Russian coach fired after kicking a player on the bench.

If you've been around the sport of hockey long enough, especially at the youth level, you've probably had the misfortune of running into a bad coach or two. Bad coaches can take many different forms but the ones that are typically the most reviled are those that tend to cross the line when it comes to the treatment of players under their care. What is more unusual however is to see a coach act in such a manner at the professional level.

Of course cases like that do happen as well. Some notable examples have included Mike Babcock, with accusations from former players like Johan Franzen and Chris Chelios, and Bill Peters with accusations stemming from former National Hockey League player Akim Aliu, but usually those are few and far between. In those cases the abuse was verbal in nature, but that isn't always the case either.

Recently a Russian hockey coach took abuse of a player to another level entirely when he didn't limit himself to verbal abuse but actually physically assaulted one of his players in the middle of a game. That coach was Vladimir Gromilin and the entire thing was caught on video, which makes him not only appear to be a jerk, but a jerk that doesn't seem to have a ton going on between the ears.

Whether Vladimir Gromilin was aware that the cameras were him on not matters little, because the fact is that they caught him kicking one of his very own players on the bench. Now it wasn't the hardest kick you're ever going to see, but if a coach feels comfortable doing that in the public eye it does make you wonder about how he might be treating his players once they are behind closed doors or at the very least away from prying eyes.

Here's a look at the incident:

It wasn't the harshest thing you'll see but a coach should never be treating a player that way and it would seem Gromilin will now learn that lesson the hard way. According to a report from Elite Prospects, the coach has been fired for this act, and rightfully so.