Hockey coach banned after team skips ceremony to study

[alp227]

Hockey Newfoundland and Labrador has slapped a junior hockey coach with a one-year suspension for allowing his players to study for exams instead of attending the opening ceremony for a recent tournament.

In addition to coach Brian Cranford’s suspension, the Mount Pearl Junior Blades team was fined $2,000 by hockey’s governing body in the province.

“We had a good reason for not going,” Cranford told CBC News. “We’re right in the middle of university exams.”

Cranford — who actually received an award from Hockey Newfoundland and Labrador last year — says it was hard enough getting his players out for the games, never mind the opening ceremonies.

full: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2012/06/10/nl-hockey-coach-suspended-610.html

I live in the southern neighbors to Canada and can't imagine a firing like this happening with American college athletics. Is it something about how Canada values the sport that the league rules are so screwy they'd punish a coach for doing the right thing for his players?

[laundry_queen]

1. Not enough info.

Some of the comments allude to this coach likes to pull stunts like this on a regular basis and is using the whole exam thing as an excuse. Seems like a piss poor piece of journalism to me - when was the tournament? Was it during exam time? Were all the players doing exams? Did the coach know the tournament rules ahead of time? Why are the tournament rules so strict? What level of junior hockey is this? A? Tier II? B? Does this coach have a history of other antics?

C'mon CBC! I want journalism, dammit!

alp227 - there is a big difference between junior hockey here and college hockey in the US. I knew several players in the WHL and also had a boyfriend who got a scholarship to a US college for hockey. WHL, at the time, was seriously trying to put a lot more emphasis on education. One guy in my university classes was sent there by the WHL. They required him to take some stuff. But overall, it's not the same. That's the top tier though, junior A (tier II) or junior B had zero emphasis on education 15 yrs or so ago, and I'm not certain they've changed.