Liability and risk

On this page

1. Say it plainly first

Ice hockey carries a real risk of injury. Children fall over, collide, catch an edge and get hit by pucks and sticks. Most injuries at our camps are bruises and bumped confidence. Serious injury is uncommon and it is not impossible.

We are not going to bury that under a paragraph of legal language. If you would rather your child did not take that risk, that is a reasonable decision and we will not try to talk you out of it.

2. What we do about it

• A helmet with a full cage on every head, always. Nobody steps on the ice without one, including adults. It is not negotiable and there is no exception for anybody.
• Full equipment, fitted in person before they skate, by somebody whose job that is, not handed over in a bag to work out later.
• Professional coaching leads every session. Volunteers assist. They do not run drills unsupervised.
• Groups are set by a skate assessment on day one, not by age, so a child who has never skated is never on the ice with children moving far faster.
• A first aid kit and a trained person on site all day, every day.
• Never one to one. No adult is ever alone with a child. If a child needs help, two people go.
• Every incident is written down and the family is told the same day, however small it was.

3. Insurance

Our camps run under the insurance arranged for the program and the arena we are in. Coverage is arranged per camp, and the certificate for a given camp is available to any parent who asks for it, before the camp, without explaining why.

Platform Insurance is a funding partner of ours and does not provide our insurance. We state it here so that nobody assumes otherwise.

Insurance is not a substitute for your own health coverage. In Ontario, OHIP does not cover ambulance charges in full, and it does not cover dental work. If your child has extended health cover through a parent, it is worth knowing what it includes before the week starts.

4. The waiver

Before a child takes the ice, a parent or guardian completes the online application, which includes the registration, a waiver of liability and a medical information section. That is a condition of taking part and we do not make exceptions to it.

The waiver is a real legal document. Read it. If a clause in it worries you, ask us before you sign, not after. We would rather answer the question.

What a waiver does not do. Signing it does not excuse us from taking reasonable care of your child, and it does not sign away rights a child holds that a parent cannot give up on their behalf. A waiver limits liability for the ordinary risks of the sport. It is not a licence for us to be careless, and no court in Ontario would read it as one.

The full waiver is part of the online application on the Apply page, so you can read every clause before you agree to it.

5. Medical information

We ask about asthma, allergies, medication, and anything about how your child communicates or moves. Tell us everything, including things you think are minor.

Only the coaching staff and the first aid lead see it. It is not published, not shared with partners, and not kept longer than the camp cycle plus the period we have to keep an incident record for.

If your child carries an inhaler or an auto injector, it comes to the rink with them and we need to be told where it is on the first morning.

6. What we are responsible for, and what we are not

We are responsible for running the program with reasonable care: supervision, properly fitted equipment, qualified coaching, and telling you promptly when something happens.

We are not responsible for pre-existing conditions we were not told about, for personal property brought to the rink and lost, for the condition of the arena itself, which belongs to the City or the association that runs it, or for injury that occurs outside the hours and the premises of a camp.

Equipment given to a camper becomes theirs. Once it leaves with them, its condition and its use are the family's responsibility. We will always help with fitting or replacement if we can, and you should ask.

7. If something goes wrong

Tell us immediately, at the rink or afterwards. Andrew Adair is reachable at openiceinitiative@gmail.com, during a camp and outside one.

Every incident is recorded and the family is told the same day. If you are not satisfied with how something was handled, write to the same address and the Founder and President will deal with it personally.