Solidarity in Sports

A couple of months ago I wrote about an incident where one of Colin's teammates L hurt another one, R. Not on purpose, but somewhat negligent. He - along with another troublemaker, M -  later got suspended for the entire month of November, in other words, when the championship was in full swing, for a number of offences.

L and M are our best players on the ice. Off the ice, however, they have some issues, and I don't even know how to describe these issues. 

They're teenagers like everybody else, so it can't be entirely this that leads them to behave irresponsibly and keep doing shenanigans.

So after the suspension they were told this was their last warning. If anything was about to happen again, they'd have to leave the club.

For a while things were calming down a bit. Everybody tried their best to behave and focus on practice and games.

So why do I come back to this topic?

Something happened - again.

It must have been about about two weeks ago. 

L thought it was a good idea to use a lighter to ignite the vapors of a deodorant. Did I mention he thought it was a good idea to do so in the locker room?

Colin didn't even tell me about it. It appears that several boys have been doing this "experiment", and they didn't think it was a big deal 

Only this time, a boy told his parents about it. They (may have) overreacted and wrote not to L's parents, not to the coach, but to the GM of our youth teams. 

I am pretty sure when the GM read the name "L", he was like "I can't believe it, this guy will never learn. That's it, he's out."

Last Sunday, after the first promotion game (which our guys won 6:2, one of the goals scored by L) the GM and the coach waited for L outside the coaches' locker room. 

Why there? See, our coach, after hearing about the lighter incident, ordered L to stay away from the team's dressing room and to use the coaches' instead. That way L was alone, and there was no audience for potential silly actions. Pretty smart, eh?

Anyway, a freshly showered, victorious L emerged from the coaches' locker room and faced the two men. 

His heart must have sank. It is unclear whether at this point L's parents were present, or if they were informed after the fact. Fact being the GM wanted to fire L, our coach suggested to suspend him for the rest of the season instead. That way L could stay with the team and come back for summer training in May.

The rest of us didn't know what was going on at this point. 

We were waiting outside the arena for the players to get ready after their shower. 

Colin was fuming. We were like "what is going on, you guys played well, you won, are you mad about the referees?" 

They may not have whistled every sneaky cross-check the opponents committed when the refs weren't looking.

C was so mad, he could barely speak. 

"L is out."

What? Why?

That's when we heard the entire story. Well, not in so many words. C hates to tell on his teammates, but apparently the boy who is sort of responsible was R. The one who got hurt by L's puck back in fall. That's probably why R's parents were like "what else has to happen? Our son ended up in the hospital. Next time L burns down the arena?"

Irony had it that R got sick and couldn't play the next game, which was on Wednesday. Which our team won 0:7

Before the game, at the "pre-huddle" our boys shouted "for L!!!" And after the game they celebrated, displaying L's jersey. Well not technically L's jersey. L wears number 6. Our goalie crossed out the zero of his own number 60 ;-) 

It was the cutest and most moving thing to witness!

I work in Human Resources. I totally get our GM's dilemma. 

There's always that employee who is a nice person and generates good sales or results in whatever his field is. However he's also that employee who will always get himself in trouble one way or another. You speak to him, his manager speaks to him, his department head speaks to him, he is being sent to communications workshops or whatever. He's got a bunch of write-ups, and a last warning. Will he ever be fired? Or does the organization sort of accept that this employee is sort of a legend, and will carry him?

What good are sanctions if you're not going to follow through? What message does this send to the other employees who follow the rules?

On the other hand, L might help win the championship. 

Tough decision. 

What would you have done?