So the increased blog traffic on one of my Pop Warner posts made me curious and I searched within WordPress on the Pop Warner category. Gee – guess who dominates that??? (blush) However, there was another post just within the past week with a report on an incident that occurred there this year. There was a fight amongst players on one of the older teams which resulted in the entire team group being evicted from Disney property in the middle of the night. Since the fight occurred between just a few boys, it seems like overkill to have rousted everyone on the team out of bed – often consisting of much younger siblings – at 3:00am and telling them they had 30mins to pack, find somewhere else to stay, and leave. Yikes! Since we did not quite get that far, I had not read all the information that we we would have had to sign on the contract with the resort, but I gather there is a clause in there warning you that if one member of the team gets out of line, the whole team is kicked off. I also never realized that participants are *required* to stay on property! Now, from WDW point of view, I guess it makes it easier than trying to identify who in particular is involved in trouble. Much simpler to kick out the whole team. But, considering too that this was the last night of the event, it seems to me that they could have waited until the next morning – why the mid-night eviction? It’s interesting to note from the blog post I found that Disney is looking to expand into Hawaii. Seems like they might have to repair their image a bit first!! Also, for my Disney loving friends, that blog site I linked to looks pretty interesting. I love they way it is described “We can love Disney without drinking the Kool-Aid” – seems like a realistic view of all things Mouse 🙂
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Trees & Flowers & Birds! 
I’m not saying that Disney did the right thing, but I think that Disney did the smart thing. A number of points.
1. Someone was hospitalized. Since the incident happened on Disney property, in theory, Disney could be held liable but not only does Disney hold a zero tolerance policy, the have now proven that they mean their zero tolerance. This may or may not get them a little bit more “off the hook”
2. Number 1 is the little one, and it’s rather an aside. I’m sure by now most of the Pop Warner families know about this incident, or at least most of the coaches know and everyone will know by next year. So next year when this is held, again in Orlando, it will be crystal clear to all the coaches and parents and chaperones exactly what the consequences will be for misbehavior. Even if the kids are willing to take chances, the parents and coaches won’t be, so they’ll be keeping a closer watch on the kids.
I don’t think Disney did the right thing, but I think under the circumstances the did the smart thing from the point of view of people trying to run a safe and family friendly resort.
(And my gosh it’s one thing to have a bit of a tiff — but another thing to require a hospital visit).
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DANG — I can’t edit that I did forgot to close out a bold. Oh well, life will go on.
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Yes, I can certainly see the motivation behind Disney’s reaction to this incident. I think it was a total Catch22 situation for them. Further reading indicates that over the years, they’ve had to escalate their rules and regs due to increasing confrontations. Again, since we did not get that far, I didn’t take the opportunity to read everything they give out to the teams that attend. Further reading also indicates that they also reserve the right to issue a lifetime BAN to participants from ever stepping foot into a Disney park! WOW. From that perspective these families got off easy I suppose.
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Mind you, I think it would have been better if they had kicked out all the families of the boys that were involved (i.e., basically anyone in the vicinity of the arcade) and then kicked out the rest of the team in the morning (so for instance if there were players tucked safely in their beds they did not need to be roused, also if there were families with young children they could have gotten any of the kids in the arcade out and left the little ones asleep).
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