Olivier Marcotte was arrested after he fought an official on the ice during a junior hockey game. Are actions like this just a product of the generation?
By Chris Wengert
A Canadian junior hockey player, Olivier Marcotte, was arrested after he spit at an official during a playoff game in Nicolet, Quebec.
Junior hockey is often one road that players can take while pursuing their NHL dreams.
As far as the game itself, junior hockey follows the same rules and format as the NHL, fighting and all. But Mr. Marcotte apparently forgot one very important rule.
You never hit a referee.
But for one reason or another players across the board, at all levels, seem to have forgotten that fact. But why?
Why all of a sudden do players feel like it is OK to take a shot at an official of the game? Why do players think it is OK to try to injure a person who is not only an elder, but someone whose job it is to keep all players safe?
The answers are simple: entitlement and a lack of respect.
The worst part of these qualities is that they are self-inflicted wounds. Somewhere along the way it became OK for children to question adults. It’s not uncommon now for kids to ask “why” when an adult tells them to do something.
Since when does a child need rationale from an adult?
But that is exactly what happens now, and the results speak for themselves. A large percentage of kids not only believe they are owed something, but carry with them a lack of respect for the rules and adults.
We live in a time where there can’t be winners and losers in youth sports, no one player can be better than the next for fear of offending somebody, and everybody now receives a trophy despite where they finish in the rankings.
And apparently athletes like Olivier Morcotte think it is OK to spit at and hit a referee (allegedly).
Players like Calgary Flame Dennis Wideman think it’s OK to take cheap shots at officials.
Wideman swore up and down that he didn’t mean to hit the official, that a hit he received earlier in his shift had him frazzled.
Yeah, OK Dennis.
Listen, am I saying that an entire generation feels a sense of entitlement and lacks respect for it’s authorities figures? No.
But somewhere along the way we have sent the message as a society that it is OK for young people to question adults and authority figures.
As far as hockey is concerned, the results speak for themselves.
