Kuch’s Corner: Rookie Parties

Usually the caché of making an elite sports team also comes with the unnecessary initiation known as “welcome nights,” “rookie parties,” or just plain old hazing. And it’s a widespread ritual for too many brotherhoods all over the world; even the Russian Army initiates their soldiers and more of them have died doing that than actually fighting in Chechnya. Recently in Manitoba, where there is ostensibly nothing to fucking do but play hockey and cook meth, the Neepawa Natives junior hockey team were caught for hazing and were subsequently suspended by their league. The details of the party weren’t really disclosed except for allegedly some beer bottles maybe being strung to dicks and left to hang.

Like any athlete who managed to get passed house-league, rep-teams, or shitty leagues you had to pay to play in, I was ushered into bro-dom by a night of vicious assault, alcohol poisoning, and extreme homoeroticism. In light of the shitty version W-Five will probably tell you how one of these soirées goes down, I’ve decided that I’m going to end the sacred code of silence among athletes, forbidding us to talk about the most severely fucked up night in our lives. And just so we’re clear, hazing is not isolated to a single sport or just to dudes, ladies teams are also in on the festivities.

In honour of the many sports seasons opening and the legion of rookie parties that are in no doubt full swing, here’s what innocent little rookies can expect in they night of ritualized-tribal abuse.

Because athletes are late to discover every interesting drug until they develop their mid-twenties coke problem, they substitute it with copious amounts of alcohol. Rookie parties always typically begin with the types of drinking habits you usually see on that show Intervention just with no Listerine. What usually involves a series of obstacles that results in you throwing up blood behind a Wendy’s dumpster and waking up with a piss drenched man-diaper often kicks off with forced beer bong rounds of something hellacious like a 26’er of Wild Turkey mixed with six beers.

Now, once you’re on the cusp of blackout drunk, enter the obstacles. This can include tons of weird shit from “elephant walks” (which is basically walking and jerking other rookies off in a procession), getting a broomstick rammed up your ass, eating fruit out of your buddy’s ass-hole after losing a grape race (which is racing naked with a grape firmly shoved up your butt) or getting the shit kicked out of you in a variety of ways. And that’s the most creative part of the night. I’ve heard stories of sliding down a play-structure lined with sandpaper, or being shot with a paintball gun as you make your way across monkey bars. Keep in mind, this is always done naked or with a makeshift diaper that was violently (yet sexually) taped to you against your will. For me, I got repeatedly spanked with a cricket-paddle while wearing a man-thong (which is as gay as it sounds), and then the bucket of rookie-puke that had been generously amassed over the course of the night was dumped on me. Anyways, by the end of the night I had a black eye from a punch, a slashed open leg that needed stitches from broken glass I passed out on, and a stomach parasite courtesy of ingesting vomit that wasn’t mine.

A lot of rookie parties I’ve heard of, specifically junior hockey rookie parties, involve end-of-the-night team orgies with “puck sluts,” “swamp-donkeys” and “wart-hogs”; which is to say, some poor unsuspecting girl in high school that is expected to blow half a team. And although I wish this was mere hyperbole, it’s really not. Veteran players on a team are often expected to purposely invite these girls over for this exact goal. It’s notable to mention those hazings that do erode into full-scale sex-parties aren’t safe-sex parties. Most athletes I know wouldn’t pay child support, think that they’re immune to the clap or herpes, haven’t heard of HIV, and thus commit many of their most brazen sexual acts with strangers and without protection. A former teammate of mine is revered as “Raw Dog” and to this day he avoids places like London, Ontario in fear of encountering his bastard child.

The main thing to remember is that rookie parties always need to stay confidential leaks can cause serious PR damage to a team and an individual. Photo evidence cannot exist and everyone is usually sworn to secrecy. Some players who do rat are ostracized to the point of leaving the team, or labelled as a snake. But most of all it’s not just league suspensions and legal actions by the cops to fear. Somebody could be forever known as the asshole who tried to forcefully shove the butt-end of a hockey-stick up another guy’s ass. Trust me, I know that guy and he can’t get a job and it’s not because of the recession.