Hockey brawl prompts police investigation

Mar 26, 2013 | News, Sports

By Jared and Corin, via Wikimedia Commons

By Jared and Corin, via Wikimedia Commons

By Marco Di Meo

The Ontario Provincial Police and hockey club officials are investigating a fight that broke out in the stands at a minor hockey game last Saturday in Tweed, Ont.

A spectator captured dozens of fans started fighting during a Bantam C championship game and parts of the fight on video.

The video was posted on Youtube and already has over 200,000 views.

In a prepared statement, Richard Ropchan, Executive Director of the Ontario Minor Hockey Association, said the actions and behavior of the group is “unacceptable.”

“Community sport reinforces values of participation, respect, healthy life style, team work and cooperation,” he said. “The Ontario Minor Hockey Associations Code of Conduct and Fair Play Codes are in place for all stake holders and define expectations.”

Ropchan said “it is unfortunate that these situations tarnish the image of minor hockey across the province.”

Bill Hutton, Risk Management Officer for the Ontario Minor Hockey Association, told Humber News this is a rare occurrence in minor hockey.

LISTEN: OMHA’s Bill Hutton speaking about the brawl

[soundcloud url=”https://soundcloud.com/humber-news/omha-interview” comments=”true” auto_play=”false” color=”ff7700″ width=”100%” height=”81″]

“People have to realize, just in the OMHA alone, we probably have 2,000 hockey games a day, I mean that’s an NHL schedule,“ he said.

“As much as we are frustrated and disturbed about these people’s behavior it might happen five or ten times a year where parents will start arguing but we have very few incidents reported,” he added.

Hutton said that this incident was not reported to the league.

“I mean this one wasn’t reported to us either until we saw the Youtube video. It’s not a common every night occurrence in one of our 255 associations and arenas,“ he said.

The meeting was between the Tweed Hawks and the Six Nation Hawks and they have met before without incident.

“Obviously this is not the behavior we expect from minor league fans,” he said.

The teams played each other again on Sunday with a police presence and there were no incidents.