Bullies

Parents of younger players, what do you do about bullies / bullying? My son just finished 10U and is about to try out for 12U. He’s still 10 though. Last night my kid had an organized power skating class at a local rink. He was taking a long time to come out so I walked back to the locker room to see if there was an issue. I caught a group of four boys harassing and bullying him, one of whom had him in a headlock while the others were talking shit to him. I yelled at them to stop and they did, and I also told them to keep their hands off of him and if happened again I’d be filing a report. I told my son to stay away from them during practice and had him change in another room away from these kids after the session. I wasn’t happy but I thought that would be the end of it. As we were leaving, the coach grabbed us and said he got reports of my kid threatening other kids in the locker room. I asked my son what he was doing and he said nothing. I then told him what I walked in on and his response was basically “well, that’s not cool either”. The kids involved were kids that he coaches and knows at this rink. We were the outsiders. So my thought is that the kids came up with a pre-emptive story to divert attention away from what they did in case I said something, which I didn’t have any intention of doing until the coach confronted me. Since he knows them personally and one of their parents was standing next to the kid, it was easy to blame my son. When we got out in the car I asked my kid again if he said or did anything that could have set them off or threatened them in any way, and he said no, nothing. He would have fessed up or said more once he was away from everyone else.

These were bigger kids, older Pee Wees or first year Bantams. They were much larger than my son and when we got home I noticed bruising on his face and neck. Unfortunately, we’ve had to deal with a few bullies over the years but it’s always been trash talking and bumping and shoving on the ice. Nothing like this. But I’ve seen seen the harassment and bullying happen enough times on youth hockey teams to know that almost nothing is ever done about it unless it carries on for a long time. We’re done with these classes. It was the fourth time he’s done this six week course, but we probably won’t be going back.

So… what do I do? Part of me says to let it go while the other part of me wants to raise the issue since it got physical. I’m not one to want to get kids in trouble or make things a bigger deal than they are, but I’m struggling with this one since they were choking him and it left marks. But I’m also struggling because I don’t think this is going to go anywhere even if I do try to raise the issue. I don’t have any names and only one other kid witnessed it, but they backed up my son’s story. I don’t really want to get them involved since it’s their home rink and could open him up to issues. My thought right now is to just let it go but I’m not happy. Need a sanity check.