Rink Rage

Rink Rage examines the prevalence, causes, and responses to parental violence in Canadian minor hockey and how to address it. Fistfights in the parking lot, coffee thrown on the ice, coaches harassed over email, players and refs berated from the stands…parental violence takes many forms across age, competitive levels, and geographic locations. Despite established codes of conduct, these behaviours are often tolerated, ignored, or sometimes promoted as part of the culture in hockey. Curtis Fogel, Daniel Sailofsky, and Zach Heipel use publicly available documentation, legal case files, and interviews with stakeholders to explore how Canadian minor hockey leagues, organizations, teams, and legal officials respond to parental violence. Employing perspectives from sociology, psychology, legal studies, and sport management, the authors analyze the relationships between violence, sporting cultures, gender, capitalist social structure, and family. Crucially, they identify strategies to address this structural and cultural problem to improve the health and well-being of young athletes in Canadian minor hockey.