No. 24: JEFF WARE, BILL WATTERS et al: How *not* to parent your NHL son. Daddy's Little First-Round Draft Pick.

In which I call the shot like Willie Mosconi, a father goes postal and a bust bites the dust.

Hockey writers and coaches don’t agree on much but we share one common dread: parents. I often wonder if parents put their kids into hockey just cause greater misery to those behind the bench and on press row. A favourite anecdote of mine tracks back to a conversation I had with Brian Kilrea, the only major-junior coach whose plaque hangs in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Years back I was looking to do a little feature on the three over-age players on Kilrea’s Ottawa 67’s team. (“Overage” in the junior game’s parlance refers to 20-year-olds and line-ups cannot have more than three at any given time.) Kilrea thought that I had a good idea for once and spoke about all three at equal length and glowingly when he came off the ice from an after-school practice. (No names or incriminating details here.) The team’s media guy flipped me the phone numbers of the overagers’ parents and I alotted one hour to talk to them to add a bit of colour. I was writing this for an early deadline and had to file b…