BS: Trash Talk

Subject: BS: Trash Talk
From: 3refs
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 09:28 AM

I recieved a call to provide a crew (referee and 2 linesmen)for a hockey game in a city just N of Toronto(I won't say it) because their previous games(play-offs)have been fight filled and the parents and fans in general have been fighting in the stands. They requested "neutral officials". No fights took place, but what really caught my attention was the level of trash talk. They called each other the most obscene names. We penalize that stuff, it's called "Gross Misconduct". The part that really pissed me off was they would say it where we couldn't positively identify the guilty player. 15-16 year old kids throwing racial and discriminatory slurs like they were candy. Worst game I've ever done!

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: Midchuck
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 09:38 AM

Last time I went to see a fight, a hockey game broke out and ruined it.

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: quokka
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 09:47 AM

Unfortunately, these kids have learnt that from somebody. Lots of somebodies. Kids follow, or copy, what they know. The sad thing is, anyone joining those teams who doesn't behave like that either won't get a game or will incur the wrath of the herd. You see it in every sport, and it doesn't start with the kids. I've been lucky enough to have been a parent on a team (soccer) where everyone was supportive and the kids all had fun. To see them grow and gel as a team over 3 years was an absolute joy. No coincidence that our team had more supporters than our opposition, week in, week out. Win, lose or draw, our kids learnt a lot about life, particularly when they were getting kicked behind play and learning that retaliation doesn't pay! BTW - takes a special person to be a referee. Hope this experience doesn't sour it for you.

Cheers,
Quokka

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 10:41 AM

Which do ya suppose came first- Allowing fights among the players or experiencing fights in the stands?

I think it's disgraceful. The only thing that makes it tolerable is figuring that in Roman times they would have been among those killing and being killed.

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: wysiwyg
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 01:45 PM

"You've got to be carefully taught."

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 02:04 PM

"anyone joining those teams who doesn't behave like that either won't get a game or will incur the wrath of the herd."

That's what happened in the Japanese Army in WWII and caused so many horrible atrocities to be committed by their troops in China and elsewhere. A few utterly brutal officers and some sadistic individual soldiers used their position to manipulate everyone else in the unit, the end result being that a large number of essentially decent, normal, and patriotic young men were turned into complicit war criminals. It only takes a few rotten apples to spoil the entire barrel. It happened in most other armies too, probably in all of them...but it was almost certainly the worst in the Japanese forces. Anyone who had kinder or more decent intentions toward prisoners or civilians wouldn't dare show it in front of the others...unless he was the top commanding officer...and even they were afraid to show it, lest they be thought "weak". It starts out that way and it just keeps getting worse, because the macho types who cause it are always trying to raise the ante one step farther to prove themselves to each other.

It's a sick, sick business, whether it happens in war or in the world of team sports.

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: gnu
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 02:12 PM

I don't go to live games anymore. There was a question about whether I assaulted the asshole or was defending the woman he was threatenting.

I like the RCMP, but I don't wanna hang out with them.

Odd. When I was a lad, that shit didn't happen. It was rough, but it was on the ice... and fighting was a VERY small part of it. I blame the NHL for trying to get ratings by instigating fighting.

Heheheee... they did the same thing in baseball a while after it started in hockey. Fighting... at a baseball game! For ratings obviously. I mean, baseball? It's a pussy game to begin with.

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 02:15 PM

Yup. That's exactly why they did it. It increases the ratings, and that's what the sponsors like.

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: gnu
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 02:50 PM

Yes, LH.... just like the weather "news" on the TV. STORM WATCH>>> STAY TUNED FOR THE LATEST UPDATES.... yeah, it's winter... where the fuck are you from? 4" of snow is not a storm... up your date!

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: Rapparee
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 03:22 PM

More fights in cricket! In lawn bowling! In croquet!

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: pdq
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 03:35 PM

Most of this is just the reality of urban life.

Too many people in too small an area with too much cultural baggage and too much free time. Result: anarchy, perhaps mayhem.

Move to rural America. I did.

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 03:47 PM

So did I. Rural Canada, that is. I much prefer the small towns and country life now.

Things were much worse in some big cities back in the 1800s. Read about the Five Points area in New York City around the 1850s, for example.

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: Rapparee
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 04:02 PM

Or London. Or Paris. Or Moscow. Or Berlin. Or Delhi. Or Beijing.

I've thought for some time that no urban environment should have more than 100,000 people living there.

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 05:00 PM

That is an excellent idea. The only thing standing in its way is the thing standing in every other progressive idea's way....

the search for quick windfall profits.

That is the force that would prefer to keep doing everything exactly as we have been doing up till now, only even moreso.

And it has just given us a worldwide recession.

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: bobad
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 05:18 PM

That sort of behaviour should simply not be tolerated.

Is there anything stopping you from warning both teams that if you hear something like that once more you will stop the game and both teams will be credited with a loss? If the rules state that you cannot do that then maybe that's the problem and the rules should be changed.

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: gnu
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 06:08 PM

Excellent idea bobad! TRULY excellent!

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: Rapparee
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 06:41 PM

Can we apply the same rule to our national assemblies?

The rule about being stuck in hole is to stop digging when you discover you're stuck in a hole.

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 03:56 PM

Not sure what is wrong with naming the town. Surely the town's having the reputation of their kids being foulmouthed thugs would be a slight motivation to clean it up?

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 10:24 PM

I'm guessing Newmarket. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Trash Talk
From: 3refs
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 11:54 PM

I took the weekend to contemplate your replies. Having done 2 more games. One of which was the same age group as I did in Barrie. There I said it! The other team was from Bradford. I payed just a little more attention than usual, but for two reasons. One is obviously about the origional posting. The other pertained to the U.F.C fight that took place on Saturday nigh between Georges St.Pierre of Montreal and B.J. Penn of Hawaii. The fight took place about midnight, but the pre-fight build up started at 6:00pm. This was a much anticipated championship fight. They put the spotlight on both combatants, back and forth, in little blips about this and that and everything else. St Pierre was nothing but a gentleman throughout the whole ordeal, from start to finish. He did the sport proud! B.J Penn, on the other hand, was nothing but an asshole. I've seen the stuff that left his lips about St Pierre result in death and I don't say that without having witnessed it firsthand! I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. Worst than any Mike Tyson rant. I was so glad that St Pierre, as gentlemanly as possible, kicked the shit out of him until Penn quit at the end of the 4th round! Like the "Pussy" he called St.Pierre. That was probably the least offensive thing I could repeat.

The hockey game wasn't all that much better.

I won't disagree with anyone else about the reasons they feel this type of behaviour has evolved over the years in sports. I will say this about hockey though. Every year some kid gets hurt, or once in a lifetime, some freak accident will results in a death. They put a band aide on whatever the issue might have been. They put more equipment on the kids! They change the rules. They make you take special courses. What happens? More kids get hurt. More incidents of unacceptable behavior take place(Sean Avery comes to mind). I say take off the gladiator gear, identify the loud mouths and the dirty players and kick the shit out of them and get on with the game!!

TY...TYVM