Parents and coaches of two peewee hockey teams in Winnipeg want answers -- and so do police – about how an on-ice scuffle with a referee ended with a broken arm for one player.
The incident happened Sunday, during the final minutes of a game between teams from the Brokenhead Ojibway First Nation and the Sagkeeng First Nation as part of the Southeast Winter Tribal Days hockey tournament.
A scuffle began around the Sagkeeng net. As referees pulled the kids apart, a Brokenhead player skated in front of the Sagkeeng bench and taunted players.
Player Kainen Bell, 12, slashed the Brokenhead player in front of the bench and the two began fighting. That's when one of the referees appeared to grab Kainen from behind and take him down to the ice, falling on top of him.
"it just went black for like 3, 4, 5 seconds... like 4 or 5 seconds," Bell told CTV Winnipeg.
Video taken from the stands and posted to YouTube showed a tense scene, with one parent screaming, "Get your hands off my kids!" and others cursing at the ref and telling him, in graphic language, to get off the ice.
Bell's parents, who are also coaches, admit tensions were high at the game but they wonder why the referee was so rough on their son. They say it appears from videos that the ref didn’t just try to separate the two players, but instead grabbed their son.
"It shows him grabbing him by the back of the armpits and twirling, pivoting, slamming him on the ice," says Kainen’s father Robert Bell.
“People are saying that he fell, but it doesn't look like a fall,” added his mother, Brenda Bell.
Coaches rushed onto the ice after the ref and the player hit the ice and began their own scuffle. The ref eventually got up and skated off the rink, throwing his helmet onto the ice as he went.
Kainan's forearm was broken in the fracas and he’ll be out of play for at least a couple of weeks.
His parents say they will be consulting with a lawyer on who should be held accountable. They say the ref could've done a better job to control the situation.
"He could've prevented it by... You know, that female ref contained three kids better than a 6’6” guy did," says Kainen’s father.
Allen Hocaluk, the coach from the opposing Brokenhead team, says none of this should have happened at a peewee league game, but that the refs handled the situation the way they should have.
"I thought that both refs that reffed the second game were definitely in control. They did a great job," he says.
Winnipeg Police say they're looking at all videos of the incident taken by spectators, as well as surveillance video that may have captured anything that happened on or off the ice. They're also taking statements.
"If charges are warranted, we will move forward with them. But right now, I am not confirming we are moving forward with those charges,” Winnipeg Police Service Const. Jason Michaylshen told reporters.
With a report from CTV Winnipeg’s Sheila North Wilson
