Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
 
GOHABS.com -> GOHABS.com Message Board -> GOHABS.com Message Board -> Role Models
Post Info TOPIC: Role Models
barry33


Guru

Status: Offline
Posts: 3191
Date:
Role Models
Permalink Closed

I would like to get everyone's opinion on how much hockey players should be held accountable for their influence on kids as a role model, on and off the ice. In my humble opinion, when you are paid millions of dollars a year to play a sport that 90% of Canadian kids dream of playing one day , that like it or not, you are a role model. How you conduct yourself on the ice is as important (or more so) than how you conduct yourself off the ice. We have all been to hockey games with our kids. I remember going to an AHL game when my son was 6 or 7. He idolized these players. But sometimes the things some of these guys did on the ice really affected him. The language at times, which could be heard all the way to the cheap seats was unreal. This morning I was up and on the ice at 6 am coaching TimBits hockey (5-6 year olds). We had a little scrimmage and one kid took his stick and slashed another behind the leg. When I asked this kid why he did it he told me "because he saw Tie Domi do it last week".


The argument can be made that athletes are not supposed to be role models, parents are. I agree with this to a certain extent. However this does not take away from the fact that athletes have a HUGE influence on our young people. Like it or not when you are getting paid 100 grand a game to play or coach  hockey, an immense responsibility comes with it. When you are out there using language that would make Mike Tyson look like a choir boy, you need to remember that there are alot of little ears and eyes watching you. When you sucker punch a guy, or slash him, there are kids that will want to emulate you in their next game. Why? Because to many of them, you walk on water.


As much as many of us would like to see Julien throw some hissy fits now and then, I for one am glad he is the way he is and I hope he never changes, wherever he is coaching. He does nothing at a game or on tv that would negatively affect a young person. He shows kids that yes you can disagree with how the game is called, but you can make your point in a grown up and logical manner. A guy like Pat Quinn shows kids that if you do not like how things are going you should holler, swear, spit your gum out and look like an idiot.


With all the dumb rules out there now, I would even consider another. I would like to see an unsportsmanlike call every time a player swears or uses obscenities. Same thing for the coaches.  Why not? Yes, like the obstruction, there will be a pile of penalties at first. But players will soon learn to keep their traps shut. The bottom line is that, as a coach, I have seen the huge influence that players have on kids. Week after week at games and practices,  I am forced to try (along with their parents) to repair the damage done by NHL players that could care less about the effect their actions and words are having on the young people of today. If Bettman and the NHL are sincerely serious about cleaning up their image, why not start there?


To the players and coaches. You are being paid a TON of money to play hockey. It is not alot to ask that you take your role seriously.



__________________
________________ I'm as confused as a starving baby in a topless bar!
Nil d


Guru

Status: Offline
Posts: 3452
Date:
Permalink Closed

Great post, barry.  I fully agree with all you say.  The players have social responsibilities by virtue of their popularity and ability to influence.  The same is true for parents, entertainers, or large corporations.


I remember years ago a chum of my nephew - they were about 6 at the time - was learning the names of animals in school.  His father was a local senior hockey player at the time.  When they got to the seal - "phoque" in French - the little boy said "I heard Daddy say that on the penalty box".  Funny, but part of what you're saying, barry.


 



__________________
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
davidb


Guru

Status: Offline
Posts: 1612
Date:
Permalink Closed

I agree Barry, but I remember in the 70s when we played street hockey boy everyone wanted to Orr, Esposito or in my case Dryden You did look up to these people. Now, today it appears to me kids are not as excited about being an Orr or Esposito its the new players that have come along. Crosby for instance. Do you hear kids saying I want to be a Crosby?? Nothing against him at all, but I see today for some reason Basketball and Baseball players making the millions are the role models of kids today(Or in some cases very  very bad role models) . Kids seem to want to wear the same sneakers that the famous Basketball players and Baseball players wear. They sometimes walk around like they area dressed out of a catalog. Around here kids are spending 300 for a pair of sneakers  can u believe that?? Look how these players act  Immature  selfish  and these kids eat it right up.

__________________
The Cup Stops Here
brooklynhabfan


Guru

Status: Offline
Posts: 1887
Date:
Permalink Closed

Great post

In an era where the world is being bashed on the head every ten seconds by wave after wave of images of a world where wealth and bad behaviour are the promised land, and consideration is a quaint, time-wasting relic of the past, sports might be one of the last bastions of positive leadership models.

Sadly, the erosion of the walls has started, and might be too late to treat. The NBA has been joined by every other league in the joy of daily embarrassment by athletes . The Olympics (esp. the East German legacy) has taught the world of pro sports how to dope up for better stats. Kids with sudden wealth are driving cars, owning homes, and creating personal dramas that are far beyond anything they have been equipped to handle.

It's all a fantastic recipe for disaster.

What do you do? Withhold the players pay until they reach 30? Fine them? Tell them off in front of others? Not much hope there. These kids are bred as superstars by experts who have read dozens of volumes on developing champions by relentlessly focussing on the positive aspects of the kid. This might lead to a great player, but unless good parenting at home is involved, you end up with imbalances of personality that are magnified by pressure to return on the investments of coaches and financial backers.

Kids who were known to a few dozen are now followed minute by minute by millions around the world. Newspapers and TV adverts are sold off of them behaving in a fashion that is interesting to the reader/viewer. Right now, the people who decide what constitutes interesting are burrowed deep in a sensationalist rut. So you see only the worst moments of a life that might be otherwise clean. No good stories? Bend a fragment of truth until it resembles something juicy.

But the pendulum swings. There are plenty of sports stars out there who are excellent role models. LeBron James is a great example. If he's got humility, there's not an excuse in the world for anyone else not to have it. He was obviously raised right.

Which leads back to the main question, how do you grow a prize-winning role model?

Parents need to be there. They need to talk to their kids and explain that the world's not a perfect place, and that choices in life effect not just them, but everyone around them.

Coaches and teachers need to support kids with the knowledge that talents are just one facet of a developing personality. Manny Malhotra was most likely permanently mentally crippled by idiot comments John Muckler made.

As for the players, I think at least during their professional days they have to realise that while they are humans with flaws, they've been chosen out of millions to play a central part in the lives of so many of us. It's a part they have to play carefully, because they're not just normal people, they're all that we can't be. And while we can't ever reach the heights they reach on the ice, we're all capable of exploring their lows off of it.

And the sport itself. Getting rid of goons like Domi, racists like Avery, and thugs like Brashear, who doesn't fight a guy, but assaults him, would be a start. Get a yellow card system in place where there's an initial warning for non-penalised infractions like overuse of obscenities or other unsportsmanlike behaviour, followed by ejection for the second violation. Toughen morals clauses and make them standard and league-wide. There's been plenty of tough guys loved by the public who weren't cruising through life blue and crude.

Role models are standards to emulate, they're wrapped around a human that has to be the embodiment of that standard. Any person is just the sum of everything they've been exposed to. If we decide as a species that positive role models are important and necessary for us to progress, we better make sure the factories that produce them are well designed and oiled.

Now let's massacre the Ducks!

__________________
THX1138
barry33


Guru

Status: Offline
Posts: 3191
Date:
Permalink Closed

Points very well taken Brooklyn. I get a laugh out of the NBA players. The NBA asked them to adopt a dress code so that they no longer look like they are on the streets of Harlem. And one would think that the NBA asked for 3 years' salary. I fully support the NBA in their efforts to clean up the image of the support. Do these guys really need to walk around dressed like they are still in "the hood"? Little black kids (I say that not in a racist manner but because of the demographics pertaining to basketball) look up the Iverson's. They see him dressed in all the gold and the ghetto/gang look an dthe influence on them is substantial. As far as I am concerned my boss has the right (and does) to tell me to dress however he pleases (I draw the line at the company thong though and told him so). And if you are making 8 million a year to dribble a basketball then you can damn well wear a shirt and tie when you are on team business. (One player even had the audacity to say that the league should give him a clothing allowence if he had to wear shirts and ties and dress pants. Are these guys REALLY that out of touch with the real world?!??)

__________________
________________ I'm as confused as a starving baby in a topless bar!
barry33


Guru

Status: Offline
Posts: 3191
Date:
Permalink Closed

davidb wrote:

I agree Barry, but I remember in the 70s when we played street hockey boy everyone wanted to Orr, Esposito or in my case Dryden You did look up to these people. Now, today it appears to me kids are not as excited about being an Orr or Esposito its the new players that have come along. Crosby for instance. Do you hear kids saying I want to be a Crosby?? Nothing against him at all, but I see today for some reason Basketball and Baseball players making the millions are the role models of kids today(Or in some cases very  very bad role models) . Kids seem to want to wear the same sneakers that the famous Basketball players and Baseball players wear. They sometimes walk around like they area dressed out of a catalog. Around here kids are spending 300 for a pair of sneakers  can u believe that?? Look how these players act  Immature  selfish  and these kids eat it right up.
Ya..I remember I even made a cardboard "Dryden Mask" for ball hockey. It went the way of the dinosaur when I played in the rain one day It is different up here with kids David. As you know, hockey is religion up here. I hear kids at the rink all the time talking about Crosby or Lemieux, but too many times I hear them talk about Domi or Belak....

__________________
________________ I'm as confused as a starving baby in a topless bar!
plouf


Guru

Status: Offline
Posts: 1635
Date:
Permalink Closed

I totally understand where you guys are coming from, but I'm not sure I really agree in the end. It just sounds like another form of political correctness to me. And political correctness usually results in the opposite of what you are trying to achieve.


I don't think sports stars are really that different from regular humans, deep down, and so I don't think we should pretend they are free from weakness. And yet where they ARE different is that they're rich as all hell, totally clueless about the real world in most cases, and kind of like teenaged boys - huge egos and you have to whip them into shape to get them to buy into the team system. 


I think it's just as educational for kids to have to talk to their parents about why Allen Iverson is covered in tattoos as it is to see all the NBA guys walking around in business suits, forced to pretend they are "responsible citizens" when we all know full well that they've been given ridiculous amounts of cash, ego-stroking, women throwing themselves at them, etc...from an early age. These guys aren't stupid enough not to recognize the contradiction: "be role models" and at the same time the entire society kisses your ass.


Instead of insisting that athletes live up to their position as role models, maybe we should be asking ourselves, do I want my kids to think of these guys as role models?


Anyway, it's a complicated issue and I don't really pretend to have a better answer than what you guys are coming up with.


 



__________________
plouf


Guru

Status: Offline
Posts: 1635
Date:
Permalink Closed

barry33 wrote:

Points very well taken Brooklyn. I get a laugh out of the NBA players. The NBA asked them to adopt a dress code so that they no longer look like they are on the streets of Harlem. And one would think that the NBA asked for 3 years' salary. I fully support the NBA in their efforts to clean up the image of the support. Do these guys really need to walk around dressed like they are still in "the hood"? Little black kids (I say that not in a racist manner but because of the demographics pertaining to basketball) look up the Iverson's. They see him dressed in all the gold and the ghetto/gang look an dthe influence on them is substantial. As far as I am concerned my boss has the right (and does) to tell me to dress however he pleases (I draw the line at the company thong though and told him so). And if you are making 8 million a year to dribble a basketball then you can damn well wear a shirt and tie when you are on team business. (One player even had the audacity to say that the league should give him a clothing allowence if he had to wear shirts and ties and dress pants. Are these guys REALLY that out of touch with the real world?!??)

Barry33, the logic of this is for real, and it means something:


-the point of continuing to wear the gang-bang look, etc... is to represent where your from. To say, hey, I made it out of the ghetto. That doesn't mean I'm going to betray my roots. Plus, I know who my original fans were. It's a matter of racial pride, black pride. Don't ever forget where I came from. I'm no white guy with a suit.


I'm not saying it's totally conscious, or even the right way to go, but clearly it disturbs people to see this look and no doubt this move to put everybody in suits confirms the suspicions these guys have about having their past reality erased.


I think the reason these guys don't like wearing a suit is because they grew up in a country where if you are walking down the street as a young black male teenager everybody assumes you're a criminal whether or not you're wearing chains, etc.. try not ending up a criminal in those circumstances ; try not being cynical about business, the law, etc....try having that experience for a while and I don't think you'd take the whole gang-bang identification thing so lightly, even if it is just a fashion statement and a way of merchandizing yourself at the same time.



__________________
brooklynhabfan


Guru

Status: Offline
Posts: 1887
Date:
Permalink Closed

It's not just black kids, it's all kids. It's a marketing dream where hip-hop and sports combine to create a fantasy that any kid would be insane not to find attractive. Black, white, green or blue, a guy in a great car, with tires that are broad, and broads that don't tire. What's there for a spotty kid sitting in the suburbs, doing the same thing day after day not to like?

And without an equally attractive alternative, there's no competition. It's the fact that this isn't coming organically from the streets. It's being dreamed up in condos and offices in California by people who have annual incomes that rival what some of their target demographic are making in their lives.

And it's not like it's quality that they're peddling. Chinese made team shirts that cost under a dollar to make are being sold for 60 bucks a pop. DVDs and CDs that cost pennies to manufacture are being sold for markups the car industry would kill for. Tickets to live games are unaffordable even though the team is playing in a stadium that everyone in town has paid through the nose for. And on and on.

Forget about worrying about what other people have let their kids wear, there's not much you're going to do about it. But act in your home and with your wallet to make sure your family isn't subjected to things you don't want them to associate with. No matter what end of the spectrum you fall in

Also - let's massacre the Ducks!

__________________
THX1138
plouf


Guru

Status: Offline
Posts: 1635
Date:
Permalink Closed


brooklynhabfan wrote:

It's not just black kids, it's all kids. It's a marketing dream where hip-hop and sports combine to create a fantasy that any kid would be insane not to find attractive. Black, white, green or blue, a guy in a great car, with tires that are broad, and broads that don't tire. What's there for a spotty kid sitting in the suburbs, doing the same thing day after day not to like? And without an equally attractive alternative, there's no competition. It's the fact that this isn't coming organically from the streets. It's being dreamed up in condos and offices in California by people who have annual incomes that rival what some of their target demographic are making in their lives. And it's not like it's quality that they're peddling. Chinese made team shirts that cost under a dollar to make are being sold for 60 bucks a pop. DVDs and CDs that cost pennies to manufacture are being sold for markups the car industry would kill for. Tickets to live games are unaffordable even though the team is playing in a stadium that everyone in town has paid through the nose for. And on and on. Forget about worrying about what other people have let their kids wear, there's not much you're going to do about it. But act in your home and with your wallet to make sure your family isn't subjected to things you don't want them to associate with. No matter what end of the spectrum you fall in Also - let's massacre the Ducks!


Well...as I said it's complicated. Because it is coming organically from the streets and it's not at the same time, as you point out. It's marketing being able to absorb anything you come up with that's original or authentic or whatever, anywhere.


Being a sports fan is frustrating.


 


Mighty Ducks. A team I love to hate. Love to see a win here.



__________________
Page 1 of 1  sorted by
 
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.
GOHABS.com -> GOHABS.com Message Board -> GOHABS.com Message Board -> Role Models
Tweet this page Post to Digg Post to Del.icio.us


Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse 		Powered by ActiveBoard