A 22-year-old Colwood man is scheduled to appear in court after being arrested at the Westshore Rebels playoff football game Saturday night at Westhills Stadium.
Stadium security, and later West Shore RCMP, sprang into action just after 9 p.m. when a clearly intoxicated man threw coffee in the face of Vancouver Island Raiders’ quarterback Jacob Laberge near the Raiders’ sideline.
On Sunday, Rebels team president Doug Kobayashi wrote a letter of apology to the Raiders. “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,” he wrote in a statement.
According to Laberge, the fan said, “Hey 12, great game, man,” and went for a fist bump, but instead threw coffee. Laberge said the incident wasn’t a negative distraction. “He got me pumped up, he got us fired up on our offence,” he said.
Raiders head coach Jerome Erdman called the incident "embarrassing and shocking".
“What kind of moron does that? … 99.999 per cent of these fans are absolutely awesome, but all it takes is one idiot to do that,” he said.
In response to the security concerns, fans were not allowed onto the field after the game.
“This disgraceful act was apparently motivated by a bet with the suspect’s friends,” said West Shore RCMP Const. Alex Berube, adding that the event was an “isolated incident.” The man was released on Promise to Appear on Dec. 29.
– with files from Greg Sakaki
editor@goldstreamgazette.com