Screen shot of an incident at the Meadow Lake arena. (Candyv99/Twitter)

By Nicole Reis

WSHL Responds To Incident

“We would have terminated their membership”: WSHL reacts to incident at Meadow Lake arena

Jan 29, 2020 | 2:38 PM

The Western States Hockey League (WSHL) is criticizing the management of the now-collapsed Meadow Lake Mustangs after an altercation on Friday between a spectator and the coach of the opposing team, Alberta’s Hinton Timberwolves. Video of the incident, which shows the coach swinging a hockey stick at the unruly fan, has been widely shown on social media.

The Mustangs announced the team had disbanded with immediate effect Monday citing high travel costs, low player turnout at games, occasional fan temperament and challenges communicating with parents.

Ron White, president of WSHL told meadowlakeNOW, uniformed security could have prevented the altercation and Meadow Lake Mustangs management allegedly violated the league’s policies.

“We would issue fines to the team except the team has quit. They don’t get away with it from us […] for those kind of violations we could have terminated their membership and we’re okay with them beating us to the punch,” White said.

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Glen Winkler, the former Mustang’s general manager said if trained security were available in Meadow Lake, it would not have made a difference to the crowd’s response to the altercation.

“We had people respond fairly quickly and it looks terrible, but no one was hurt. We regret what happened but if we had security in a $12 t-shirt, I’ve got one at home. I don’t know what a trained staff would have done differently,” he said.

According to White, WSHL has teams in all kinds of small villages which have trained medical staff and security.

“At some point, the ownerships have to understand the liabilities and the improprieties you put a volunteer in,” White said. “Security and medical assistants need to be licensed that handle certain jobs that, quite frankly, get paid to do it. You want to put the liability on licensed people who are insured.”

Candy Villeneuve was watching Friday’s game and captured a head-on perspective of the altercation between Hinton’s coach and the spectator on her mobile phone. She said players from both teams engaged in a number of altercations over the course of the game and tension was building before the off-ice incident.

“The coach grabbed the stick and swung it multiple times as hard as he could at the fan which was crazy. I’ve been to hundreds of hockey games and I’ve never seen a coach act like that in my life. Yes, maybe the fan shouldn’t have said anything, and what he did was inappropriate.”

meadowlakeNOW has reached out to Hinton Timberwolves coach, Jeff Richards for comment but has not responded.

In the meantime, the WSHL said their main concern now was moving forward from this incident and finding a team for local kids to play for since the Mustangs have announced they are no longer involved in the league.

“Our concern is the kids. We’ll deal with the Meadow Lake ownership in the future because they also lost a significant amount of money,” White said.

White wasn’t able to comment about the financial health of the team.

WSHL said they’ll do what they can to get kids a team to play for. Some players from the Meadow Lake Mustangs have been invited to California to play. According to White, seven or eight of the players are on their way to a new destination.

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nicole.reis@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @nicolereis7722