HALIFAX — Nova Scotia’s transportation minister says recent complaints that prompted the RCMP to stop kids from playing street hockey in a Halifax-area community are “frivolous.”
Bill Estabrooks responded Tuesday to local media reports of a Mountie who showed up at a woman’s home last Thursday in Enfield and said her son and his buddies had to stop playing street hockey.
“The kids that I know in the community, when they see you coming after they invite you to play for a moment or two, they get out of the way,” he said.
“It’s a tradition in this country and it should be allowed to continue.”
The woman, Debbie Jefferies, said the officer indicated police had received complaints about the boys playing. Estabrooks said police are busy enough as it is and have more important things to do than stopping children from playing hockey on the streets. “We get a lot of complaints as politicians and I’m sure the police do too,” Estabrooks told reporters at the legislature. “Ball hockey is a part of the right of growing up and the right of being on your own street.”
While it’s a pretty common sight on most suburban Canadian streets, the noise and public safety issues related to road hockey has created controversy in municipalities across the country.
Last month, a Montreal-area man vowed to fight a $75 fine after a neighbour complained that a group of adults and children were playing street hockey loudly.
In 2006, a proposed bylaw that some feared could threaten street hockey in Halifax prompted homegrown NHL star Sidney Crosby to send an email to the mayor in support of the game.
And in 2004, Bobby Orr did the same in a newspaper interview where he protested a proposed street hockey ban in Rothesay, N.B.