Tag Archives: college hockey

Central Michigan U Hockey Club Suspended for Five Years, Given “Death Penalty” Over Hazing

And now, Central Michigan University, just up the road from the BadJocks Bunker is getting serious about sports hazing. Just a few weeks ago we had the SUNY Geneseo adminstration handing out the death penalty to the women’s volleyball team. Now, CMU has suspended the school’s “club” hockey team (not an official NCAA team) for five years after an off-campus hazing party. The most interesting part of the story is that players from the team went into the hearing thinking the worst they could get was a four year suspension, but somehow they ended up with five. They really must have made a strong case for their side.

More details from CM Life:

The Central Michigan club hockey team received a five-year suspension Friday for violating the Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities and Disciplinary Procedures, according to the Office of Student Life. The team was charged with violation of section 3.2.13 (alcohol policy), section 3.2.19 (hazing) and section 3.2.25 (violations by a registered student organization), said Tom Idema, assistant director of Student Life.

“There was a hearing this morning and the men’s club hockey team at CMU was found in violation of all charges,” Idema said. “As a result, (the team) has been suspended for five years, or until fall 2017.” Team president Matt Cinader, a senior from Ortonville, and team adviser Robert Gergehl met with Idema and other members of the Office of Student Life Friday morning for the team’s hearing, said senior captain Ricky Jones.

“There were four of us, and our faculty adviser, but only the faculty adviser and Matt Cinader went into the hearing,” Jones said. “It lasted about an hour and each side told their side.” Jones said the team went into the hearing wanting a one to two year probationary period, with weekly meetings with the Office of Student Life, community service hours and meetings with the community’s youth to promote abstinence from alcohol and hazing.

“The university proposed a four-year ban, but, somehow, it became a five-year ban after the hearing,” he said. “They said they wanted every person involved in the organization to be gone by the time the team came around again, including the freshmen.”

College Hockey Game Turns Into Brawl, Ends With Referee Slashed in Face w. Skate

Somehow, we missed the infamous “St. Olaf College vs Carleton College Club Hockey Brawl” earlier this month, but thanks to a loyal reader, we were alerted to this incident. Basically, it sounds like the Oles (nickname for St. Olaf fans) started it off with the usual verbal abuse of their opponents. Nothing unusual in college sports there. But then they progressed to throwing bottles and cans onto the ice. That, of course, is also not THAT unusual in college sports, but it tends to happen in large football stadiums where the cans and bottle tend to make it only down to the unfortunate spectators in the front row. That hardly ever stops football games.

But when you throw something on the ice, they kinda have to stop the game.

Of course, St. Olaf was penalized for that, but it didn’t quiet the fans down. Shortly thereafter, additional cans and bottle hit the ice along with–wait for it!–TIRES FROM THE ZAMBONI. The article in the school newspaper, The Daily Oloafer, does not say if these were spare tires, Zamboni tires the students snuck in under their winter coats, or if the crowd ripped them from the ice cleaning machine, but essentially things were pretty much over at that point.

Hockey players, seeing the dismantled Zamboni as a sign of the Apocalypse, starting brawling like it was the end of the world and eventually a referee was somehow slashed in the face with a skate and lay on the ice with blood spurting from his head.

Naturally, the game was called a draw and the police spend hours afterwords clearing up the brawls OUTSIDE the arena. And people wonder why hockey just hasn’t caught on in the US as a major sport? Could it be the on-ice fighting? Or maybe the lack of proper Zamboni protection? We may never know.

The stands were packed with students, predominantly Oles, many of whom began the evening shouting profanities and other negative cheers, including the standard “Carleton sucks!”

The St. Olaf players were just as rambunctious as the fans. “St. Olaf had about as many penalty minutes as they had game minutes,” spectator Thomas Hegland ’13 said. When the crowd threw soda cans and bottles onto the ice, St. Olaf was penalized, and additional bottles and cans along with zamboni tires were thrown onto the ice in retaliation.

With all of the St. Olaf penalty minutes, Carleton was able to achieve a sizeable three-point lead. In the final period, a commotion near the hash marks caught the attention of Ole player Austin Bly ’12, who had just seized the puck.

Players exchanged words and threw punches, with an Ole instigating the battle. Ryan Campbell ’11 was among the first Oles to enter the fight. Though the referees tried to stop the madness, both Carleton and St. Olaf benches quickly cleared, escalating the incident from hockey squabble to full-fledged brawl.

At some point, through the chaos, Christophe Porot ’12 announced that a referee had been injured and was bleeding profusely after taking a skate to the face. The game ended in a draw. Multiple squad cars arrived to break up fights outside the arena.

San Jose State Hockey Club Suspended Over Drinking, Hazing Allegations

First off: San Jose State has a hockey team? That in and of itself is pretty noteworthy. Unfortunately, the success of this club team (not an NCAA sanctioned team) may have gone to their heads and lead to some excessive team drinking. Not a lot of details just yet, but apparently someone was required to drink alcohol from a ice skate boot. And our guess is that it wasn’t disinfected first. Then again, they do use rubbing alcohol to kill germs, so maybe it wasn’t that bad.

No, it was still bad, wasn’t it?

Here’s what little we know from KTVU:

San Jose State University has suspended it’s highly ranked club hockey team amid questions about drinking and hazing. The team’s game Friday night against San Diego State University was postponed as university officials started an investigation into the 25-member team “We received a telephone call from a parent who was very concerned about behavior among team members and we understand this behavior involves drinking,” university spokeswoman Pat Harris said.The school would not comment on the specifics but a source told KTVU’s Lloyd LaCuesta that there was video of a rookie, under age player, drinking alcohol out of a skating boot. In another incident, some team members drank alcohol on a flight from an out-of-town game.