McGill hockey team intent on erasing blemish Mar 23, 06 Ice Hockey (M)

By Dan Barnes, The Edmonton Journal

McGill hockey team intent on erasing blemish
Aim to repair prestigious school's image at CIS championship in wake of football squad's hazing incident

by Dan Barnes
(reprinted from The Edmonton Journal)

EDMONTON -- McGill's hockey players haven't been skating, sweating and bleeding all season in hopes of repairing their storied school's tattered public image.

They didn't rise to No. 1 in the rankings for the first time ever and scratch their way into this week's University Cup championship tournament by convincing themselves Canadians might suddenly remember 2005-06 for their unprecedented on-ice success rather than the shame McGill's football team brought upon itself and their institution, which occupies a spot both literally and figuratively in the heart of Montreal.

But every one of those hockey Redmen has friends who played for the football team, at least until the season was cancelled in the wake of a highly publicized hazing incident during which first-year players were physically abused. Because it happened where it did, and affected people they call friends, the hockey players could not possibly ignore its devastating ramifications for the football program, the school and their buddies. It is solemn knowledge they keep with them even here and now, in a moment they can seize, perhaps giving their embarrassed alumni and members of the general public something far better to talk about.

"McGill was made to look horrible because of this," said third-year left-winger Shawn Shewchuk of Lloydminster. "We definitely see this as a way to reverse the bad stuff.

"We're here trying to erase all the bad news."

The incident was sordid, the headlines grim and the punishment from Canadian Interuniversity Sport officials fittingly harsh. McGill football will have to live with the shame of suspension for ages. While every other athletics program on campus was distanced from it, the athletes know how much damage was done to the school's reputation and they took it personally.

"It happened right in front of our eyes, on our campus," said Shewchuk. "They made a mistake, they know it and they had to pay a price. It was a learning experience for a lot of schools, a wake-up call. That stuff isn't accepted."

Its aftermath reduced the football players to spectators, but at least they did that with enthusiasm, showing up en masse in Trois Rivieres to support their hockey friends during the playoffs.

It is a university hockey team like any other, with the usual mix of rookies, second- and third-year players and fifth-year veterans like captain Pierre-Antoine Paquet of Cap Rouge, Que., who is playing his last few games here this week. He almost packed it in after last season, but took a flier on one more year and was rewarded with McGill's first trip to the CIS tournament in the 43-year history of the event. He is quick to remind himself that some fifth-year football players were denied his good fortune. By their own hand, in some cases.

"Worst feeling in the world," Paquet said. "Awful. It really sucks for them but they have to put it behind them, go back to their studies and finish their degrees. I can't imagine. I feel for those guys. It makes me appreciate even more that I'm here in my last year."

Motivation comes in many forms and if the football team's fall from grace makes every one of the Redmen play a little more desperate hockey tonight against the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks, well, it can't hurt. They're underdogs who are already making history here, and that's an important part of playing hockey at McGill, which lays claim to "the oldest operating and most prestigious hockey club in the world," according to its website. Students organized a team in 1877 and wrote rules that are still acknowledged as the first for the sport.

Founded in 1821 and named after a Scottish immigrant who donated his 46-acre estate and 10,000 British pounds for the campus, McGill also boasts some impressive alumni: former Prime Ministers Sir John Abbott and Sir Wilfrid Laurier, poets Leonard Cohen and Irving Layton, actor William Shatner, embattled business baron Conrad Black, International Olympic Committee member Richard Pound and former Montreal goalie Ken Dryden among them.

The entire 1933-34 Redmen hockey team was inducted into the university's hall of fame. Team member Ken Farmer, who died in 2005 at the age of 92, once told the Montreal Gazette he was saluted by Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. He was playing for Canada, who lost the gold medal in a huge upset to Great Britain. Farmer was one of McGill's famed Four Horsemen and would go on to serve as president of the 1978 Commonwealth Games organizing committee in Edmonton and president of the Canadian Olympic Association.

The hockey Redmen are mindful that they represent those people and their history.

"I'm so proud to play for McGill," said Paquet. "Yes, it has such a long history but it's also the academics and the alumni involvement, which is strong. People who graduate stick around. They find jobs for other graduates. It's the whole picture that makes me proud."

The football program put a black mark on that picture this year. Some of it can be wiped away this week.

dbarnes@thejournal.canwest.com

© The Edmonton Journal 2006