents. The program encourages “positive sport behaviours” and gives parents insight into the roles of other individuals, such as coaches and officials, the Respect in Sport website says.
The Hockey Winnipeg executive decided to make the program mandatory at a meeting Monday.
The course costs $12 and is done online. The program will be co-ordinated with registration for the 2014-15 season, Hockey Winnipeg said. They estimate 6,000 parents in Winnipeg will take the course.
The program will be mandatory for all Winnipeg minor hockey players. Hockey Manitoba officials said they plan to implement the program within the next two years.
Reports of poor behaviour and violence by hockey parents have increased, Miller said.
“This year particularly has been a bad year for these parental incidents.”
On the weekend, Winnipeg parents and hockey coaches fought in a North Dakota locker room where seven- and eight-year-olds were present. A hockey team was ejected from the weekend tournament over the incident.
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Hockey Winnipeg officials are gathering information about the brawl but said they wouldn’t comment any further at this point.
Hockey Winnipeg president Don McIntosh said the organization hopes to change hockey culture through education, and the Respect in Sport program is a first step in the process.
“We, as administrators of the game, needed to do something about it,” McIntosh said.
The program won’t change everyone, Hockey Winnipeg officials admitted, but they hope it will make incidents of hockey rage less common.
Hockey Calgary has reported a drastic reduction in incidents since implementing the program, they said.
RELATED: Respect program aimed at hockey parents pays off
“Minor hockey is a privilege, a privilege to play the game,” said Hockey Winnipeg vice-president Russ Cassidy. “Act accordingly.”
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