Mark St. Amant wonders if a private sports team should have the right to lock a thirteen year-old into a contract, if it’s clearly not what the child wants.
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File under: “Bureaucracy-on-Steroids.” Or “Suburban Adults Wielding Weird, Probably Imaginary Power.” Or, quite simply — and a more accurate reflection of my reaction when I first heard of this story — “WTF?”
Whatever you want to call it, I can only describe what’s going on in a West Hartford, Connecticut youth hockey league as follows: nutty. First, the backstory…
In the spirit of full disclosure, the major players (no pun untended) in this saga of are my sister, Leslie; my niece/Leslie’s daughter, Lindley; Lindley’s father/Leslie’s ex-husband/my former brother-in-law, Brian; and the West Hartford Youth Hockey Association (WHYHA), specifically its recently replaced former board, whom I’ll refer to as the “old board” from now on (although considering their inflexibility, confusing processes and secret, clandestine meetings, the “Wannabe Illuminati” might be more appropriate).
Anyway, Lindley is a talented 13-year-old hockey player. Not the best in town, from what I know, but she’s certainly right up there with the top female players. As such, she’s played on boy’s hockey teams for years and, if you ask her, prefers to play with the dudes because the competition is better, and she feels she’s strong and tough enough. She actually likes the checking. But her parents, despite Lindley’s pleas to stick with the West Hartford boys Bantam team, recently insisted she move to a girl’s team both for her own safety — they felt the boys league, even though she could hang with the Y-chromosomes skill- and speed-wise, would be a safety risk due to the checking – and because for years, Brian has been the volunteer (i.e. no pay, for the good of the town, on his own time, etc.) Director of Girls Hockey in West Hartford. So he felt that luring a talented girl like Lindley away from the boys team to the girls side, even for just a token tryout, would benefit the WHYHA girls league and perhaps attract other, stronger female players.
But Lindley’s stance was this: if I’m playing for West Hartford, I only want to play on the boy’s Bantam team. Otherwise, I’d really prefer to try out/play for an out-of-town girls team – the Polar Bears, who have an elite Under-14 Tier 1 level and an Under-14 Tier 2 level that’s a step down, but still more competitive than West Hartford town hockey. In other words, here’s a kid who’s actively challenging herself by preferring to play in a higher-level league, even if it means she might not be one of the best players, or might be an alternate/Tier 2 player to start, but with a chance to earn her way up to Tier 1. How many thirteen-year-olds would actively seek that kind of challenge and be willing to work her way up, to earn it? Not many, I’d wager.
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Despite knowing she only wanted to play with either the boys or the Polar Bears, Brian still asked Lindley to try out for the West Hartford girls squad as a favor to him, and afterward, somewhat reluctantly, signed a “contract” required by the WHYHA — a standard Connecticut Hockey Conference (CHC) contract, apparently — that more or less stipulates that if any player tries out and makes the team he/she is automatically bound to play for that team…AND ONLY THAT TEAM. According to my sister, it’s why West Hartford reportedly holds its tryouts earlier than other teams, in order to quickly get players to sign and be bound to these contracts, all to prevent them from “defecting” to other teams around the state. (More on “defections” in a second.)
But here’s the thing about the CHC contract. At the time Lindley signed, this seemingly staunch rule had never, in the entire history of West Hartford youth hockey, been upheld. Meaning, even though Lindley was wary of signing, Brian – a league insider, remember, so he has more knowledge on these matters than your average hockey dad — figured, sure, she’ll just go through the motions and sign it, perhaps as a good will gesture of sorts, just the daughter of a league official doing right by the league. After all, again, these “contracts” had never once been truly enforced before. Ever. So hey, if she didn’t want to play for West Hartford after the tryout, fine — she could just go play for the Polar Bears. Right? Wrong.
Little did he know he was apparently signing away his 13-year-old daughter’s hockey life to a team, and league, run by adults who had a very different agenda in mind. Because the WHYHA old board, in one of their final moves in “political power” (cough) earlier this month — just ONE NIGHT before they were replaced by a new board – would vote to approve a new rule on enforcing these CHC contracts that would not just hinder, but outright squash, Lindley’s basic freedom of choice. She was about to be held up as an unprecedented and seemingly arbitrary example for other West Hartford youth hockey players: by rule of the old board, and per a contract that was now apparently more binding than Robert Johnson’s deal with the Devil at the crossroads, Lindley would play for West Hartford hockey . . . or no one at all. Which leads us to Backstory II, and those “defections”…
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Last year, and in years past, West Hartford saw some major attrition on the boys side at the Pee Wee (13 & under) and Bantam (15 & under) levels. These “defections” apparently still sting some on the WHYHA. It was embarrassing. Some of the best boy players opted to leave town hockey and play for other club teams in the area, for the same reasons Lindley currently wants to play for the Polar Bears: better competition, and exposure to potentially better future opportunities, perhaps in prep school and college. Yet, unlike Lindley, all the boys, despite having signed similar CHC contracts to the one that Lindley did, were released to join other teams. Easy-peasy. But that decision was under the watch of a former WHYHA president, who unilaterally released the boys because he felt it was in their best interest, fair, and – unlike with Lindley’s situation — there was no league rule stipulating that a board vote was even necessary to approve such releases. He just made the decision himself. Boom. Gavel strike. Next case. Which apparently didn’t sit well with his (then active, now old) board members, as Leslie explains.
“He [former president] is a decent guy who was vilified last year by the old board for being ‘too nice’ — not only to the kids who ‘defected,’ but to their parents, at the expense of the league. And with Lindley’s situation, he wishes he could help us more but can’t because he received such crap around town for ‘turning against’ the organization [WHYHA], even though he just wanted to do right by the kids.”
So earlier this month, as a sort of power play (hockey pun intended, because this is as lopsided as it gets) the old board – aside from the Declaration of Independence, when was the last time anything good came from a committee? – enacted an 11th hour rule stating that releasing a player from “contract” would no longer be a unilateral presidential decision. Rather, it would now be a board decision/vote. And using this newly fabricated “power” they would now arbitrarily, without precedent, for the very first time in the town’s 160-year history, and as one of their last acts as an active board, rule to hold a teenage hockey player to an alleged “contract” and make an example of her in order to – what — save face? Salvage a “reputation” they believe was somehow tarnished by the boys’ defection last year? Make a point that they have the biggest hockey sticks in town?
All three, probably. But for the love of Fidel Castro, we’re not talking about a star, adult baseball player defecting from communist Cuba by hiding in a hotel laundry cart. We’re talking about a THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD GIRL who is being blatantly singled out and punished even though this type of “contract,” which might as well have been written on the back of Subway Chicken & Bacon Ranch Melt wrapping paper, has never once been enforced before. Meaning, the WHYHA, from what I can tell, is just winging it . . . and badly. “They don’t have anything in writing for an appeal process,” my sister explains. “It’s a willy-nilly, fly by the seat of your pants, make the rules as you go along kind of situation.”
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So I ask you: who holds a seventh grade girl to some kind of vaporous “contract” and forces her to play for a team, and does so based on zero legal, moral or ethical precedent? Maybe the WHYHA needs to look itself in the mirror and ask why many of the town’s best players want to leave in the first place? Perhaps — just a wild guess here – it’s partly due to the rampant “political” bullshit being flung around by full-grown adults like so many monkeys in a cage that’s taking all the fun out of everything? Or the backroom wrangling of coaches and administrators all trying to fudge the system and get the best players on their teams, as happens in so many suburban sports leagues nationwide? Whatever happened to youth sports being about teamwork and having fun, and not being treated like banana republics (not the store in the nearby West Farms Mall, but the politically unstable country, lunatics-ruling-after-a-military-coup kind of banana republic)?
According to Leslie, the WHYHA has reminded her and Brian that one of two ways Lindley could be released is if they pay full “tuition” for an entire West Hartford hockey season, one in which Lindley will not play a single minute. In other words, Pay us and this will allllll go away . . . a tactic that I believe, though I’ve admittedly never been to law school, is also known in some circles (e.g. mafia families) as “extortion” or, by its street name, “a friggin’ shakedown.” And Leslie has said that they’ve considered paying just to make this whole ridiculous situation go away and end the drama for Lindley, who, according to her mom, is pretty shocked and appalled that some parents – some even the moms or dads of her friends — would actually vote against her release.
But to me – just as it is to Leslie, Brian, Lindley, the fifty or so people who have reportedly emailed the former WHYHA president in favor of “freeing” Lindley, and to the one new board member who resigned three days after being “sworn in” due to the lunacy of the entire situation — it’s the principle. It’s just plain not right. Or fair. Or precedented. Or any number of other things, including remotely sane. Especially considering Leslie and Brian do happen to possess the SECOND way by which, according to the WHYHA, Lindley could secure her release: with an official letter from any Connecticut Tier 1 coach (in this case, the Polar Bears) confirming that Lindley, despite being classified Tier 2 (basically an alternate), has a chance to be called up and play for the Tier 1 Polar Bears, i.e. a higher level than the town of West Hartford can provide, which could obviously open up more hockey opportunities for her as she gets older….much like, again, the reasoning for the boys’ “defection” form West Hartford hockey last year.
“She has the opportunity to play Tier 1 and go to prep school scoutings, neither of which is offered by WHYH,” Leslie wrote in an email to the current league president. “She is also scheduled to play in Canada this summer, again with a team and at an event that the WHYHA does not provide. So I hope you and the board do right by a 13-year-old who just wants to play the game with the team that is the best fit for her.” But so far, even this letter is being ignored.
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After learning they’d be shackling Lindley to her original post-tryout contract, my sister originally confronted the old board about (A) the “boys-being-released” precedent from last year and (B) the unfairness and patent madness (my words) of this entire episode, the WHYHA essentially banged its collective shoe on the podium, Kruschev-style, and resorted to the the always airtight-in-court “Um, last year was last year, and, uh, this year is this year” defense. And the new board, who took over earlier this month (sans the one aforementioned resigned member) has decided to simply uphold the old board’s “You sign and try out, your butt belongs to West Hartford hockey” rule. This after requiring Leslie and Brian to physically come “testify” before them prior to the first vote on the issue. “Last I checked,” Leslie told what I can only assume was as unbiased a group as the jury in To Kill a Mockingbird, “she [Lindley] is not a Division-I athlete signing her life away for four years of free college tuition. She’s a thirteen-year-old girl who just wants a chance to play for a better program.”
Before they first voted on the “Lindley issue” – a meeting, incidentally, they held in private (whether or not there were Druid robes, candles and paddling, I’ve not yet confirmed) – the old board told my sister that absentee ballots would be disqualified because…well, no reason, really. Little did they know that Leslie had done some recon of these absent board members and was assured they would have voted in her/Brian’s/Lindley’s favor. Hmm. No wonder they didn’t want them counted. But they did, however – and eagerly, I imagine – decide to allow the votes of one very special group of people: current board members/parents who also have daughters on the West Hartford girls team and, therefore, would no doubt be biased toward voting in favor of holding Lindley to her CHC “contract”, i.e. thus improving their daughters’ team. And at one point, according to my sister, the old board, frustrated by her persistence, basically told her, “If you want her released, I guess you’ll just have to sue us.” AME-R-ICA, F**K YEAH! The Land of Frivolous Litigation wins again!
Look, everyone has opinions and some things aren’t so black-and-white. But let’s be honest here: if Lindley were a mediocre player, this wouldn’t even be an issue. So the old WHYHA board is, in a roundabout way, actually punishing her for her talent, hard work and desire to play at a more challenging level. And what message does this send to other West Hartford hockey players, male or female, talented or not? A bad one: keep your mouth shut and play where WE SAY you play…or play nowhere.
“Many in the organization and the town have written letters on behalf of Lindley to release her, and just can’t understand this,” Leslie says. Even the coach of the West Hartford Girls team has said Lindley should be released and not forced to play for his team (and rightfully so, because no coach would want a player who doesn’t want to be there). And the aforementioned coach of the Polar Bears, who obviously has something to gain with Lindley’s release — but is also a member of that old WHYHA board and “wants to do right by her” (this according to Leslie in an email) — has written that “Tier 1” letter on her behalf, which should be her “get out of the penalty box free” card. All to no avail. And all without even the most basic due process.
“In the first vote, they had the three abstentions due to some ‘conflict of interest,’ Leslie says. “And we had three votes via proxy that I know were in favor of releasing her but they were disqualified due to some vague state law that no one seems too clear on. It’s nuts.”
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In the end, the final old board, just before they were replaced, voted 5-0 to hold Lindley to her “contract”. Three members abstained for…some reason. And three proxy votes – three that Leslie knows of, anyway, but possibly more – that were in favor of releasing Lindley were arbitrarily nullified. However, due to some recent mounting pressure and confusion in the town, they did schedule a re-vote that was supposed to have been last week . . . but was quickly canceled due to not having enough members present. Or something. Leslie and Brian never really got a straight answer. Then, a re-(re?)-vote was rescheduled for this past Monday but that, too, never took place, despite Leslie and Brian’s having been told it was set for exactly 9pm EDT. But nothing. Crickets. Apparently they “talked about it but didn’t officially re-vote, but we don’t know what happened for sure because of the ‘Secret Order of WeHa,” Leslie texted me, using West Hartford’s nickname.
Holy Watergate. Was G.Gordon Liddy on this old board? H.R. Haldeman? Did Deep Throat secretly meet my sister in the organic tea aisle at Whole Foods and slide her a manila folder containing WHYHA team rosters? Lindley is trapped in nothing short of totally unnecessary suburban political hell, a web of bickering adults pushing their own weird agendas and stubbornly enforcing a rule for literally for the first time in the town’s history. None of which sits well with my sister. “I understand the recent attrition of the boys team and I respect that WHYHA has to protect its teams,” she emailed the current WHYHA president this past Tuesday morning after that second re-vote never occurred. “However, Lindley does not want to play for West Hartford and never did, so please do not let her be the example and pay the price for the boys’ problems of the past.”
And as badly as she feels for her daughter, Leslie also feels that she and Brian have done a lot for West Hartford and its youth sports leagues over the years, which makes it all the more surprising and frustrating that Lindley is, in their minds and the minds of many in town, being unfairly singled out. “They chose the wrong family to make an example of,” she says.
Sure, I’m clearly biased here; this is family we’re talking about. So, admittedly, I’m looking to put a little public pressure on the WHYHA to get over themselves, do what’s right, and vote to release Lindley so everyone involved can get on with their lives.
I reached out to a few WHYHA executive committee members for comment, obviously to get their side of things – ironically in the spirit of fair play, a concept with which they don’t seem overly familiar — but never got any response. So, for now, let’s just let them think about all this, and if they really think it’s SO important to make an example out of one single girl, an example that can’t do anything but further damage an already tarnished reputation (if those “defections” are any indication), then so be it. Maybe there’ll have to be another article, or a TV appearance, whatever it takes to spread the word about this wackiness.
But if, after all this, the WHYHA still doesn’t release Lindley — or at the very least, if they don’t afford Leslie and Brian the common courtesy of a straight answer as to whether they’ll even vote again on the matter at their next board meeting — then as far as I’m concerned, the folks ruling this hockey league as if it’s their own personal principality will need to spend a little reflective time in the penalty box.
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Photo: Flickr/Rhys A.