Risk Of Injury In Hockey Essay

In sports, liability is a serious risk. The problem is that one cannot predict an injury, however, it could have been easily prevented if the situation did not entirely take place. In this situation, an ice hockey coach was not present when one of his hockey players who gotten injured, therefore, for the cause of his injury was directly taken into a hospital. Considering that the coach was in the lobby at the time of the event, however, the coach cannot be found liable, since he is a volunteer who is unpaid and the nature of the sport of hockey could nevertheless result in injury. As a coach, it is his duty to protect his players from unreasonable risk of injury and having the standard of care in where a situation causes a player to suffer
an injury. In this situation, the coach should have known to not leave the team on the bench and decided to leave the entire scene without realizing that dangers are still present. For example, a coach should know the nature of the activity, type of participants, and environmental conditions, however, incidental harm is an expected part of the sport. Since an injury is not foreseeable, “there is no duty to protect against it and that there is no liability for an injury caused by an unforeseeable risk” (Cotten & Wolohan, p. 42). Although, the coach did not assume the absolute risk of the likelihood of an injury to occur and has failed to meet the highest level of standard care, however, could only recover to sue for damages for the result of the injury. While the coach was in the lobby, three rink employees who were on the ice encouraged the kids to race.
With the intention to race without helmets, therefore, causes the severe risk of injury. As employees, they must follow their duty to understand the safety and risks involved with this sport. According to Law for recreation & sport managers, discusses employees/service personnel by stating that, “If the employee has a duty, breaches that duty by failing to meet the required standard of care, and that breach is proximate cause of injury to the plaintiff, the employee is negligent and may be legally liable” (Cotten & Wolohan, p. 53). Despite each employee being negligent, they will still all become held individually liable for not acknowledging the complete risks that could lead to injury or harm from their actions associated with it. Although, this situation only involved the coach and three rink employees, however, the rink owner is not liable. With this situation, the owner should become aware of an event such as this could happen, however, the accident was not justified, since this situation involved not knowing the risks rather than a problem with the rink itself. For example, in the Pinero vs. City of New York case, a student was assaulted while on his way home from school approximately 15 minutes after school had ended when they got into a “verbal alternation and subsequent physical altercation with an unknown
boy”().