Up to date Sept. 10, 2026, 9:49 p.m. ET
4 hockey mother and father filed a federal class-action lawsuit in opposition to Black Bear Sports activities Group, alleging that the youth hockey behemoth misled households by requiring them to e-book rooms at particular motels and inflated costs throughout their kids’s competitions.
The mother and father say they have been charged “junk charges” and will often discover cheaper charges on the identical motels with out utilizing Black Bear’s reserving platform. However they mentioned that Black Bear coerced them into paying steep room costs by threatening to disqualify their youngsters and groups from enjoying if they didn’t comply.
The lawsuit, filed Sept. 1 within the U.S. District Court docket in Delaware, alleges that Black Bear’s “stay-to-play” lodge insurance policies at tournaments and different occasions defrauded households of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} and unnecessarily drove up the worth to play.
“The allegations on this lawsuit are solely with out advantage,” mentioned Doug Gansler, an legal professional representing Black Bear, in an emailed assertion. “There is no such thing as a coercion or coverup, and plaintiffs are both misinformed or deliberately distorting the details. Keep-to-play insurance policies are clearly laid out on the league and event web sites, and the contracts mother and father signal clarify that the group receives rebates from collaborating motels.”
The lawsuit comes on the heels of a USA TODAY investigation in Might, which discovered that Black Bear aggressively purchased up dozens of ice rinks in 11 states – together with many in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan and Connecticut – then leveraged that management to lift costs, drive out longstanding community-based groups and exchange them with costly, for-profit alternate options.
“It’s only a cash seize from mother and father,” Karen Dahlberg O’Connell, the patron safety legal professional for Almeida Legislation Group who filed the case, informed USA TODAY. “Individuals ought to have the ability to select the place they wish to keep.”
“Keep-to-play” guidelines have turn out to be more and more commonplace in youth sports activities. They’re one focus of the “Let Youngsters Play Act,” a federal invoice that goals to finish “vulture practices” within the youth sports activities trade, which generates an estimated $40 billion yearly.
Black Bear is one in every of a number of private-equity companies and big-money funding teams which have consolidated enormous slices of the youth sports activities ecosystems for hockey, flag soccer, baseball, basketball, volleyball and cheerleading – additional turning what have been as soon as community-based actions into revenue autos for rich buyers.
Along with rinks, Black Bear owns or operates tons of of youth hockey groups, leagues, tournaments, showcases, a scorekeeping software program and Black Bear TV, a stay streaming service that payments households tons of of {dollars} a 12 months to look at their youngsters’ video games. Tens of hundreds of children take part in Black Bear’s stay-to-play tournaments and different occasions annually.
Past the lawsuit, Black Bear faces one other authorized risk from the Michigan Legal professional Normal’s Workplace, which launched an investigation into the corporate earlier this 12 months for probably anticompetitive enterprise practices.
“Keep-to-play insurance policies are used all through aggressive youth hockey and by USA Hockey, the game’s nationwide governing board, to make sure ample lodge rooms for collaborating groups and to create a greater general occasion expertise for gamers,” Gansler’s assertion mentioned. “These insurance policies are additionally used all through different aggressive youth sports activities for a similar causes.”
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs – Gary Oliver, Brendan Kane, and Scott and Jennifer Wachterhauser – are mother and father of youth hockey gamers in Delaware, New York and New Jersey. Every has youngsters who’ve performed in a number of Defender hockey tournaments, a Black Bear subsidiary model.
Defender requires all groups based mostly at the very least 60 or 75 miles from its occasions’ host rinks to e-book rooms at particular motels from which it receives kickbacks – even when gamers have members of the family they might stick with within the space or would like to commute, use their very own lodge factors or e-book an AirBnb.
“All groups and individuals are required to e-book their lodge lodging by way of the event’s official housing supplier,” Defender’s web site says. “Households are to not contact the lodge on to e-book rooms for the occasion.”
Defender’s web site provides there are “No exceptions” to these guidelines. Because the lawsuit alleges, nevertheless, Black Bear on different elements of its web site affords a “buyout payment” as an alternative choice to the necessities. The lawsuit says Black Bear hid that reality to “deceptively induce” mother and father to order rooms at its most popular motels by way of its reserving platform.
The mother or father plaintiffs every paid greater room charges by reserving by way of Defender than they might have paid by reserving by way of Expedia, Inns.com or the lodge’s personal web site, as screenshots connected to the lawsuit present.
Moreover, Defender charged every of the mother and father unexplained charges once they made the reservations, the lawsuit says, whereas offering little or nothing of worth in return. Among the charges Defender charged are listed on receipts as merely, “Non-refundable payment” or “Charged Now.”
The lawsuit calls these “junk charges,” which the Federal Commerce Fee describes as “unfair or misleading charges which can be charged for items or companies which have little or no added worth to the patron.”
Among the many counts listed in opposition to Black Bear are violations of the Delaware Client Fraud Act, the New Jersey Client Fraud Act, the New York Normal Enterprise Legislation and unjust enrichment. The category of individuals the lawsuit goals to cowl extends past these states to probably anybody whose little one attended a Black Bear stay-to-play occasion within the final three to 6 years.
Black Bear refuted these allegations, saying insurance policies such because the “buyout payment” don’t exist.
“Exemptions are made on a case by case foundation for very particular circumstances akin to when room blocks are not obtainable or if a crew has a particular want {that a} lodge cannot accommodate,” Gansler’s assertion mentioned. “We are going to vigorously defend these insurance policies – that are practically equivalent to USA Hockey and different aggressive sports activities – and anticipate to prevail in opposition to the three plaintiffs that introduced this case.”
Youth sports activities and massive enterprise
The lawsuit will not be the primary to tackle stay-to-play practices in youth sports activities.
Varsity Manufacturers, a private-equity backed firm that controls a lot of youth cheerleading, paid $82.5 million in 2024 to settle a lawsuit introduced by plaintiffs in 35 states who alleged, amongst different issues, that Varsity pressured them to purchase pointless lodge rooms at its competitions.
Dahlberg O’Connell, who filed the lawsuit in opposition to Black Bear, filed one other class-action lawsuit in Might in opposition to Group Journey Supply, a serious participant within the stay-to-play house, over comparable practices.
“What we want is for folks to determine that they don’t wish to do stay-to-play and discover methods to get round it, both by getting collectively and boycotting Black Bear tournaments or selecting one other league,” she mentioned. “It’s onerous for fogeys, nevertheless it’s going to take collective motion.”
The lawsuit filed this month says that throughout the nation, some households are feeling cash-strapped to maintain up with the rising prices of youth sports activities.
“Mother and father are feeling the pinch,” the lawsuit says, citing a current research. “The common household paid practically $1,500 for one little one’s sports activities experiences in 2024, and the associated fee for households with a couple of little one collaborating in a sport was undoubtedly greater.”
The dramatic enhance in prices has led to a widening earnings hole in youth journey sports activities, the lawsuit mentioned, noting that “youth gamers from households incomes $100,000 or extra per 12 months are two occasions extra more likely to play journey sports activities than these from houses making below $50,000.”
