HOWELL TOWNSHIP, N.J. (CBSNewYork) — Two parents are accused of attacking a referee at a high school hockey game in New Jersey.
As CBS2’s Emily Smith reported the incident happened Sunday afternoon during a Howell High School hockey game against Manalapan at Ice World.
Howell Township Police confirmed that a referee called a hockey mom from Howell a curse word, telling her to leave the game for yelling at the referees.
Police say two parents followed the referees into the locker room after the game and that’s when the fight broke out. The scrum involved the husband of the woman the ref yelled at and his friend.
“As soon as they got in they started arguing and fighting,” Howell Officer Dan Scherbinski told CBS2. “They were hitting each other, putting their shirts over each other’s heads.”
Both referees went to the hospital for minor injuries. One of the refs is the president of the New York/New Jersey chapter of the National Ice Hockey Officials Association.
No arrests have been made, but police say if surveillance video is out there, whomever was shown initiating the fight could be charged with assault and fined.
Connor Hansen, a senior at Howell High School, told CBS2 that the woman who was in the middle of the brawl is the mother of one of his best friends who is also the captain of the hockey team.
“I guess the ref was having a bad day, fed up, or I don’t know,” he told CBS2.
Freehold School District officials would not comment to CBS2 since no students were directly involved in the fight.
