Political correctness has crept into high school hockey – Ricentral.com

Having spend 40 years as a high school administrator, athletic director, coach and teacher, Im completely baffled and embarrassed by the hockey principals committee and executive director of the Rhode Island Interscholastic League (RIIL).

The Crusaders of Prout defeated the Broncos of Burrillville on Saturday night, March 11, for the Division I championship hockey title.

The Division I tournament involves the Division I teams that did not qualify for the state tournament. Burrillville finished fifth with a 6-10 record Prout finished sixth out of an eight-team league with a 5-11 record.

My question is, as a former hockey coach, whos idea was it to have a state championship tournament for two teams who didnt qualify for the state tournament in the first place?

Has political correctness crept into the RIIL? If you dont finish in the top four of your league, you dont qualify for the play-off-period! No, now we need to start a new division for the fifth and sixth place teams to vie for a title for non-qualifiers to be polite. Oh, I get it, we need teams with losing records to have a change for a trophy and medals that mean absolutely nothing.

Back in the day when I played, then coached, if you didnt finish in the top four, you didnt qualify for the state title. Your season was over and you went and watched the top teams compete.

Im not saying that the fifth and sixth teams didnt play hard, but they didnt play hard enough to earn a spot in the real state tourney.

In my experience with hockey, over 40 years, youre doing a disservice to your school, coaches and players by allowing them to play for a bogus-concocted tourney that is meaningless and serves no purpose to anyone.

The RIIL should know better than to allow two teams to compete for a state championship, when they have no business competing at all. However, I do praise the effort of Prout and Burrillville, as they were put in a no win situation by the RIIL.

Richard Walsh is a retired athletics director at the former Warwick Veterans Memorial High School.

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Political correctness has crept into high school hockey - Ricentral.com