Commentary from Fred Wallace on HMH Girls Hockey Application
Submitted By s.fitzsimmons on Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Bayshore Broadcasting Sports Director Fred Wallace, who is also the Play-by-Play Voice of the Owen Sound Attack, shares his thoughts on Hanover Minor Hockey being denied Girls Hockey.
" Is it me, or are the simplest concepts becoming the most difficult to develop ?
Rather than use my own experience, I'll discuss a perplexing story out of Hanover Minor Hockey where an attempt to establish two Atom Local League Girls Hockey teams was denied by the Ontario Women's Minor Hockey Association.
I've known Hanover Minor Hockey President Steve Fitzsimmons for more than a decade through minor hockey, Hanover raceway and through the Guelph Storm where he is the TV play by play announcer for OHL club.
Steve's not a radical, nor is he prone to wild flights of fancy or anarchy, he's just at the head of an issue that, from the outside, looks simple, but for some reason, or reasons, is not.
Hanover wants to start an Atom Girls program. Nothing more, Nothing less.
They want to provide an outlet for about two dozen girls to play hockey, with their friends, in their home centre, in Grey & Bruce which already has a dozen operations.
Understand fully, that any girl from Hanover playing for one of the other organizations is not being held hostage here. Again, all Hanover wants is to start small, operate two teams of Atom Girls and hopefully build from there.
And they got denied, which in turn raises the real possibility of appeals, political intervention and conceivably petitions to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.
That's a mess.
A needless mess.
And a mess that I think could easily be avoided or solved if the initial simple concept had simply been approved.
I'm Fred Wallace
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