Letter to the Editor: IceCats maintain Christian ethics

    55

    I write this in response to a recent letter criticizing the hockey game between the Provo IceCats and the UVSC Wolverines. Several misconceptions were presented which I would like to correct.

    The IceCats are a club hockey team composed of full-time BYU students. Their fans are almost entirely BYU students. However, they receive no funding nor recognition from the university. The team is financially supported by sponsors, gate proceeds and the players’ own funds.

    Since we are not BYU-affiliated, we are not permitted to use BYU vans for our road trips. Instead we rent them from local companies at a much greater expense. The players pay $400 a season in fees, and this includes none of their personal gear. Personal gear may run upwards of $1000.

    Despite these hardships, we still have a competitive team which is not a bad example as the recent letter to the editor attested. Rather, the team is a very good example. We know that since we are BYU students, many people will assume that we are a BYU team. In the five-year history of the program, no member of the team has been suspended from the university for an Honor Code violation. Every member of the team has gone on to graduate from the university. I suspect that the average grade point average of the players is much higher than a number of other intercollegiate teams.

    When the team travels on road trips, it usually takes time between the Friday night and the Saturday night games to complete a service project for people in the area.

    Ice hockey is an intense sport. It is a fast paced game played with aluminum sticks and frozen rubber hockey pucks. That is why hockey players wear over 20 pounds of pads and equipment. Because of that intensity, players only spend about a minute at a time on the ice before they are replaced and given a chance to rest. In a fast paced game like this, tempers do occasionally fly and players do things which they later regret.

    IceCat players do not leave Christian ethics in the locker room when they step on the ice. We pray before every game that no one will be injured and that we will represent BYU and the church well.

    The recent letter mentions that one particular fight offended him. Well, there was only one fight. Fighting is not tolerated in the league nor on the team. If the referees do not dole out the appropriate punishment, the coach surely will. The typical penalty is a suspension lasting the rest of the current game and all of the next one. This is an extremely severe penalty. Can you imagine the football team losing Kevin Feterik for two games in the middle of the season?

    The letter also mentions injuries requiring an ambulance. One of these was a cut lip and the other a broken leg, both of which occurred during fair hits. They were in no way connected with poor sportsmanship or fighting. The IceCats trainer, another BYU student volunteer, even went out to take care of the injured UVSC players. The IceCats also showed good sportsmanship by benching their better players so as not to run up the score. They also refused to shoot a goal during a period of time in which UVSC was changing goalies because their goalie was suspended for starting the aforementioned fight.

    The IceCats team is competitive and aggressive. We aren’t the Provo Lambs. But we also strive to incorporate Christian ideals of self-discipline and sportsmanship into our play. And to answer the question posed at the end of the recent letter, yes, our behavior is exactly what BYU students and officials want and expect from their teams and clubs.

    Print Friendly, PDF & Email