There are help-tighten-skates hockey dads, and then there’s Tie Domi: a steal-the-opposing-team’s-video-camera type of hockey dad, or so the digital evidence would suggest.
The crazy incident was first reported in North America by Puck Daddy.
Tie’s son, Max, was representing Team Canada in the U-18 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament last week. Prior to Canada’s preliminary match versus Team Sweden last Tuesday, Adam Andersson, the video coach for Sweden, attempted to record the action from the Canadian squad’s practice – a research method Andersson employs for all future opponents.
As he was filming, Andersson claims that the Canadian video coach tried to block his lens and an on-ice coach tried flipping pucks at the camera. Andersson left the recording device on a tripod only to find it gone when he returned to retrieve it.
The senior Domi, in the stands to watch his son, returned the camera to Andersson after he starting asking people nearby, but the battery was missing.
“Hlinka is an international tournament where all the trainings are open,” reports Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. “Canada’s problem is that they lack the experience from tournaments in Europe. We will take up Canada’s behavior in Congress in September. Canada must follow the rules that exist, says Tommy Boustedt, national team manager.”
A video of the incident shows what looks to indeed be Dad Domi, the former Leafs fan favourite, unscrewing the camera from the tripod and, um, borrowing it for a while.
With the Swedish reconnaissance foiled, Max Domi scored two goals and two assists, leading Canada to a 7-5 early-tournament victory over Sweden.
Canada would go on to win its fifth straight Ivan Hlinka hockey championship with 4-0 blanking of Finland on Saturday, marking the 17th occasion the Canucks have claimed the under-18 tournament since it was introduced in 1991. (Sweden*, interestingly, was the last non-Canadian team to win the thing, back in 2007.)
No word yet if Tie Domi will request to have his name engraved on the trophy.
Watch Tie Domi lift the video camera here, around the 30-second mark, courtesy of aftonbladet.se:
*Sweden: home country of one Ulf Samuelsson, whom Tie Domi famously sucker-punched back in 1995, when Samuelsson played for the New York Rangers. Domi, who claimed the defenceman provoked the incident by calling him “dummy,” was slapped with an eight-game suspension and a fine for the cheap shot.