YHH: Intent to Injure

[YouthHockeyHub]

We just released a story about some HS kids bragging about their intent to injure on (of all places) Twitter.

http://youthhockeyhub.com/intent-to-injure/

TS

[MNM JMH]

Isn't there a High School Forum for this story?

Nothing about Youth in your great reporting.

[woodstick]

To this day, that incident made a positive impact on the safety of our game in Minnesota. Parents, coaches, and officials from all over the state are extremely sensitive to dangerous body contact plays.

As a whole, coaches at all levels are doing a great job of teaching proper body contact…thus creating a safer environment for both girls and boys all over the state.[quote]

Completely disagree with this statement other than officials are probably "sensitive". The environment is not any safer. Hardly a weekend goes by you don't hear a coach telling players to take out the "star" player and players talking how they are going to smoke or dust a good player.

Last weekend witnessed kids on opposing team laughing at a player that was down. This continues to happen and always will. The number of concussions seem to the same at youth and high school. I don't have any hard facts but I wouldn't be surprised if the same if not more.

It is terribly sad what happened to Jack and I feel for his family and they seem to be moving forward in a positive manner despite the circumstance. However, there are many that have sadly capitalized on this and the #13 on helmets, selling of t-shirts has done what? Put money in the pockets for some?

[Sartellcelly]

Yes, that is very troubling that players take pleasure in injuring fellow hockey players.

Whoever found the Tweets should also publicize the Twitter handle. Otherwise, whoever wrote the story is complicit in allowing this to continue as a protector of these poor reasons for hockey players.

Public disclosure is the right thing to do. And please don't hide behind the "they're just kids" reasoning. They chose to Tweet what they did and should feel the full force of the consequence.

Without the Twitter handles, there's no way to know whether the article was fabricated.

So, what are those Twitter handles?

[YouthHockeyHub]

We produce articles every day. All based in fact and/or opinion. In fact, there are nearly 1,000 posts on our site. If you comb through them, you will find we rarely gossip, we rarely use MNH hockey officials names, etc. It is just not our schtick.

Most of our stuff is to glorify the good kids by name and generalize about the bad kids or parents, but never name them. Sometimes we walk a very fine line. This was one of those cases.

We actually fought about publishing their names, even fought about putting screen shots of the tweets and blacking out the names of the players. As editor and author I ultimately said no. My call. Sorry if you disagree.

[YouthHockeyHub]

Got this juicy response from a guy today. Not sure I even know where he's going with it:

"You’re kidding, right? You can’t possibly live this sheltered of a life. There is no way a “Minnesota Nice” coach would ever do something like this. Target the stud on an opposing team? Never……. There is such a thing as shadowing a player. Or putting a stick on him. It’s no wonder the rest of the hockey world looks at Minnesota hockey players as “soft”. And believe me, they do. Hockey is a contact sport. Maybe you should stick to something you’re more familiar with, like taking away the “Pledge of Allegiance” in schools or something. Wouldn’t want a kid to have to do something Mom wouldn’t approve of. Ugh."

[hockey8543]

To this day, that incident made a positive impact on the safety of our game in Minnesota. Parents, coaches, and officials from all over the state are extremely sensitive to dangerous body contact plays.

As a whole, coaches at all levels are doing a great job of teaching proper body contact…thus creating a safer environment for both girls and boys all over the state.

Completely disagree with this statement other than officials are probably "sensitive". The environment is not any safer. Hardly a weekend goes by you don't hear a coach telling players to take out the "star" player and players talking how they are going to smoke or dust a good player.

Last weekend witnessed kids on opposing team laughing at a player that was down. This continues to happen and always will. The number of concussions seem to the same at youth and high school. I don't have any hard facts but I wouldn't be surprised if the same if not more.

It is terribly sad what happened to Jack and I feel for his family and they seem to be moving forward in a positive manner despite the circumstance. However, there are many that have sadly capitalized on this and the #13 on helmets, selling of t-shirts has done what? Put money in the pockets for some?

Woodstick I'm with you on this one. I coached A bantams for years and still talk to allot of the players that are playing high school hockey. Several of them have told me that there coach tells them that certain kids shouldn't skate off the ice. One actually quite because of it and it was his senior year. This kid was above average player but said he didn't want to hurt any of his friends.

[green4]

"A handful of High School players have actually tweeted comments indicating that they have targeted players, hitting them intentionally."

Is this not hockey anymore? we are not aloud to hit other players intentionally? only on accident is it okay to check a player?
If there is a good player on the opposite team you play them rough, thats how you get them out of their game. I disagree completely with trying to purposely injure another player but they sound completely nuts when they make a big deal of players checking other teams star players.
And then on there quotes from twitter i can't tell what point those are making at all? The Tweets sound beyond sarcastic while they're trying to pass them off as kids encouraging to hurt one another

[karl(east)]

[quote="green4" The Tweets sound beyond sarcastic while they're trying to pass them off as kids encouraging to hurt one another[/quote]

This was my reaction, too. While it's possible it was sincere, anyone with much knowledge of high school Twitter use knows it's a realm of heavy sarcasm and a lot of inside jokes that can very easily be taken out of context.

The bigger issue here, I think, relates to Twitter privacy. Most kids nowadays are smart enough to have decent security settings on Facebook, so that not anyone can go exploring their more personal posts. Twitter feeds, on the other hand, tend to be wide open for anyone to peruse freely. This has come up a couple of times this season, and it will continue to come up unless players (or coaches, or parents) start making (or demanding) changes. I believe Edina has already cracked down on its players' Twitter use, and I would not be surprised to see other programs follow suit, if they haven't already done so.

[Sartellcelly]

We produce articles every day. All based in fact and/or opinion. In fact, there are nearly 1,000 posts on our site. If you comb through them, you will find we rarely gossip, we rarely use MNH hockey officials names, etc. It is just not our schtick.

Most of our stuff is to glorify the good kids by name and generalize about the bad kids or parents, but never name them. Sometimes we walk a very fine line. This was one of those cases.

We actually fought about publishing their names, even fought about putting screen shots of the tweets and blacking out the names of the players. As editor and author I ultimately said no. My call. Sorry if you disagree.

Yes, I do disagree. (Not sure why you threw naming/not naming refs in there, but whatever). Names make stories real and call on the writer to be accountable.

Given you acknowledge there are times when you base articles on opinion and you have engaged in gossip, now is the time to put names to these "facts" you are alleging. Until then, this article is not credible, and I encourage everyone to question its authenticity.

[HShockeywatcher]

Woodstick I'm with you on this one. I coached A bantams for years and still talk to allot of the players that are playing high school hockey. Several of them have told me that there coach tells them that certain kids shouldn't skate off the ice. One actually quite because of it and it was his senior year. This kid was above average player but said he didn't want to hurt any of his friends.

The question I have for you about this behavior is similar to my questions about the bounty scandal in the nfl recently; are you saying these coaches are telling his players to check from behind and the sort these players, or are you simply saying they should play rough with the other team's best players?

Players can be affected and have their play change from hard, legal hits.

[hockey8543]

Woodstick I'm with you on this one. I coached A bantams for years and still talk to allot of the players that are playing high school hockey. Several of them have told me that there coach tells them that certain kids shouldn't skate off the ice. One actually quite because of it and it was his senior year. This kid was above average player but said he didn't want to hurt any of his friends.

The question I have for you about this behavior is similar to my questions about the bounty scandal in the nfl recently; are you saying these coaches are telling his players to check from behind and the sort these players, or are you simply saying they should play rough with the other team's best players?

Players can be affected and have their play change from hard, legal hits.

From what I have been told they are to take runs at players not just to rough them up. I know these coaches and they don't like the fact that these kids transferred to other schools.

[green4]

[quote="green4" The Tweets sound beyond sarcastic while they're trying to pass them off as kids encouraging to hurt one another

This was my reaction, too. While it's possible it was sincere, anyone with much knowledge of high school Twitter use knows it's a realm of heavy sarcasm and a lot of inside jokes that can very easily be taken out of context.

The bigger issue here, I think, relates to Twitter privacy. Most kids nowadays are smart enough to have decent security settings on Facebook, so that not anyone can go exploring their more personal posts. Twitter feeds, on the other hand, tend to be wide open for anyone to peruse freely. This has come up a couple of times this season, and it will continue to come up unless players (or coaches, or parents) start making (or demanding) changes. I believe Edina has already cracked down on its players' Twitter use, and I would not be surprised to see other programs follow suit, if they haven't already done so.[/quote]
I do have atwitter and i know they can be private as mine is a private account so this should be a very simple problem to fix but if they are not locked everyone can see what they say very easily

[Sartellcelly]

[quote="green4" The Tweets sound beyond sarcastic while they're trying to pass them off as kids encouraging to hurt one another

This was my reaction, too. While it's possible it was sincere, anyone with much knowledge of high school Twitter use knows it's a realm of heavy sarcasm and a lot of inside jokes that can very easily be taken out of context.

The bigger issue here, I think, relates to Twitter privacy. Most kids nowadays are smart enough to have decent security settings on Facebook, so that not anyone can go exploring their more personal posts. Twitter feeds, on the other hand, tend to be wide open for anyone to peruse freely. This has come up a couple of times this season, and it will continue to come up unless players (or coaches, or parents) start making (or demanding) changes. I believe Edina has already cracked down on its players' Twitter use, and I would not be surprised to see other programs follow suit, if they haven't already done so.

I do have atwitter and i know they can be private as mine is a private account so this should be a very simple problem to fix but if they are not locked everyone can see what they say very easily[/quote]

You are all correct. These people know how to keep things private. That's why it's necessary to show these Tweets and what their handles are. Until that happens, I think the story is no more than speculation and probably BS. Anyone can write anything and not have identifications, then present it as the truth. I say we're debating something that never happened. If someone wants to PROVE me wrong, I'm happy to be wrong.


In the meantime, I say move on, everyone, there's nothing to see here.

[Puckfan72]

Kids use the term 'dirty' as meaning cool or awesome. Not sure this kid on Twitter was literally meaning a 'dirty play'.

[redlightclub]

To help clarify some of the article here goes. This incident happened in a jv game which was played AFTER the varsity game that night. The team that lost the varsity game sent out varsity starters including a senior captain in the jv game to send a message (yes, to a transfer player). Those varsity players had a major kneeing call and a double minor roughing/unsportsmanlike in the first. In the second the "dirty" or as some would like to say because they are high schoolers exaggerated, cool, awesome, etc. was a blatant checking from behind call that resulted in an immediate 5 min major and game misconduct by another varsity player. The player that got hit left the game and missed 2 weeks with concussion symptoms. Within an hour the tweet came out by a player who was watching the jv game sending shoutouts to player for their actions. The offending player responded with oops-does it count as an accident? Sucks I have to miss a game. So wondering if we should dismiss as sarcasm?

[Sartellcelly]

To help clarify some of the article here goes. This incident happened in a jv game which was played AFTER the varsity game that night. The team that lost the varsity game sent out varsity starters including a senior captain in the jv game to send a message (yes, to a transfer player). Those varsity players had a major kneeing call and a double minor roughing/unsportsmanlike in the first. In the second the "dirty" or as some would like to say because they are high schoolers exaggerated, cool, awesome, etc. was a blatant checking from behind call that resulted in an immediate 5 min major and game misconduct by another varsity player. The player that got hit left the game and missed 2 weeks with concussion symptoms. Within an hour the tweet came out by a player who was watching the jv game sending shoutouts to player for their actions. The offending player responded with oops-does it count as an accident? Sucks I have to miss a game. So wondering if we should dismiss as sarcasm?

Redlight, what two teams were playing and what was the date?

[redlightclub]

I am not sure of what happened in the other occurrences mentioned in the article. But the tweet is associated with a game in December in girls high school.

[HShockeywatcher]

Redlight, what two teams were playing and what was the date?

I understand the intent of your questioning, but don't you think that releasing that information, if known, is crossing lines having the do with privacy of minors, let alone breaking rules of this forum?

I don't know where you draw the line in a situation like this, but giving out that information would seem quite unprofessional to me in this case. College or pros would be different, but not okay with high school athletes.

[Sartellcelly]

Redlight, what two teams were playing and what was the date?

I understand the intent of your questioning, but don't you think that releasing that information, if known, is crossing lines having the do with privacy of minors, let alone breaking rules of this forum?

I don't know where you draw the line in a situation like this, but giving out that information would seem quite unprofessional to me in this case. College or pros would be different, but not okay with high school athletes.

the holder of this alleged info can PM me the identities. there's also a decent chance that the participants are 18, making them adults. in any event, if you can't identify at least the dates and the schools involved, there is virtually no reason to believe what is being said.

Also, the policies of this board still don't preclude the originator of the initial article from publicizing the names. Maybe Redlight can pass his info on to the folks whose sensational "Intent to Injure" reporting got this all started in the first place.

[YouthHockeyHub]

YHH posts hundreds of stories a year (yes hundreds)...all based in facts. We have had millions of views (yes millions). January and February are our most viewed months by far. Why would we all of a sudden post a story filled with lies? Especially from an audience (high school) that isn't really in our wheelhouse?

This story was literally handed to me on a silver platter. We saw the tweets, interviewed 5 high school coaches who agreed that more could be done and ran it.

I have no problem with you questioning the viability of this story based on what we wrote - a deeply cynical (and anonymous) person can easily go there. But the tweets and the dirty play was only a set up to what the main point was, well at least intended. Knocking kids out and bragging while in the game (as was the case in two south suburban varsity games this past Saturday) or on Twitter is not a sign of progress since the JJ hit a year ago.

[HShockeywatcher]

I have no problem with you questioning the viability of this story based on what we wrote - a deeply cynical (and anonymous) person can easily go there. But the tweets and the dirty play was only a set up to what the main point was, well at least intended. Knocking kids out and bragging while in the game (as was the case in two south suburban varsity games this past Saturday) or on Twitter is not a sign of progress since the JJ hit a year ago.

It's amazing how much intent seems to be missed on so many and instead they nit pick intending to make you look bad

[Sartellcelly]

YHH posts hundreds of stories a year (yes hundreds)...all based in facts. We have had millions of views (yes millions). January and February are our most viewed months by far. Why would we all of a sudden post a story filled with lies? Especially from an audience (high school) that isn't really in our wheelhouse?

This story was literally handed to me on a silver platter. We saw the tweets, interviewed 5 high school coaches who agreed that more could be done and ran it.

I have no problem with you questioning the viability of this story based on what we wrote - a deeply cynical (and anonymous) person can easily go there. But the tweets and the dirty play was only a set up to what the main point was, well at least intended. Knocking kids out and bragging while in the game (as was the case in two south suburban varsity games this past Saturday) or on Twitter is not a sign of progress since the JJ hit a year ago.

ok, then, publicize the names of the coaches you interviewed. publicize the Tweeters if they are 18 or older. were these boys games or girls? Do something to validate this story. Remember, you acknowledged reporting opinion at times, as well as rumors.