Beyond the worrying figures about violence against referees revealed Wednesday by HEC Montréal, the general director of Hockey Québec, Stéphane Auger, is pleased to have scientific data with which to tackle the problem.
Appointed interim head of the federation following the resignation of Jocelyn Thibault in February, the former National Hockey League (NHL) referee was officially appointed to his position on October 2.
There are many files on his desk. But the study led by Professor Éric Brunelle, director and founder of the Pôle sport HEC Montréal, has offered Hockey Québec a credible platform to address a major problem in minor hockey.
“It’s a treat for me,” Auger said of the study Thursday. “My passion is refereeing – hockey, but also refereeing. Having HEC take an interest in refereeing is fun. There weren’t a lot of studies and data on refereeing. I see it as a very positive thing, and we’re going to use it for the future.”
“One of the conditions of my hiring was that refereeing would become an entity in itself [within Hockey Quebec]. Refereeing has always been a little bit put aside. I think it’s a super important part,” he continued.
Some 85% of referees surveyed as part of the study revealed that they had been victims of verbal abuse. 45% of them had received threats or experienced physical violence.
This violence causes toxicity, exhaustion, decreased well-being and disengagement that push some of them to give up arbitration, we can read in the report.
“One act of violence against a referee is already too many. The numbers are… the right word, it’s scary,” said Auger. “The difference with the normal working world makes no sense. I think that over the years, people have trivialized it a little. It’s up to us to give referees and stakeholders the tools to improve the climate.”
The study proposes 15 concrete solutions grouped into three recommendations: strengthening organizational support, supporting the referee community and promoting referee resilience.
A whole range of measures are already in place at Hockey Québec, but Auger believes that the study will help to further guide his organization’s action plan.
“We had already started by setting up a refereeing department at Hockey Quebec with a structure that will really allow people on the field to be directly linked to the federation,” he explained. “They (the recommendations) solidify what we are currently doing, but beyond that, it is about prioritizing how we are going to do it.
“It’s started and we’re working with stakeholders to move things forward. We’re doing it the right way, we’re not rushing anything, because we want to make sure that this reform, which is quite major, works,” he added.
One of the premises of this study was that there is a shortage of referees in Quebec. However, while the problem has been somewhat resolved by the measures recently implemented by Hockey Quebec, one problem remains: many referees leave the industry after a few years.
“Young referees are signing up. The challenge we have is that they don’t stay,” Auger lamented. “Nearly half leave after a year or two. That’s the problem: the turnover rate. Refereeing isn’t just about learning the rules; it takes time. It’s a lot of mileage. You don’t become a good referee overnight. If you’re starting over all the time with new people, it’s hard to develop expertise.”
“Obviously, it affects the level of play and the whole development of hockey,” he summed up.
Governance and women’s hockey
Two other priorities will mark Auger’s mandate at the helm of Hockey Québec: governance and women’s hockey.
When Thibault left his post, he sent a very clear message to his successor. Some regional association leaders do not want to hear anything about changes in governance.
For Auger, the project is only just beginning. The positive reception within the associations of the project for an arbitration department seems to be a first positive step in relations. The general director believes that the associations have adhered to the plan and that it is going “super well”.
As for governance, Auger believes that he does not have all the data in hand to make a decision. At the end of July, Hockey Québec announced that it had mandated the firm KPMG to conduct an audit of its Sport-études programs and the 14 regional associations.
“The regions have embarked on this,” he said. “What we told them is that we would like to have a picture of the situation. We want to see what the issues are. The process is in place, and for the moment, everyone is participating well.”
“It’s hard to take action when you lack information. Now, we’re going to have a general picture,” he explained.
Auger mentioned that he would pay particular attention to the development of women’s hockey when he was appointed. He quickly put his words into action by setting up a women’s hockey department and making Stéphanie Poirier its director.
“This is the first action I took in office,” Auger proudly declared.
“We need more female players. We’re at about [8,100] female players in Quebec, and there are more than 50,000 in Ontario. Obviously, there’s a culture, a development that took place there and which, for all sorts of reasons, hasn’t reached the same level here,” he concluded.
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