By Bob Duff, Featurd
Some years back, the phone rang in the office of an Ontario Hockey League general manager.
On the other end of the line was the mom of one of his players, and she adamantly demanded more ice time for her boy.
“Ma’am,” she was politely informed by the GM, “your son is now playing junior hockey. We’ll decide when he goes on the ice.”
Back then, such developments were rare, a source of brevity added to a conversation between a reporter and a GM.
Today, they are commonplace, a fact of life that all GMs are required to deal with, and which some are deciding simply aren’t worth the aggravation.