It seems incidents of misbehaving parents, coaches -- or ex-politicians -- are not unique to the United States.
Toronto's Star.com today had a story about youth hockey in the Greater Toronto Hockey League and the "startling number of hothead outbursts against officials by adults behind the bench, from profane attacks to threats of violence." Examples included a father/assistant coach who "amassed 19 game suspensions and seven major penalties for disputing officials' calls – six of them including verbal abuse of the official."
Continuing:
A study of 6,622 critical incidents in the GTHL during the 2007-08 season found coaches responsible for the largest number – 2,537 – of problems reported by referees. Sport consulting firm Justplay, which conducted the research on behalf of the GTHL, defines critical incidents as events demonstrating "poor" or "very poor" sportsmanship and no redeeming examples of good sportsmanship.
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