Personal Story about Hockey Program in Kapolei

Written By Brian Park

If you know me, you know I have mostly stayed off social media for the past couple of years, valuing my family’s privacy over sharing. That is why speaking out about our experience with Doug Jones is such a significant step for me. When our family left Doug’s inline hockey program in February 2025, we specifically requested an amicable departure. Despite our concerns over Doug’s behavior, we wished to avoid additional conflict. Unfortunately, Doug continued his negative actions and comments against my family. Still, I held back, hoping that something would change. Now he’s openly attacking other hockey families on O’ahu, specifically families that have given SO much to the inline community. Consequently, I feel it is important to publicly recount the toxic and abusive conduct we experienced, so that other children and parents can understand the kind of environment he creates as a hockey coach and director.

I believe every child deserves a safe, supportive environment to learn and grow. Doug’s inline hockey program has a Code of Conduct emphasizing respect, positive coaching, self-control, and a psychologically safe atmosphere for all participants. However, what my family encountered was behavior that felt emotionally abusive, controlling, and dismissive. Doug’s behavior contradicts the values he claims to uphold, including integrity, caring, fairness, and promoting character through sportsmanship. According to his self-written biography, Doug Jones has over 𝟯𝟬 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 of coaching experience. One would expect Doug to coach in a way that mentors and uplifts. However, he wields his experience as a bludgeon to criticize, exclude, divide and squash other opinions within his program.

The following is some of what I have personally witnessed:

𝗟𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆

One of the first things I noticed was Doug’s irrational inability to admit to mistakes, and his willingness to lie and manipulate to maintain his superficial authority for self-serving purposes.

The lies started in small and almost insignificant ways, soon after we joined Doug’s program. Trying to be helpful, I would bring scheduling errors in his online calendar to his attention, but instead of the normal “whoops, thanks, it’s fixed now,” Doug would dismissively tell me that I was mistaken. Then he would quickly change the public-facing calendar, and a screenshot from the newly corrected website would follow, proving to me that he had inputted it correctly all along. Honestly, the first or second time it happened, I questioned if I had seen the original information correctly. However, after repeated occurrences, both my wife and I began to realize that he was gaslighting us rather than admitting he made mistakes.

As our family became more engaged with Doug’s hockey program, including playing in multiple adult and youth leagues, assisting during youth hockey practices and games, refereeing, and playing for his program’s youth travel hockey, Doug’s lack of integrity and loose adherence to the truth/reality began manifesting itself in more problematic ways.

I first discovered I was a youth coach for Doug’s program when my name was publicly posted as an 8u coach. I was surprised because Doug never asked me if I wanted to coach or if I was qualified to coach. In all honesty, I have never received formal training or played for anything other than a bronze-level, recreational team in inline hockey, but I was willing to try if I was already going to be there for my kids anyway. While I was happy to assist and truly treasured working with kids to encourage them and spread the love of hockey, I felt the manner in which I was volunteered without notice was very strange.

One of my first serious concerns that arose was when Doug began claiming that all his program’s coaches were AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) certified. This was a 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁, as Doug promoted his program on the representation that we were better, safer coaches than other inline hockey programs because of the background checks that accompanied AAU certification. I knew at least three coaches, myself included, were not certified at the time Doug began making that false representation. I later realized this was an effort to legitimize Doug’s program over another inline hockey program on O’ahu. To fix this problem of his own creation, Doug later instructed his volunteer coaches to sign up and take the AAU certification, stating we would be reimbursed by the program for the costs. Based on that promise, I paid the fee and obtained the certification, only to be told that instead of being reimbursed for the cost of the certification, I could get store credit at the facility’s skate shop. Lying to his volunteers to cover lying to the program’s families exemplifies the way Doug is willing to speak untruths without guilt, if it benefits him.

Additionally, Doug has taken credit for coaching certain top-level inline hockey players, only for us to discover first-hand that he never contributed to their growth in any meaningful way. His willingness to lie about things both immaterial and material should give anyone thinking about playing under his program serious pause.

𝗛𝘆𝗽𝗼𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳-𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

Doug will scold families for not being dedicated enough to the program if they miss or are late to a game or practice, but he lacks the self-awareness to hold himself to the same level of dedication he demands from others. Doug displayed absolutely no guilt when he typically opened the doors to the facility right on time or late, giving the open-skate participants only 45 minutes out of the 60 paid minutes to use the rink. His lack of dedication extended to the mandatory youth travel practices, where he has the players scrimmage for the entire session without ever leaving the front desk to provide coaching.

Doug would change the schedule and expect families to shift their plans around to accommodate his inability to plan correctly. One example of this was a holiday parade that Doug suddenly decided was a required event for kids traveling to play in an inline hockey tournament. Six weeks prior to Doug’s decision, my wife confirmed with Doug to ensure no hockey events were scheduled for that weekend. When Doug unexpectedly added marching in the holiday parade as a required event for the tournament players, we informed him that we could not attend the parade because we had scheduled family to fly in for a visit only after confirming the weekend was free of hockey-related activities. Doug began openly praising families that accommodated his whims and suggested the families who did not attend the parade to represent his program would not be allowed to travel and play in the tournament. This was a clear contradiction to the contract he made the families sign, which said any child willing to travel and play in the tournament would be allowed to if they only attended the required practices and enrolled in and played their rec league games.

Doug would setup “tournaments” around holidays then sign families up without their consent due to the low participation. Doug’s actions appear to be driven by an incessant need to show that his inline program is healthy and thriving, despite many families being reluctant to participate because of the way Doug ran these tournaments. These families who did not plan on participating in the events and were involuntarily volunteered by Doug were still forced to pay the tournament fee. The families had to participate simply to avoid getting on Doug’s bad side.

Despite the coaches being volunteers and not trained, Doug is quick to jump on any perceived mistake or failure and dismiss any of their suggestions. Every rebuke is prefaced with “I’ve been doing this a long time” and then followed by reasons why the inexperienced, unpaid coach did not meet his arbitrary standards. When I began coaching, I asked Doug if we could put some tape on the front of kids’ helmets and write their names on it (I discovered it is very difficult to help coach when you do not know players’ names). I showed him the tape and sharpie marker I brought but Doug scoffed and replied “I know all their names.” I still cannot understand what would elicit that type of response to a new volunteer’s suggestion, but I learned that this is a typical Doug reaction to ideas that are not his own. His hypocrisy was demonstrated at a later clinic where Doug decided to put tape on players’ helmets and write their names on the tape.

In stark contrast to Doug’s self-proclaimed perfect recall of names, I distinctly recall an incident where I was bench coaching a game that had a newer player on my team. Doug was the referee for this game. This new player, despite being relatively new to inline hockey, was exciting to watch and played with a joyful exuberance. Suddenly, Doug was putting the kid into the penalty box for unsportsmanlike conduct. I asked the player what he did, and he looked completely shocked and told me that he did not know. Upon further inquiry, I discovered Doug could not recall how to properly pronounce the boy’s Hawaiian name. As Doug was incorrectly calling out his name, the boy turned to Doug and essentially said “Who are you talking to? That’s not my name.” This led to Doug putting the player in the penalty box for back-talking him and giving attitude. I feel that Doug’s overreaction was caused by being contradicted rather than the player’s attitude because I similarly had difficulty with this player’s name. Even though I repeatedly got this player’s name wrong, I pre-emptively went up to the child and said, “I am sorry if I say your name incorrectly, but I will try my best to get it right.” That player never gave me any attitude or problems when I was out there as a coach or referee, despite me making some bad coaching decisions and questionable referee calls that directly affected him and his team.

During an adult rec league game, I witnessed Doug screaming at one of his scorekeepers, in such an excessive manner that she was nearly in tears. The saddest thing about this incident was this person was very close to Doug and stepped in to assist because he did not have a scorekeeper for that game. If I recall correctly, the mistake that incurred his wrath was something simple like penalty minutes and not keeping track of when a player was supposed to come out of the box. This was an adult recreation league game, not a tournament game, which made his fury all the more sad and pathetic.

During one youth game, Doug asked me to be on the bench to assist. When I got to the bench, he told me my only job was to open the door for the player changes that he would call out. He told me it was his job alone to coach the kids, and I was not to say or yell anything that could interfere with his coaching. I was clearly not in his good graces, but my presence allowed Doug to stay seated on the bench. I accepted this role because I still felt like I was helping the kids out. It was fine until the moment where he yanked the bench door open straight into my open-sandaled foot, because he felt I waited too long change out a player. He scolded me for not paying attention to the game although the opposite was true. The player coming off the rink was mid-court when he called the change (AAU rules state the player must be within 5 feet of the bench, and Doug had arbitrarily called “too many players on the rink” penalties in games that I played), which is why I had my hand on the door waiting for the player leaving the surface to get closer before allowing the change. One smashed toe later, another lesson was learned about the fickle and unpredictable nature of this hockey director.

Our family often felt uncertain about when or how to engage with Doug, and our experience was best compared to “walking on eggshells.” For example, if my wife didn’t initiate a greeting in the morning, he would issue a passive aggressive comment such as, “Thank you to the people who have manners and say hi.” Conversely, if my wife did greet Doug, he would ignore her. Near the end of our time in his program, Doug began greeting our son with a loud, exaggerated and over-friendly greeting. This was infuriating because we knew that he was attempting to manipulate the situation so he could later say how nice he was to our family and he was the victim in our departure. The roller coaster of not knowing which Doug would be waiting at that front desk was mentally draining and turned into a pointless exercise of appeasement.

If your family participates in Doug’s program long enough, you will eventually encounter Doug’s behaviors. He often attempts to spin his arbitrary and capricious decisions as being for the sake of the targeted family and applies guilt and plays the victim when people push back against his toxic actions. One of Doug’s most obnoxious and transparent intimidation methods is putting non-disclosure language at the bottom of his emails to attempt to prevent the discussion and dissemination of his conversations. It fails the commonsense test to believe emails with a recreation league inline hockey director fall under legally recognized privileged communication. However, this fits a pattern of Doug vigorously attempting to control the narrative around his program, which includes aggressively kicking people out of the program’s Facebook group and taking over Signal chats initially setup by the families of the tournament kids.

𝗙𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗺 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗿𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝗮𝗳𝗲𝘁𝘆

During my tenure at Doug’s inline hockey program, I witnessed instances of Doug singling out youth players who had incurred his displeasure in the past. It was very difficult for youth players to shake their reputations once Doug set his mind on how he perceived that player, no matter how much they seemed to grow out of their immature phase. One instance involved a youth player who Doug felt was constantly faking injury or fooling around for attention (full disclosure, I also initially felt this player bullied other players in his age group and exhibited a poor attitude, but I was so thrilled to witness him mature during our overlapping time in the program). In one game that player crashed at high speed into the metal post of the goal and began writhing around in pain on the ground and crying. I was the closest adult on the rink and made a move to check on him before I heard Doug yelling from off-rink to leave him alone. He then opened the door to the rink and proceeded to yell at the player from the side of the rink to get up. He later scolded me for responding to the youth player when HE knew the player was faking injury, despite me seeing the player crash into the metal post right in front of me. Another time, the same player was participating in a practice when one of my sons, who was doing a drill where one player sled pulls the other behind the other, lost control and crashed into that player and took out his legs. I was not on the rink (I had been banned from assisting on the rink by this point), but I was watching my son when the accident occurred and saw the youth player’s knee bend at an awkward angle (I later made my son apologize for crashing into that player). The player began to cry and hold his leg, and Doug proceeded to yell at him to get up and stop faking the injury.

When an adult or youth players go down, Doug loves to use phrases such as “rub some dirt on it” or “stop faking.” He constantly reminded me that his many years of coaching experience provide him superior insight into injuries, which I concede may actually be true. However, it manifests itself in an unhealthy manner that seems to contradict the current youth coaching paradigm and increases the risk that a real injury would be missed.

I once suggested a 6u player would be better served by playing in the newly formed 6u league instead of the 8u league that they were placed in. The player was struggling with basic drills, often requiring a dedicated coach to pull them aside and work on basics so they wouldn’t slow down all the 8u players. Doug then countered by asking if I would be hurt if someone suggested something similar for my oldest son. In hindsight Doug’s retort was nonsensical because my son WAS actually playing in a division lower than his age group because of his lower ability. Instead of taking my suggestion as a one trying to look out for a youth player, Doug accused me of trying to stifle a child’s desire to play at the level they were at. His attack surprised me, especially since I felt that I had always been a source of encouragement and instruction for this player, and I wanted them to have the best experience they could. Ironically but not surprisingly, I later saw Doug yell at that same child and literally tell them to get out of the way of other kids during tournament practice. I distinctly remember one of these tournament practices because both that younger kid and my other son were left sitting against the side boards while the rest of the kids continued practice (by this point we were just staying just long enough to play with the tournament team, and Doug must have known because he did everything he could to make the experience miserable for us). I believe Doug’s hostile reaction to my benign suggestion was because the family of that player paid a significant amount of league fees into Doug’s program. He was not going to let good intentions get in the way of more money for his program.

𝗕𝗮𝗱 𝗖𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁

Even if you remove all the problematic behaviors above, Doug would still be a subpar youth hockey coach, despite his seemingly impressive credentials. I repeatedly witnessed him giving confusing verbal instructions then yell at the youth players failing to understand his explanations. He is unable to physically demonstrate much of the drills that he wants the players to do, so the importance of clear verbal direction cannot be understated. However, Doug’s instructions were so confusing that one of his former assistant coaches, literally a world class inline hockey competitor, would occasionally perform the drills incorrectly.

Any attempts to discuss the youth travel team practices were met with defensiveness and hostility. Doug would hold a meeting for youth coaches at the beginning of the season, but none of the suggestions were implemented. Despite his repeated assurances that he was always willing to discuss the program, Doug treated any perceived disagreement as disloyalty.

To augment my son’s training, we paid to skate in the open hockey blocks with my son (the same sessions mentioned above where we would pay full price for a partial session because of Doug’s arrival times). At a certain point, Doug dictated that skaters were not allowed to run drills or have parents instructing them on the rink or from the bench during open skate. The open hockey blocks then became loose pickup games, which did not include any coaching or input from a Doug. We attempted to discontinue participation in these makeshift pickup games, but this resulted in Doug questioning our dedication to improving our child’s skill.

In 2024, Maui’s inline hockey program hosted a youth hockey tournament, and a few families thought it would provide invaluable, low pressure tournament experience for our kids who wanted to play travel inline hockey (most had not played in a real tournament before). The parents’ collectively thought that even if our kids got smashed on the scoreboard, they would realize what competition hockey looked like and see how much they needed to improve to play at the tournament level. Doug forbade the travel kids from his program from participating in this event, even if we were not planning on using his program’s uniforms during the tournament. The icing on the cake for his decision was Doug later weaponizing the lack of tournament experience against our son.

Doug did not appear to plan out his practices to improve his tournament players at a meaningful rate. Two weeks before the tournament, he began instructing them on the physical nature of tournament play, and had them running a gauntlet and practice shouldering each other into the boards. This in itself was not a bad lesson, but waiting until two weeks before the tournament, when they would not have time to recover from an injury and after wasting a significant number of tournament practices on open scrimmages and cancellations, appeared desperate and ill planned. Additionally, one week before the kids’ first travel tournament, he worked on face-offs for the first time and proceeded to get frustrated and yell at the players when they inevitably did not know what to do during a face-off. These same players never practiced power plays, penalty kills and other positional drills prior to their first tournament.

When the lack of progression in the tournament kids’ skills and practice difficulty was brought up, Doug attributed it to their lack of dedication and skill level for the players. He could not teach them advance skills because they could not perform the basics. I actually agreed with him with regards to the lack of demonstratable skill. Youth players in his program could not carry a puck up the rink without looking down nor could they consistently pass to one another. However, it has become apparent that the weak link was Doug, best illustrated by a mass exodus of many of these youth players to another program and their rapid improvement under competent, dedicated, and uplifting coaching.

Doug would predict failure for the youth travel players, but he was also the first to claim credit when their teams were successful. Doug markets his program using images of successful players that he did not help to meaningfully improve, and unsurprisingly some of the same players he proudly displayed on banners in the facility were banned from his program.

𝗢𝗯𝘀𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗢𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀

Doug appears to be obsessed with the other inline hockey program on O’ahu. Early in my time in his program, he would relate stories about how selfish the coaches at the other program were and how terribly they treated players who were not their own kids. Before I knew better, I took Doug at his word and did not make any effort to learn about the other program. However, this still was not enough for Doug, and I was accused by him of being seen at the other hockey program despite no member of my family ever setting foot at the other rink.

After an end of year party in December 2023, my family and I had to go directly to an orthodontist appointment that we had waited several months to get. Doug had told the participants that he wanted an end of season group photo, so my family waited as long as we cold to try to join the photo. However, by the time Doug announced to the facility that it was time to take the picture, our family was already behind schedule and needed to leave quickly. Doug yelled at us to join the picture, but we could not wait any longer so we left despite his protestations. On our drive to the appointment, Doug called and texted us, scolding us for not staying long enough to take the picture. Doug refused to believe that we had other priorities like a long-awaited medical appointment and saw our leaving as a lack of commitment to his program. We realized later his frustration stemmed from his need to show the health of his hockey program. To prove how many families he had in his program, Doug posted a manipulated photograph from the party, in which he copied and pasted the people in the photo to make it appear there were more participants in his program.

The abrupt end of my tenure assisting in Doug’s youth leagues came about due to a Facebook post. Not my own Facebook post nor my wife’s Facebook post, but a post on the personal Facebook page by another family who previously played in Doug’s inline hockey program and now played for the other program on O’ahu. My wife had liked the Facebook post, and I received a text from Doug asking why my wife had liked a post that he felt was critical of his program. To reiterate, this was a personal Facebook page that Doug was stalking to see if he was being disparaged. My response to his furious message was not to his liking and I was informed that my coaching assistance was no longer needed, but he would still allow me to assist as a referee (which would benefit him). I declined. I can only imagine what Doug said about me to the other families regarding my sudden absence, but this is the true story of what caused my sudden absence as a coach and referee at Doug’s program. Doug later tried to spin my dismissal as a favor to me due to the personal time I would get back, but the real reason is because I was no longer willing to bend to Doug’s unreasonable ego and demands.

Earlier in my time at his program, I used to believe the program would improve significantly if Doug took a fraction of the energy he spent focused on the other program and applied it to his own. Doug sees shadows and threats to his program at every turn, and his only solution is to spy on the other program and tear them down at every opportunity. However, based on the information presented above, I no longer feel he is capable of running a healthy and competitive inline hockey program.

Near the end of our time at Doug’s program, our family began to question his decisions and push back against the constantly changing demands required to stay in his good graces. We were exhausted from his negative energy and just seeing him at the rink began sucking out the love I have for inline hockey. During one of our discussions, where our family was still trying to make things work under his program, Doug said something to me that sticks with me to this day. Doug Jones told me that I needed to be “more positive.” This was quite the slap in the face, because I have always tried to be a positive presence on the rink or on the bench with the kids under his program. Even though I knew Doug was not actually seeking positivity, and he wanted unquestioned and cult-like support of his direction, it did not make his words sting any less. I put so much energy and time into wanting the best for the kids, encouraging them during games and practices, celebrating their successes, and obsessing over bad calls I made that might have taken something from them. Doug, one of the most toxic persons I have ever met in life, telling me I needed to be more positive almost broke my brain.

I am proud of my contributions to his youth inline hockey program and can say without hesitation that I gave my undivided effort and attention when I was out there with the kids. However, I am ashamed of my lack of assertiveness in protecting them from the hockey director. As penance, I provide this information as part of my effort to protect kids and families from further mistreatment. I had the incredible honor of seeing many of the youth players mature into thoughtful and positive individuals, so I want to make sure the Dougs of this world don’t stifle that personal growth.

Mahalo for reading and may you all find joy in your lives, especially on the rink!

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