1 - Introduction
  As I previously evoked, there is a very big ditch between European and American ice hockey. That is why, on the American continent, the aims of the games are very important (especially at the financial level), which can explain a very strong implication in the game and thus a certain violence.

2 - The phenomenon
  Nowadays, the number of violence acts observed in the skating rinks in hockey games seems to increase continuously. The obvious lack of respect for the opposing team’s players as well as the violation of the laid down rules are a current practice today. A theory makes it possible to explain this phenomenon: it is interested in violence not like an instinctive phenomenon, but rather like a taught behavior by various actors of the society. The theory in question is as follows: the verbal behaviors of the trainer at a hockey game have a direct impact on the level of violence made by the members of his team.

  In a report on violence in the hockey, McMurtry said:"If one person in the entire hockey environment were to be singled out as the key person [to encourage violence in hockey,] it would have to be the coach ". Thus, it seems obvious that the trainer of a young team of hockey is able to influence largely his players. For several young players, their coach has much more influence on their personal development and their sens of the values than the majority of their teachers. In fact, for a young, the trainer often seems to be a god: he is the one who decides if the efforts of his players are satisfactory and if the referee does his work well. According to a survey, it would seem that young people are influenced by their trainer in a proportion of 96 %. If he succeeds in influencing his players in such a proportion, useless to say that the trainer also has the capacity, by his very aggressive remarks or his positive remarks, to determine the level of violence generated by his young players. So, when the trainer speak to a player, his remarks usually do not fall into the ear from a deaf person...

  A very revealing experiment allows us to understand this principle. While placing mice in a too small cage where there is a lack of food, researchers could noticed that the animals did not show, in any moment, an aggressive behavior towards the other mice. Later, one taught to the same mice to fight. When they were locked again in the small cage, they used the techniques of fight learnt at the entrainement to dominate the other mice when there was a lack of food. Thus, everything shows that violence is learnt and developed in an environement where violence is encouraged.
  In the hockey, some aggressive expressions and expressions of hatred such as "Kill him… fight him… " are unfortunately too often used by the trainers (I could myself hear these remarks). Unfortunately, too few players, by hearing these some words, will be able to resist to the "pleasure" of darting an adversary planted close to the net or of firmly plating against the band a player who does not even have possession of the puck. Not to disappoint the trainer, some players will decide to take the advice of this one, because that is the trainer who decides who will play and who will not play.