Goon Tactics In Langley Knights Game

The old wives tale of going to a hockey game and a fight took place came to life this past week in PJHL action at the George Preston Arena in Langley.

The home team are the Langley Knights recently moved from North Delta under the guidance of John Craighead, who is also behind the bench for all games – until now.

As the PJHL enters it’s 50th year of operation and known by many as “jungle B hockey” in the past the current board of governors have been trying to change this thought process, but it’s all not that easy.

Teams move, new coaches are acquired, players are traded and at times they get new owners so as to give the players a chance to move up to the next level of the game, which is either the BCHL or the WHL.

In all cases this is not as easy as one might think and to maintain a positive pro-active outlook on the league has some questioning the operating policy of the league.

I know many players, coaches, owners and officials that have taken steps to move up so to speak and some have achieved success, but given what took place in Langley, it’s going to be hard to get this league back on track.

This past week in Langley saw the return of old-time “goon hockey at it’s finest, supplied by individuals who clearly don’t have the best interest of the league on their agenda, which is too bad.

Now we are hearing and seeing on National TV where a bench clearing brawl took place between two Junior hockey teams and not minor hockey as reported by CBC reporter Max Haberstroh and posted on line September 25th at 8:29 pm.

The RCMP are investigation the altercation and  Police state that a player with the PJHL Junior B Mission City Outlaws claims he was assaulted by the opposing coach of the Langley Knights

According to RCMP, the Mission City Outlaws’ player says it happened while he was trying to break up an altercation between his coaches Brad Veitch and a Langley coach John Craighead at their game September 24th in  Langley..

Naturally this is just one of several accounts that  are being considered by investigators and maybe just possibly they should review the referee’s game write-up report complied by Nick Bilko.

“We’re going to be reviewing the video evidence we have available to us, as well as numerous statements that have been taken and still need to be taken in order to determine what happened,” said Holly Largy with Langley RCMP.

Depending on whom you might talk to, some say it was a high hit to the head, others say it was a good clean hit, but regardless there was NO penalty on the play, then as they same “game on”.

Regardless of your take on hockey and fighting this is something that the league will have to deal with so as to not have a reoccurrence for future games this or any other seasons to come.

If you look in the bottom right of the photo you can see the coaches fighting on the bench of the Mission Outlaws and from what I am told the Head Coach of the Langley Knight left his bench to attack the Mission Coach.

We’ll keep you posted on this in a future article.

Either way this is not what the PJHL is about!!!!