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Authors: Jane Leavy
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how to use his own jersey against him. If everything went well, I'd grab him by his equipment and yank his face into my fist until the refs stepped in. Then Tom wiggled his pecs at me and dove into the lake.
The lesson had lasted five minutes, but it was an important one. I started playing competitive hockey at age five, which is what you do when you grow up in western Canada. You play until your trajectory stalls or your father allows you to quitâwhichever comes first. For a short stint, I played on an elite team. I was a tall kid, which meant that I played defense and was tasked with protecting our goalie. "Protecting the goalie" is a coaching euphemism for "goon." I was given this role at age seven.
This was a loosely defined role but in general it meant that I attacked anyone who bothered our goalie. If it happened, I was supposed to hit him, though my coaches never provided any further instructions. This was confusing for a second-grader: if this was my job, and it was so important, why didn't they teach me how to do it?
Aside from Tom, no one ever actually taught me how to fight. Teaching kids to fight is the single biggest taboo in the minor hockey establishment. With or without instruction, my role was locked anyway. Despite 12 years of junior hockey, no coach ever taught me to stickhandle, deflect a shot from the point, or roof the puck with a backhand. But how to hip-check? How to discreetly break a wrist with a slash? No problem, kid.
Most coaches stop short of fighting lessons because they don't know how or can't bring themselves to do it. Instead, fight lessons are whispered from a deviant uncle, a friend's dad, a neighbor. It's a sort of Talmudic tradition, passed down orally through generations of goons.
So I was shocked to learn, in 2007, that someone had violated that tradition and opened a school that promised to teach kids how to fight each other on skates. The world's only hockey fight camp for children was the brainchild of Trevor Lakness, a franchisee of Puckmasters, a chain of year-round hockey schools. Fight camp was held twice a year, cost $50, and was unadvertised. Players as young as 11 were welcome to attend the one-day clinic, where they learned basic fighting theory, how to throw punches, grapple, defend themselves, and the code of ethics as it pertained to helmet-less, bare-knuckle fighting among children in skates.
I wasn't sure hockey fighting could be taught, at least, not in any kind of codified way. Most fights last less than a minute, and outcomes appear random. Enforcers are just as likely to land punches as they are to be punched; to grab jerseys but get separated by refs before the fight can begin; to start throwing punches only to lose balance and fall to the ice.
I had to see for myself. When I called Trevor and asked to enroll in kiddie fight camp, he said no. This was not because I'm about six-foot-three and weigh 210 pounds. Trevor just thought I'd bring more negative press attention to his camp.
There had been plenty.
Sports Illustrated
had called it "goon school"; an ESPN columnist dismissed it as "completely ridiculous"; a
Minneapolis Star Tribune
column claimed the camp was "indoctrinating a fresh generation of kids into [a] warped mindset." A spokesman for Hockey Canada, the organization that oversees all of Canada's amateur hockey leagues, condemned it on the nation's largest TV news broadcast. The white-hot media reaction had already cost Trevor his insurance. His provider had learned that kids were punching other kids and dropped him. Trevor simply switched to another company and kept on going.
Mostly, Trevor said no because he saw my U.S. area code on his call display. "I don't need more American media attention," he said. I knew that some Canadians use "American" as a slur and explained that I grew up in Alberta playing Canada's game. Trevor warmed up, but not much. So I told him that I play hockey with a certain dead man's gloves.
That dead man was former
The lesson had lasted five minutes, but it was an important one. I started playing competitive hockey at age five, which is what you do when you grow up in western Canada. You play until your trajectory stalls or your father allows you to quitâwhichever comes first. For a short stint, I played on an elite team. I was a tall kid, which meant that I played defense and was tasked with protecting our goalie. "Protecting the goalie" is a coaching euphemism for "goon." I was given this role at age seven.
This was a loosely defined role but in general it meant that I attacked anyone who bothered our goalie. If it happened, I was supposed to hit him, though my coaches never provided any further instructions. This was confusing for a second-grader: if this was my job, and it was so important, why didn't they teach me how to do it?
Aside from Tom, no one ever actually taught me how to fight. Teaching kids to fight is the single biggest taboo in the minor hockey establishment. With or without instruction, my role was locked anyway. Despite 12 years of junior hockey, no coach ever taught me to stickhandle, deflect a shot from the point, or roof the puck with a backhand. But how to hip-check? How to discreetly break a wrist with a slash? No problem, kid.
Most coaches stop short of fighting lessons because they don't know how or can't bring themselves to do it. Instead, fight lessons are whispered from a deviant uncle, a friend's dad, a neighbor. It's a sort of Talmudic tradition, passed down orally through generations of goons.
So I was shocked to learn, in 2007, that someone had violated that tradition and opened a school that promised to teach kids how to fight each other on skates. The world's only hockey fight camp for children was the brainchild of Trevor Lakness, a franchisee of Puckmasters, a chain of year-round hockey schools. Fight camp was held twice a year, cost $50, and was unadvertised. Players as young as 11 were welcome to attend the one-day clinic, where they learned basic fighting theory, how to throw punches, grapple, defend themselves, and the code of ethics as it pertained to helmet-less, bare-knuckle fighting among children in skates.
I wasn't sure hockey fighting could be taught, at least, not in any kind of codified way. Most fights last less than a minute, and outcomes appear random. Enforcers are just as likely to land punches as they are to be punched; to grab jerseys but get separated by refs before the fight can begin; to start throwing punches only to lose balance and fall to the ice.
I had to see for myself. When I called Trevor and asked to enroll in kiddie fight camp, he said no. This was not because I'm about six-foot-three and weigh 210 pounds. Trevor just thought I'd bring more negative press attention to his camp.
There had been plenty.
Sports Illustrated
had called it "goon school"; an ESPN columnist dismissed it as "completely ridiculous"; a
Minneapolis Star Tribune
column claimed the camp was "indoctrinating a fresh generation of kids into [a] warped mindset." A spokesman for Hockey Canada, the organization that oversees all of Canada's amateur hockey leagues, condemned it on the nation's largest TV news broadcast. The white-hot media reaction had already cost Trevor his insurance. His provider had learned that kids were punching other kids and dropped him. Trevor simply switched to another company and kept on going.
Mostly, Trevor said no because he saw my U.S. area code on his call display. "I don't need more American media attention," he said. I knew that some Canadians use "American" as a slur and explained that I grew up in Alberta playing Canada's game. Trevor warmed up, but not much. So I told him that I play hockey with a certain dead man's gloves.
That dead man was former
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