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I live in Sudbury, Ontario one of the many hockey crazy cities of the North and live in a tightly knit cul-de-sac where we are all look out for one and other, have everyone's backs, ect. Little less than a year ago, an older couple moved in who have no kids. 5 houses down from them is a park complete with sand, slides, and a swing-set which is infiltrated with kids during all four seasons. Completely weird how they picked this house since it is quite evident they dislike kids.
So a few weeks ago, I happened to look outside and this woman is yelling at the kids for playing hockey in the cul-de-sac, something nobody else has ever had a problem with the 5 years I have lived here. I went outside to investigate and the lady, who I've never spoken to before, comes up to me and tells me that a kid hit our garage door with a tennis ball...whoop de dooooo I say. The next day, one of the neighbors goes over to talk with her because she was taking pictures of the kids playing hockey on her phone. They got into a screaming match in-front of everyone, others go in to try and reason with her and just basically tells everyone off.
It's come to the point that she has been taking pictures of the kids playing hockey (which is kinda creepy), called the cops multiple times, a city councilman, and has now filed a by-law application with the city to ban all street hockey. There supposedly is a by-law already in the highway traffic safety act that prohibits street hockey but it is never enforced because it's just silly. The police have been by on multiple occasions now, even the tactical unit for whatever reason, and have basically told us don't worry nobody's getting charged with playing hockey.
And as I was typing this just moments ago, two cruisers came by. Apparently our ward councilor Doug Craig who was here visiting yesterday phoned the police because the kids did not move for him, which according to several eye-witnesses is a lie. My father approached the officers, found out who called the police, asked him whether he played street hockey as a kid and responded yes. My father shook the officers hand and told him to have a nice night.
I was just wondering, what can we be doing to fight back against them? Is there any easy way to raise media awareness of this? We all would love for it to end so that the kids may play hockey without having to worry about the police coming to ruin their harmless fun.
There is a by-law against street hockey in Ottawa... but nobody really follows it.
You're going to have to find a way to deal with it. I say you just keep playing and wait for someone else to complain. The neighbors never really liked us playing street hockey in my old area, but nobody ever really complained about it. Well, one lady did but she moved shortly after.
By all means try to get the local media interested if it continues. It seems the authorities-attempt-to-ban-street-hockey story appears in the newspapers every year. I think the public would generally be on your side and the politicians would be embarrassed if they were seen as trying to suppress the great Canadian tradition of street hockey. Good luck! Keep up the good fight. Play up the angle of physical activity being good for kids (fight childhood obesity and all that).
play on. until somebody starts enforcing the bylaw, the street's your playground. and if it does get enforced, bug your councilors to build parks/playgrounds where you can set up nets and play.
i just can't believe there are so many people in this world who don't want kids to play any sport in the neighborhood, let alone their own backyards whether it's street hockey, basketball, or even catch. wonder if their parents were the types that strapped them down at their desk and made them stare at a book all day or if they were just the bitter people that got picked last all the time in gym.
The first thing I find striking is that anybody in Canada would object to anyone playing street hockey to begin with. What's up wit dat!
... and then to have bi-laws for it to boot!! ABSURD. I think the Government should be formerly sued and coup undertaken to make amends to the hockey Gods.
The first thing I find striking is that anybody in Canada would object to anyone playing street hockey to begin with. What's up wit dat!
... and then to have bi-laws for it to boot!! ABSURD. I think the Government should be formerly sued and coup undertaken to make amends to the hockey Gods.
Good read, made me laugh
But yea, getthe mdeia into this, there was a couple in my bestfirends town here in Manitoba that did this, and we ended up having like half the town on the front street playing street hocke,y and yea, it ws great to see the look on her face
I live in Sudbury, Ontario one of the many hockey crazy cities of the North and live in a tightly knit cul-de-sac where we are all look out for one and other, have everyone's backs, ect. Little less than a year ago, an older couple moved in who have no kids. 5 houses down from them is a park complete with sand, slides, and a swing-set which is infiltrated with kids during all four seasons. Completely weird how they picked this house since it is quite evident they dislike kids........
I went through this a lot as a kid...
My next door neighbor used to go ballistic when we played hockey in my parents shared driveway... she and my father used to get into some classic battles over the years... she used to tell my dad her kids sat in the house all day playing board games when they were younger (please).
Eventually as we got older and had more people, we started to play on the local tennis courts. We had the police called on us by tennis players dozens of times.
Every court always had a sign that said "Tennis Playing Only" on it... but we of course ignored it.
Usually the police would just ask us to get off after an hour (the rule was you could only play tennis for an hour if others were waiting).
Other times they would ask us to just leave for the day. I came one day and saw my friends arguing with a cop... so I knew what was up, obviously.
Usually me or my bro talked to the cops and reasoned with them...
So as we walked up my friend was standing directly under the sign that said "Tennis Playing Only" and he told the cop he didn't see a sign that said we couldn't play hockey... so when he said "son, want to look above your head", we knew it was over.
We just dealt with what we had to, if we wanted to play roller/street hockey. The cops were usually ok, except for a few isolated instances.
Yesterday I was running at a local park I used to play at back in the day and I saw a bunch of guys playing on one of the tennis courts, so I guess ppl. are still doing it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hockeyfan68
The first thing I find striking is that anybody in Canada would object to anyone playing street hockey to begin with. What's up wit dat!
... and then to have bi-laws for it to boot!! ABSURD. I think the Government should be formerly sued and coup undertaken to make amends to the hockey Gods.
I'm a little surprised as well since I am from the U.S. but since my g/f is Canadian I spend a lot of time up there playing on dozens of ice rinks every Winter.
If it's at the point where the cops are visiting several times a week and a local politician is scoping out the scene on his own I think it's time to circulate a petition among the neighborhood. First, if you get overwhelming public support from the neighbors you show your neighbor as the lone crankypants on the block. Second, it might draw some media (newspapers & tv) attention. If your neighbor sees herself in the local paper being portrayed as the lone crankypants it could possibly shut her up. Most important thing though is to be nice and respectful. IMO if you break things, obstruct traffic (for real), litter, etc you make it easy for your neighbor to portray you as a public nuisance.
My nephew and his friends received complaints about their roller blading around town. After petitions, town meetings, etc his town funded a public skateboard park. It was a great experience for my nephew -- he was one of the chief organizers and made a few formal presentations to the town and if that's what it takes to resolve the problem then so be it. But if it's just one cranky neighbor who just moved into the community and her constant complaints made it necessary for the town to spend public money on a place for kids to play street hockey I'd be pretty upset with that neighbor.
when i was ateen on long island, we froze over the tennis courts at the school yard,with my friends garden hose(he lived next to the school) . the next day we showed up to play and the cops were waiting for us with the gates locked. something about insurance and trespassing.
sucks to be a kid.
Very similar thing happened to me, except the city ignored the crazy old lady completely, The cops showed up a few times, but just had a chat with her and left us to play ball.
If this were an after school special you would finally invite the old woman to play with you guys and would learn that she's got a wicked slap shot from the point.
In addition to the petition, kindly ask the "kind lady" if she'd prefer for the kdis to join a gang, start selling drugs and shooting up the neighbord with bullets instead of tennis balls and hockey pucks. When she replies "no", let her know that they'll then go back to playing hockey.
I really think street hockey is not supposed to be played any where on the streets, but the majority of people look past that. I can understand why the law is there but it's better for kids to play street hockey then sit inside on a sunny day.
2X3' with canada flag. Black writing on it saying "We don't like hockey", or "Hockey sucks" or "Hockey is for Americans" or "Street hockey is the devil". Something like that. Than continue to play street hockey at every possible second possible.
do tell what that is.
we used to do the "doggy bag trick"
tsunami is when you take a garbage can and fill it with bodily fluids, water, pretty much anything that will stain easily or has a really bad stench
then carefully and strategically lean it against the door. ring the bell and run
even if the person looks through their front window first and sees the can before opening the door, they still have the displeasure of removing the can from their door/front porch
But yea, getthe mdeia into this, there was a couple in my bestfirends town here in Manitoba that did this, and we ended up having like half the town on the front street playing street hocke,y and yea, it ws great to see the look on her face
The only thing we did wrong once when we were kids that WAS illegal was we were sick of all the cars going by so we uhh ... ummm .... "borrowed" some roadblack signs from the city's public works department around the corner and blocked off the street with them.
That didn't go over too well with a policeman who happened to try and drive onto the street. We were not in real trouble for it and were told to put the signs back and to knock it off.
We moved our game to a huge department store parking lot and they never kicked us out thankfully.
hey hockey rules what can I say .... kids should be able to play in peace and quiet. What would they rather have anyways .... kids playing video games or kids getting exercise outdoors?
tsunami is when you take a garbage can and fill it with bodily fluids, water, pretty much anything that will stain easily or has a really bad stench
then carefully and strategically lean it against the door. ring the bell and run
even if the person looks through their front window first and sees the can before opening the door, they still have the displeasure of removing the can from their door/front porch
Depending on the age of the kids, there's a good chance that she could land herself in some hot water for photographing them without their parents' consent, assuming they're not on her property.
