We talk a lot about leadership in hockey.
Being a good teammate. Having each other's backs. Holding people accountable. Putting the team first.
These are values that coaches, parents and organizations spend years reinforcing.
And for good reason.
But I've been thinking about what happens when those expectations come into conflict with one another.
What happens when being a good teammate means challenging something another player has done?
What happens when speaking up could create problems within the team?
And what happens when the person responsible is a popular player, a captain or someone the team depends on?
We spend a lot of time teaching young athletes to stand up for their teammates. I'm not sure we spend nearly enough time preparing them for situations where they may need to stand up to them.
And I think hockey group chats are exposing just how complicated that distinction can be.
Team loyalty can make doing the right thing surprisingly difficult.
I don't think we give enough consideration to the social position we're putting young athletes in when we tell them to speak up.
It's easy for adults to say that players should report bullying, harassment or inappropriate behaviour.
But imagine being 15 years old and recognizing that something happening in your team group chat is wrong.
Maybe a teammate is being humiliated.
Maybe someone shares something sexual or inappropriate.
Maybe the conversation has escalated beyond anything you feel comfortable participating in.
Now imagine the person responsible is someone with significant influence in the dressing room.
Someone everyone likes.
Someone who's considered a leader.
Or simply someone you know you'll have to sit beside on the bus tomorrow.
Speaking up might be the right decision. But that doesn't mean it's an easy one.
And depending on the team environment, the player who raises the concern could face immediate social consequences.
They might be accused of creating drama, betraying teammates or making something bigger than it needed to be.
Meanwhile, the person responsible might have enough influence that others are reluctant to challenge them.
I'm not suggesting this is happening on every hockey team.
But I do think it's worth asking whether the environments we're creating actually support the behaviour we tell kids we expect from them.
It's one thing to tell players to do the right thing. It's another to create an environment where they can do it without being punished socially for trying.
"Handle it in the room" isn't always good leadership.
There's something about hockey culture that places a lot of value on keeping things within the team.
Work through problems together. Don't bring unnecessary attention to the group. Protect your teammates.
In many situations, those expectations make sense.
Not every disagreement needs a parent meeting or formal complaint.
But there's a difference between resolving ordinary team conflict and expecting young athletes to manage harmful behaviour without appropriate adult involvement.
And I think that distinction can get lost.
When does "handle it in the room" become an expectation that players stay quiet?
When does "don't create drama" become a way of discouraging someone from raising a legitimate concern?
And when does protecting the team start taking priority over protecting an individual player?
Those aren't comfortable questions.
But I think they're particularly relevant in competitive environments where a player's place on the team, relationships and future opportunities can feel dependent on maintaining the right relationships.
Team loyalty shouldn't require a player to ignore behaviour that's harming someone else.
And I don't think young athletes should be expected to navigate serious situations on their own simply because the people involved happen to be teammates.
Group chats make these dynamics harder to ignore.
I think group chats are an interesting example because they reveal how much of a team's culture exists outside the environments adults typically supervise.
Coaches can establish expectations in the dressing room.
Organizations can create codes of conduct.
Parents can talk about respect and appropriate behaviour.
But the team group chat often operates independently of all three.
And the same social hierarchy that exists at the rink can carry straight into it.
A popular player makes a joke at someone else's expense.
Other players react.
Someone adds another comment.
Another player forwards it.
Suddenly, something that started with one person involves several others who may not have stopped to consider what they're participating in.
And the player who feels uncomfortable might have no idea how to challenge it without becoming the next target.
I think this is where the usual advice to "just speak up" falls short.
It assumes the player has the confidence, social standing and support to challenge the group.
But those things aren't distributed equally within a team.
A first-year player, someone struggling for ice time or a younger teammate playing up an age group may experience that pressure very differently from an established captain.
The ability to speak up is influenced by the environment around the player, not just their individual character.
And that's something adults have a responsibility to understand.
We need to look beyond who started it.
When a group-chat incident becomes public, I think there's a tendency to immediately divide everyone into two categories.
The person who did something wrong.
And everyone else.
But group behaviour is rarely that simple.
There's the person who shared the original content.
The players who encouraged it.
The ones who forwarded it.
The ones who witnessed it and didn't know what to do.
And potentially someone who tried to intervene or seek help.
Those roles aren't interchangeable.
A player who was uncomfortable but remained silent shouldn't automatically be treated the same as someone actively targeting another child.
But I also think it's worth helping young people understand how seemingly small actions can contribute to an environment where harmful behaviour becomes normalized.
A laughing reaction might feel insignificant to the person sending it.
To the player being targeted, it might communicate that the entire team is participating.
And that can make the impact much bigger than the original message.
The challenge for parents isn't simply determining whether their child was the person who started something.
It's understanding the role they played, the pressures they were navigating and what they understood about the situation.
Because those details matter when we're talking about accountability.
Are we teaching accountability or reputation management?
This is something I've questioned before when it comes to social media and young athletes.
Especially in competitive hockey.
Players are frequently warned about how their online behaviour might affect future opportunities.
Be careful what you post because scouts could see it.
Don't share anything that might affect college recruiting.
Remember that one bad decision could follow you.
And while those warnings aren't necessarily wrong, I think they can unintentionally shift the focus.
The problem becomes the possibility of being caught rather than the behaviour itself.
If a player humiliates a teammate online, the biggest concern shouldn't be whether a future coach discovers the screenshots.
It should be that someone was humiliated.
If a player shares something inappropriate, the priority shouldn't be figuring out how to make it disappear before anyone finds out.
It should be understanding the harm and taking responsibility.
And if a young athlete witnesses something serious, I don't want their first thought to be whether reporting it could create problems for the team.
I want them to recognize that another person's wellbeing matters more than protecting someone's image.
I work in social media and athlete marketing. I understand that reputation has value and that online behaviour can have consequences.
But I think we're doing young athletes a disservice if our primary message about digital responsibility is that poor decisions might hurt their careers.
Protecting a player's future opportunities shouldn't come at the expense of teaching them to recognize harm in the present.
Adults may be reinforcing the very behaviour they're trying to prevent.
I think this is where the conversation becomes particularly uncomfortable.
Because it's easy to focus on what young players should or shouldn't be doing.
But what happens when adults are more concerned about protecting the team than addressing what happened?
A parent immediately defends their child before understanding the situation.
A coach wants to keep an issue quiet because the team has an important tournament coming up.
An organization becomes concerned about how an incident might affect its reputation.
Or everyone starts worrying about what will happen to the player who caused the problem, while the person who was harmed becomes almost secondary.
I don't think these reactions necessarily come from bad intentions.
Parents want to protect their children.
Coaches want to protect their teams.
Organizations want to maintain trust.
But I think we need to acknowledge that those priorities can sometimes conflict with accountability.
And kids notice.
They notice which players are challenged and which ones are excused.
They notice whether the person who reports something receives support or becomes the subject of conversations about loyalty.
They notice when an apology is treated as the end of the matter, regardless of whether the person affected feels safe or supported.
And they notice when an organization's first concern seems to be keeping something from becoming public.
We can't spend years telling kids to demonstrate leadership and then make it clear that speaking up is only welcome when it doesn't inconvenience anyone.
That's not an easy contradiction to address.
But I think it's one worth acknowledging.
Not every mistake needs to define a player.
I also think there's an important balance here.
Young people make mistakes.
They misjudge situations, get caught up in group behaviour and sometimes do things they later recognize were wrong.
That doesn't mean every incident should permanently define their character.
But allowing room for growth doesn't mean removing accountability.
A player who recognizes the impact of their actions and makes meaningful changes is in a different situation from someone who repeatedly harms others or refuses to take responsibility.
And those distinctions matter.
I also don't think accountability should automatically mean a public apology.
Sometimes that can create more attention around the incident or place additional pressure on the person who was harmed.
The appropriate response depends on what happened, who was affected and what would actually help address the situation.
For serious matters involving threats, abuse or sexual content involving minors, the priority is safety and the appropriate safeguarding or legal reporting process. These aren't situations that should be resolved through informal team conversations.
If intimate images involving someone under 18 are involved, parents and players should not request, forward, screenshot, download or save the material. Organizations such as Cybertip.ca can provide appropriate reporting guidance.
But for the broader conversation about team culture, I think the point is that accountability should involve more than managing how an incident looks from the outside.
Taking responsibility isn't the same as convincing everyone you've taken responsibility.
And the person who was harmed shouldn't be expected to forgive someone simply because the team wants to move on.
Maybe we need to rethink what we're teaching kids about leadership.
I don't think we need to stop teaching young athletes about loyalty, teamwork or commitment.
Those are valuable lessons.
But I do think we need to be more specific about what those values mean when they're tested.
Being loyal to a teammate doesn't mean protecting them from every consequence.
Being a leader doesn't always mean keeping everyone happy.
And putting the team first shouldn't require ignoring what happens to an individual within it.
I also think parents need to recognize that telling a child to speak up isn't enough.
They need to believe they'll be supported if they do.
They need to know that asking for help won't automatically make them responsible for managing the entire situation.
And they need to trust that the adults involved will take concerns seriously, even when doing so is inconvenient.
Because if the culture of a team makes speaking up socially dangerous, telling players to demonstrate courage doesn't solve the underlying problem.
We need to create environments where doing the right thing is supported, not just expected.
Being a good teammate doesn't always mean going along with the team.
I think that's the bigger conversation we need to be having.
Not simply whether kids understand that screenshots can circulate or inappropriate posts can affect future opportunities.
But whether we're actually preparing young athletes to navigate situations where doing the right thing could put them at odds with their teammates.
Because those moments are going to happen.
In hockey, in school, at work and throughout their lives.
And I think the lessons they learn about loyalty, accountability and leadership within sports can influence how they handle those situations long after they've stopped playing.
We spend a lot of time celebrating leadership in hockey.
Maybe we need to spend a little more time considering what happens when a young player actually demonstrates it, and the people around them don't like the decision they've made.
Being a good teammate doesn't always mean going along with the team.
And I think that's something worth teaching long before a group-chat incident forces the conversation.
The Group Chat Talk: A free guide for hockey parents
I've created The Group Chat Talk to help hockey parents have these conversations with their kids before something goes wrong.
The guide covers what to say, what young athletes should do when inappropriate content appears and how to help them feel supported in taking action.
Not because they need to learn how to avoid getting caught.
Because they need to understand what to do when something isn't right, and feel confident enough to ask for help.
No email address required.