A 16 year old hockey player in Nakina (east of Thunder Bay) died on January
11th after an on ice collision during the warm-up for a routine pickup game.
It is thought that he broke his leg in the collision. He was taken to hospital in Geraldton and then was later airlifted to Thunder Bay when they became concerned with loss of blood. He died in hospital less than 24 hours after the incident.
Because the organizer of the pickup game did not notify the local Minor Hockey person responsible for insurance about this extra ice time, there was
no insurance in place for any of the kids on the ice at the time of this incident.
Here in Kenora, if you are organizing any extra ice time with kids registered in Minor Hockey, you must send an email to Judy Bain (jbain@lwdh.on.ca) so that you and your coaches and your players are covered for insurance purposes.
If you have ice time at a certain time, you can send a blanket email saying something to the effect: "The Novice boys have ice time every Tuesday night at JM Arena" or "Our Novice team (Name of team) will be playing controlled scrimmages against the Atom girls at JM Arena twice in the month of February".
At least with a blanket email, there is some kind of notice given in advance to Judy Bain, so if something happens, the insurance coverage will likely be in place.
I would recommend that to cover all the bases, send a blanket email and follow up with individual ice times if they are sporadic. You don't want to be the volunteer who is sued Because you or somebody else neglected to send
the email.
You can rent ice under your name at any rink. That is fine and there is nothing wrong with that, and you may be covered under the rink's insurance. But, if you would like to have Minor Hockey Coverage for the insurance portion, please send me the email. If you don't want the insurance that is fine…. But the teams that you have on the ice , must be the same teams as registered with HNO. You can't mix up or pick up any players, that aren't registered with your team. You can do that on your own, but the insurance from HNO will not cover it. If you are playing any women's team, you must have the permission of their league prior to being on the ice with a male team. Hope this clear up any confusion.
