Rugby incident not hazing says athletic director

By Taylor Renkema

There will not be any consequences for the men’s rugby team at Loyalist College after a party on college residence resulted in one player being sent to hospital.

A first year player said he passed out and hit his head after drinking from a bottle of vodka that was being passed around a circle of first-year players at the party almost two weeks ago. An ambulance was called and he was taken to hospital.

Loyalist’s Athletic Director Jim Buck said he talked to some veteran players about what happened at the party.

“Obviously we’d like to see none of our varsity athletes drinking and partying, but let’s be realistic,” he said. “They’re college age students and student athletes and that’s going to happen. We just try and make sure that they make educated decisions.”

Buck said he still has to talk to the injured first-year player, Kyle Fernhout, about the incident. Most of the controversy arose when Fernhout talked about “the peer pressure of doing that [drinking] with the teammates,” and “trying to get accepted into the team.”

Buck said he talked to some veteran players about the party and they assured him it was not a matter of hazing.

“They’re pretty honest guys that have been with our program for a couple of years and they’ve assured me that there was no issue of hazing at all,” he said. “They know as rookies before that that’s been our policy for a long time and they respect that. It didn’t happen when they were rookies and they’re not going to let it happen there.”

Fernhout’s teammate Albert Cormier said the team has no animosity towards him.

“We brought him in closer than what he was before because it’s not his fault, or anybody else’s fault it’s just the way it happened,” he said. “It’s not wrong, it’s not right, it’s the way it was.”