Hazing gets the gate

Hate to disturb you from World Series fever -- is anyone out there feeling it? C'mon now, someone's got to have it -- but how do you feel about hazing?

This is a hot-button subject right now. I turned on the CBC this morning, and they'd trotted out the dreaded "sports sociologist" for comment. The newspaper editorialists are weighing in, along with Pat Quinn and Wayne Gretzky, and most everyone is condemnatory.

This is as much a question of social custom, though, as it is one of sport -- the first haircut, for instance, is closely paralleled by the bean shaves that rookies in team sports are often subjected to. Sometimes these traditions, especially when they involve closed societies (like a team sport, with it's built-in insiders/outsiders dynamic), turn quite nasty -- anyone who saw Goodfellas, for example, might conclude that these kinds of initiations aren't necessarily a secure career move.

The Ontario Hockey League has adopted a zero-tolerance policy on these matters, so the penalties have been heavy. The situation has been equated, unfairly, with what's happened at McGill University, where the rest of the football season has been cancelled because of humiliating and degrading hazing.

But nobody in Windsor was hurt. Four rookies were targetted for the rite because they were rookies, and nothing more. You might be repulsed by it, and it's silly and stupid, but it's the same kind of thing that's been going on "since Plato's time, probably", according to Quinn. Hey, it's junior hockey, not nuclear physics. As Star junior hockey chronicler Sunaya Sapurji has noted in her blog, the hazing might have been a flashpoint that led to a fight between rookie Akim Aliu and veteran Steve Downie -- or it might not have, the incidents being 19 days apart. Whatever you figure, there are no saints to be found in this whole mess.

I don't buy the slippery-slope argument here, or see how the two situations -- McGill and the Spits, that is -- are equal. As for the Spitfires' hazing, and the fighting, the latter is a far worse example of losing control when it comes to a coach's responsibility, and that of his players. Zero tolerance doesn't allow for such fine distinctions, though. 

Elsewhere this morning, this is what's rattling our chains:

The Astros are finally going to the World Series, so let the snooze alarm games begin! And that is, indeed, the end of the line for Larry Walker.

The Argos head into Montreal this weekend, relying on Sean Millington to carry a heavy load.

Alvin Williams is back, and Vince Carter is applauding. For five minutes, anyway, which is maybe five minutes more than anyone figured at the start of training camp. He might even be ready to do more. And not to make ya shudder but: Dennis Rodman in Tijuana?

Cathal Kelly takes a look at FIFA boss Sepp Blatter, and doesn't much like the view.

Oh, and this: in Oklahoma City, Eric James Torpy, convicted of shooting with intent to kill and robbery, argued for a longer sentence than the 30 years agreed to by defence and prosecuting attorneys:

“He said if he was going to go down, he was going to go down in Larry Bird’s jersey,” Oklahoma County District Judge Ray Elliott said of the sentece, 33 years to match the former Boston Celtic's number. “We accommodated his request and he was just as happy as he could be. I’ve never seen anything like this in 26 years in the courthouse. But, I know the DA is happy about it.’’

Comments

[warren shapiro]

Defending the undefensible is admirable. This is a really stupid defense. if you dont get hazing out of amateur sports, you risk losing all of the kids that fear the initiation for one reason or another. You support the idea of bullying, and you find the pranks that they pull on rookies amusing. Better to write up a rookie initiation which spells out that your hair will be cropped or something simple like that but to have a student fear "the broom" or being made to parade around naked for ridicule and public degradation thats just stupid. I guess until someone really gets hurt like has happened at fraternity and sorority initiations, there is no sense to address the issue in your mind. Just because it has been going on forever is one of the more assinine comments in your blog. I think of religious persecution, womens rights, basic human rights.... Why did we change those? Think before you waste ink and support the idiot fringe again and please be more responsible

[Ryan]

Chris:

I have read your columns for years. I have always found your insights
to be intelligent and your writing informative and clear. I have to
express a certain amount of dismay at the logic you used to
rationalize the hazing incidents. The fact that something has been
happening for years is neither a justification or an explanation,
rather a rationalization that breaks every rule of rhetoric and logic

Obviously just because it's been "happening since plato" (which is
also highly debatable and quite possibly entirely untrue -- Pat Quinn's words, not yours, admittedly} doesn't
mean it is desirable, worthwhile, or something as a culture and a
society that we aspire to. In fact, we may have decided that type of
behavior is, like human sacrifice and leaching, an anachronism and
inappropriate; counter-productive and wasteful; harmful and a
profound expression of ignorance.

You may support hazing , or find there is nothing wrong with it in
principle (of course until it happens to your child) but it is
nothing more that institutional bullying, it can be divisive on a
team. Since when is humiliation a teaching device anyone endorses.

People have a right in this culture to be able to go into a
situation, whether it is work, school or under professional care, and
fully expect not to be humiliated, harassed or marginalized.

Obviously anything harmless is harmless. However people have
demonstrated over history that self regulation is is the exception
that proves the rule.

[cy]

I don't support bullying -- who does? I don't find it in the least amusing.
But to repeat: the McGill incident and the one involving the Windsor Spitfires are two very different things, in my opinion. The former involves a degree of violence and intimidation that are well beyond acceptable -- and they were older, supposedly wiser heads involved. But because of the dictates of the 24-hour news cycle, they've been lumped together.
As for the context, I do think it's important at understanding that these things are a part of our culture, and have been for some time. In the case of the Spitfires, these kids were being silly, stupid and yeah, it was creepy. But did they know any better? The OHL employed a brand-new, never before used policy here. Did the kids deserve to have their season flushed away because they were silly and stupid? I hate to sound like one of those Cherry types here -- or Darcy Tucker, quoted today as almost laughing the whole thing off -- but nobody got hurt here, at least until they had one of those dustups in practice that might or might not have been connected, and are another long-established ritualistic parts of the junior hockey landscape (I know this; I covered the league for two years). Unlike McGill, where total disapproval and punishment was appropriate, this is one case where a little nuance would have gone a long way.

[denial]

chris... chrischris... I am going to hazard a guess (notice I didn't say hazing a guess; also note that I'm wearing pants for this particular post) that you didn't have a termendous amount of fun writing your defense of the indefensible. I'm actually not convinced that your heart is behind it. I think what you're trying to do, as all good mediators do, is pull back from the details and try to shed light on the principle -- which is, yes, that there is a rite of passage very worthy of Joseph Conrad in sports teams. In fact, sports teams themselves -- the very concept of them -- are built upon very clear and not at all original cultural symbols. In fact, it's downright blatant: specialized vocabulary to distinguish insider from outsider, uniforms to distinguish friend from foe, rampant heterosexualism to distinguish homosexuals from themselves....you name it, it's there. If outer space aliens landed in Mel Lastman Square -- or even in Mel Lastman himself -- and needed to know what earth culture was, you could take them to a marlies game and that would be that.

At issue here isn't the fact that young men AND young women (remember those female soccer players in the states who had to introduce their mouths to the happy end of a banana? USC maybe?) are subjected to stuff that is, without question, a violation of human rights legislation in every civilized country on earth. Even Don Cherry, the Patron Saint of Wrong Thought, couldn't argue for long that it's 'right' to force someone to do something that they cannot be forced to do.

The issue here is whether hockey teams and hockey culture can and should be able to function outside of the generally accepted living principles of regular society (and no, not picking on hockey, but that's the lightening rod right now). The answer is, of course, no. Not because hockey is evil or Flaming Moe Mantha is going to hell (I figure living in Windsor is bad enough, right? am i right folks? is this thing on!?). But because hockey, like all sports, is at core a thing that achieves a social function. who cares if its tax dollars subsidizing McGill football players, or some kid ordering nachos at a game in Windsor. Hockey is a social game. It needs society. It needs to integrate with the society in which it is played. And that's NOT what happened in Windsor or Montreal.

The world has changed significantly in the last 20 years. It has grown up quite a bit; if for no other reason than it has had no choice. People expect more from employees today. People expect more from politicians (20 years ago, Dingwall could have bought a planet -- i mean like saturn or uranus - and nobody would have known). People expect more from their blogs. People expect more from TV. People expect more from their cereal (have you SEEN how many there are now? It's a golden era, i tell you).

And people expect more from hockey players. The leap into the 21st century has to be made, and MoMa and the McGill guys got caught, and now an example will be made of them because a message has to be sent and they're being used to send it. Do they deserve it? Hell yes. I mean, why use someone who didn't do something to send a message? What's the sense in that?

But in the overall sense, as long as we aren't looking at details and we're looking at principles, this has to be done. Hockey is not merely going to border on irrelevance if it doesn't grow up, it will border on being anti-social and criminal. This is a small price to pay to send a wake up call to the GMs and coaches across the league.