However, my parents were at a recent mini-mite hockey tournament in Detroit last month with a nice experience. The hockey tournament was for 6-7 year-olds. My nephew's team was playing in the tourney. There was also a team from London, Ontario area in it. They were suppose to be in another tournament for better skilled teams, but that one was cancelled and this was a last minute change for them. Well, their team was extremely more polished, so the coach was doing all he could to keep it fun and not embarrass the other teams (ie. playing d-men on forward and forwards on D). Checking is not allowed, but at one point, one of this Canadian players checked a player on my nephew's team. Nearly all of the Canadian team's parents yelled at that player and one of the parent's apologized to my dad saying that "that kid knows better. We don't play that way and he'll hear about it." Dad was impressed, not something you'd typically see responded to in that manner here in the U.S.