The city’s association for the sport of ice hockey has announced that members of the Hong Kong men’s under-18 ice hockey team will get “punishment and warnings” for fighting with their Thai opponents during an international game.
In spite of the referees’ best efforts to keep them apart, roughly 30 players from both sides fight following the conclusion of a game at an invitational tournament in Bangkok, according to a trending Twitter video.
The Hong Kong Ice Hockey Association stated on Saturday, two days after Thailand defeated the city 3-0, “The Hong Kong Ice Hockey Association has always valued athletes’ discipline and is currently looking into the incident with the tournament organizer.”
“Athletes from both sides who were involved in the incident will receive punishment and warnings.” No one was hurt, according to the association, but it added that the players involved must “develop emotional management skills” to stop similar instances from happening again.
A spokeswoman for the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee stated that the organization was in touch with the ice hockey body and had learned about the incident after the association released its statement.
The federation required the association to deliver a situation report by August 20 that detailed the punishments meted out to the athletes implicated and the steps being taken to prevent future recurrences.Men’s ice hockey player Ryan Chu Chak-hay told the Post that some professional leagues, mostly those in North America, occasionally permit fighting.
Chu, who did not participate in the Bangkok event, claimed that post-tournament fights like the one in the video were uncommon. He claimed to have seen a video of a brawl between two players as they lined up to shake hands that had been uploaded by one of the sportsmen involved.
He stated, “[Usually] they issue suspensions. “Traditionally, professional hockey fights between two opponents involved no use of gloves or helmets. However, in this situation, everyone was wearing a helmet.When a song associated with the 2019 anti-government protests was played before a world championship game instead of the Chinese national anthem, “March of the Volunteers,” Hong Kong’s governing body for ice hockey made news in March. The city’s premier sports organization and the Hong Kong Ice Hockey Association got into a fight over who was to blame for the error.
In order to avoid the mix-up, the ice hockey team should have provided the event organizers with a hard copy of the national anthem, according to the sports federation.
National sports organisations might lose their committee membership or government financing if they were found to be responsible for the improper use of the national anthem or municipal flag during international competitions, according to federation guidelines released in November.
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SOURCE: http://scmp.com
