The old guy shuffles his way to a seat on the hard wooden bench at the far end of the rink, past the mother who has a stopwatch in her pocket to time how long her son is on the ice, past the father with the video camera trained on his boy, past the guy who was tossed out of the last game for swearing at a referee.

This walk isn’t really necessary. There are lots of empty places where he could rest his body, but none of them meet his needs. He wants to be left alone. Before and after the game he enjoys laughing and trading stories with the parents on his grandson’s team, but months ago he decided he couldn’t be anywhere near them during the game.

He’d rather put up with the pain in his aching feet from his walk to the corner of the rink. He wants to be where he won’t be disturbed - and where it’s clear that he’s not with them. That includes his son and daughter-in-law.

The man loves them dearly, but he can’t think of a single good reason why they become so damned stupid when they watch Danny play hockey.

As he stretches his legs in front of him he thinks about last week’s victory over the first-place team. It was a huge win for Danny and his teammates, one of those games where everything goes right. It was so inspiring that after the game he forgot to complain about how much his feet hurt and how much of a sacrifice it is to come to these games.

He couldn’t wait to compliment Danny on the victory. While he was waiting in the back seat of the SUV, he had been thinking about the goal Danny had set up, the way he’d worked so hard on every shift and the way he’d kept his mouth shut when he’d been given a penalty.

Those thoughts ended abruptly.

“How many times do I have to tell you to tie up their winger when the face-off is in your own end?”

His son -- Danny’s dad -- had an entirely different view of the game and he’d jumped all over the boy the moment he got into the Explorer.

“That goal they scored was your fault. You can’t let stupid mistakes happen. The season is almost over and you’re still screwing up. How many times do you have to be told?”

He had watched the smile quickly fade from Danny’s face; the moment of triumph had been demolished.

The old guy knew his son was a supportive father. Yet when it came to hockey, he was a complete idiot. He became hypercritical, as if a mistake meant Danny’s career as a hockey player was at an end.

At home his daughter-in-law was polite and quiet to a fault. But at hockey games she was almost out of control. It’s one thing to be loud, it’s another to be loud and wrong, and she was always wrong, especially when she was shouting at a referee.

She wasn’t the only parent with this team who liked to holler at the refs.
He couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to wear that striped sweater. The money couldn’t be worth the constant abuse. Tonight, even before the game had started, the parents were complaining. His son was right there in the middle of it.

“Did you see that cross-check last week? The referee was right there and didn’t even call it. These guys are completely out to lunch. I hope they don’t destroy the game like they did the last time.”

The words moron, idiot, loser are tame compared to what referees hear almost every night. Early in the season, before he had started to sit by himself, the man’s daughter-in-law and a couple of dads were whining that the refs were making it impossible for their team to win.

He’d been stupid enough to tell the guy beside him, a guy he thought was level-headed, that he’d never seen a referee score a goal. The response was sharp.

“I guess you haven’t watched much hockey then, old-timer. Everyone knows the refs can decide which team is going to win and which one is going to lose.”

That remark had been decisive. He hadn’t replied, he simply got up and walked to the other end of the rink. He just couldn’t take any more, so from then on he'd been sitting by himself. He had escaped the noise and the stupid comments, which allowed him to settle in and enjoy watching his grandson play.

But he couldn’t help thinking about what he hadn’t done. He hadn’t told his daughter-in-law that some day Danny might be a referee and that she should think before making her bitchy comments. He hadn’t told his son to stop complaining about how the kid played because it was destroying his already-fragile confidence. He hadn’t told either one of them about the sadness he saw sweep over his grandson’s face the week before.

And he hadn’t told them he was pretty sure Danny was also tired of the insults and the antics and that he, too, was looking for an escape. He knew Danny’s solution wouldn’t be to sit in a corner; it would be to never play the game again.

LETTERS   [Email Ken here]

Dear Ken,

Thank you for your letter on the net about the Grandfather and Danny. It truly touched me. It is so easy to get caught up in the heat of the game. I had thought I was doing well this year as a coach and a father. It is so very hard to separate the two. I was just tossed from our last play off game for abusing the referee with 1:20 left in the game. I too have never seen a referee score a goal but am so very quick to blame them, at times, for participating in our demise.

As I was watching myself get carried away it was easy to see the kids get caught up as well. We are an influence and need to mind that!

As a father to my son I am critical at his mistakes but try very very hard to make sure he gets positive feedback as well. I can say that it is not easy and I have probably been far more critical than positive.

Over all, I do believe I have been there for the kids up to the last game and vow to continue to be. The letter you wrote serves as a great reminder. As one of the players mother so matter-of-factly stated, I need to just "Zip it"....

I thank you.

Ken Ralph
Coach
Cloverdale PeeWee B2 Colts

.....

This is a fantastic piece of work. It should be required reading for every parent at the beginning of each season. I have been saying that since my son began playing in 1975.

Thanks to his mother, a teacher, I did not become one of those parents. She taught me positive reinforcement and I never found a better example of that than when I was an assistant coach until he was 10 or so and would tell the kids when they came off the ice what they did right. We could explain what they did wrong a little later. Got their attention and after all, we all like to hear a little praise, right.

Good job.

Another grandpa