A 22-year-old Colwood man has been arrested and banned from attending Westshore Rebels football games after allegedly throwing a cup of coffee at an opposing player on the sideline.
During the second half of the game Saturday night, a spectator tossed warm coffee in the face of quarterback Jacob Laberge of the Vancouver Island Raiders, the visiting team playing the Rebels at Westhills Stadium in City Centre Park.
Laberge, 18, was rattled, but uninjured and played the rest of the game.
Police said the man who threw the coffee was intoxicated.
“This disgraceful act was apparently motivated by a bet with the suspect’s friends,” said West Shore RCMP spokesman Const. Alex Bérubé. “We are taking this matter very seriously and are taking steps to appropriately deal with this isolated incident.”
Raiders coach Curtis Hansen said he was disgusted by the man’s actions. “Never have I seen an act like that in my 27 years of coaching.”
Hansen said the man tried to run away, but was chased and held by parents of Raiders players until police arrived.
He said there was insufficient security in the stadium despite the knowledge that this would be
a tense game between the two teams.
A manager for City Centre Park, Kristin St. Cyr, disputed that.
“This type of behaviour can never be completely prevented regardless how many security guards are in place,” St. Cyr said. “Two of our security guards quickly responded to the incident and handled the situation until the RCMP arrived and took him into custody.”
Rebels president Doug Kobayashi wrote a letter of apology to the Nanaimo-based junior football club. “On behalf of the Westshore Rebels Football Club, we would like to sincerely apologize to the Vancouver Island Raiders Football Club for an incident involving a game spectator to one of your players on the sideline near the end of the game Saturday evening. We have a zero-tolerance policy on the behaviour shown toward your player. The spectator involved in this incident will be banned from all our future football games at the stadium and is being dealt with by the police,” Kobayashi said.
The two teams are part of the B.C. Football Conference, where players are 18 to 20 years old. The Rebels defeated the Raiders 34-29 to win a spot in the league final.
The Colwood man’s name has not been made public. RCMP are recommending that he be charged with assault, but the Crown has yet to approve charges. He was released on a promise to appear in court on Dec. 29.
Witnesses to the incident are asked to call West Shore RCMP at 250-474-2264 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).
The coffee-throwing is reminiscent of the scene this month at a Toronto Blue Jays game, in which a man threw a beer can that narrowly missed Baltimore Orioles outfielder Hyun Soo Kim. The incident prompted Rogers Centre to stop serving beer in cans for the remainder of the post-season.
