Michigan Investigates Team Hazing

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--The president of the University of Michigan, Harold Shapiro, this week issued a statement censoring the varsity hockey team for allegedly abandoning a naked, drunken freshman outside in near-freezing weather during a hazing incident.

The Michigan Daily reported that the five freshmen who made the varsity hockey squad were taken Sunday night to the off-campus home of one of the players where they were given alcohol until they became sick. Then the older players stripped the freshmen, shaved them from the waist down and drove them back to their dormitories in the hatchback of a Plymouth Duster, The Daily reported.

Dormitory residents said they found one of the freshmen shivering uncontrollably on the doorstep, covered with egg, jam and shaving cream. He was blue with cold and it took two hours for his body to return to normal body temperature, the residents said.

All 26 members of the hockey team, including the five freshmen, signed a statement contesting the Daily reports, calling them "grossly exaggerated." The statement said peer pressure, not physical force, was used to encourage the freshmen to drink heavily, and that the intent had not been to make students sick.

Athletics Director Don Canham discussed the incident with the hockey team but no students have been disciplined in connection with the hazing.