Dear Joseph Cordes,

I’m sure you are hiding out following the embarrassment you have heaped upon yourself, your daughter, your family and your community at large.

You should.

Perhaps you have no grasp of what you did, and attempted to do, and refuse to hold yourself in any other regard than a passionate parent.

But as the mother of a goalie, I cannot imagine anything lower than aiming a laser pointer in the eyes of someone playing this position. Aside from the stigma most goalies wrestle with regarding their role in “losing” games, there is the simple fact that the goalie is the only person facing the rush of on-coming players. They have to handle frozen rubber pucks being fired at them at tremendous speeds. They have to be flexible to shut down rebounds; employ cat-like reflexes; possess the ability to see through well-meaning defenseman; be the fastest skaters on the team. Goalies need the mental strength to pick themselves up when five other players on the team make mistakes without consequence, but the third rebound on him/her gets posted on the score board.

Now they have to be able to deal with distractions from the stands from asses like you. Massachusetts must be so proud.

Hockey has a dark enough reputation; what with the legacy of debilitating concussions, gratuitous violence, sexual deviance and questionable team spirit. Did you really have to go and make hockey parents look like half-wits?

I hope you realize the message you are sending your daughter is that A) cheating is completely acceptable; B) adults don’t have to act any better than punk juvenile delinquents; and C) you didn’t have faith in her team to win without your intervention.

It’s like the Perfect Storm for Least Sportsmanlike Conduct.

You are damn lucky that your antics didn’t result in injury. The vision in a goalie helmet is limited at the best of times, and now you want to fry the player’s retinas??? What if she’d lost focus on a rush and ended up with a broken neck, slit throat, snapped collar-bone? Would that be worth it for a championship?

In the end, your team won 3-1. I’m sure the embarrassment of your actions has tempered any sense of accomplishment your team could have enjoyed. Your daughter will likely have to bear the burden of your deeds. I’m sure she would have preferred you to simply cheer for her from the stands.

I hope the competing team is successful in its appeal of this game. It takes very little to change the momentum of a game, and this low-brow discovery was made when the game was tied 1-1 in the third period. How shaken was the goalie following your ejection? How much focus was lost by the team as they realized they were competing against parents as well?

I also hope the authorities are successful in filing Breach of Peace charges against you.

It’s too bad there wasn’t legislation against being a Jackass.

Emphatically,

Sarah