Youth soccer players move a net into position at Centennial Park in Toronto on May 25, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Liam Casey
TORONTO – The parents of two children killed by unanchored, movable soccer nets say they hope an Ontario bill that would require those goals to be properly secured will prevent future tragedies.
The legislation is going through committee hearings today, the step before bringing it back to the legislature for third and final reading, and has the support of all parties, which should ensure its passage later this year.
David Mills’ 15-year-old son Garrett was playing in a Napanee, Ont., park with his girlfriend and his best friend on May 12, 2017, doing chin-ups on the crossbar of a movable soccer net, when the 200-pound structure fell on top of him, fracturing his skull.
Mills says every other soccer net in town had been anchored, including the other net on the same field, and had there been a law in place requiring officials to secure them, he believes Garrett would be here today.
Jacqueline Palm’s 15-year-old daughter Jaime was crushed and killed in 2014 by a movable soccer net that had not been secured and she says she wants the bill to prevent other parents from suffering such a senseless and avoidable loss.
Palm says Jaime was athletic, outgoing and vibrant, and any time she is outside she looks for butterflies, as a symbol that her daughter is stopping by to say hello.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 13, 2023.
