Self-defence Prevails In Recreational Hockey League Stick-swinging Incident

• Published date: 03 December 2021
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Media, Telecoms, IT, Entertainment, Arbitration & Dispute Resolution, Trials & Appeals & Compensation, Sport
• Law Firm: Gardiner Roberts LLP
• Author: Mr Stephen Thiele

Hockey is one of Canada's most popular sports. From a young age, many children are taught how to skate and are either registered in organized ice hockey leagues or play ice or street hockey with neighbourhood friends. Recreational ice and ball hockey leagues also exist for adults and sometimes adulthood friends merely get together to organize their own ice or ball hockey games. Most leagues prohibit non-incidental body contact. However, on occasion, the intensity of the game results in aggressive behaviour on the part of either an individual player or multiple players, which leads to ugly incidents that result in the laying of criminal charges.

This was the result in R. v. Tang, 2021 ABPC 292, where the court was required to determine if a hockey player who struck an opponent in the face with his hockey stick, causing serious injury, was guilty of assault causing bodily harm with a weapon or whether the player was innocent because he acted in self-defence. As noted by the court, self-defence is a legal justification for committing an unlawful act: see R. v. Ryan, 2013 SCC 3 at para. 24.

The incident at issue occurred in the second period of a recreational ice hockey game. The accused and the complainant played on different teams in a bottom-tiered men's division in the River Cree Hockey League.

The accused was 5'7" tall and weighed 140 pounds. The complainant was 6'5" tall and weighed 255 pounds.

Prior to the incident which resulted in the criminal charge being laid against the accused, the two players had been involved in body contact for which they received penalties. Then, in the second period, the two players encountered one another on a play in which the complainant alleged that the accused had speared him in the eye and in which the accused alleged that the complainant took a dive. On that play, a referee called a spearing penalty on the accused.

Thereafter, the complainant cross-checked the accused twice. The first cross-check was to the accused's torso. The second cross-check was to the accused's neck and head. These two cross-checks also drew a two-minute minor penalty, and a five-minute major penalty and game misconduct.

A referee testified that the complainant's aggression level was rising and that the accused was skating backward, retreating from the complainant. However, the complainant continued to skate toward the accused, when the accused wildly swung his stick and struck the complainant in the face. The accused's stick broke in the course...