Hockey suspension serves as a warning to student-athletes

By Seth Daniel

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One Revere High School (RHS) Hockey player has been suspended and stripped of his team captain status this week, and RHS administrators said they are using it as a warning to all students and student-athletes.

Word came last week that there had been quite a party at the student’s home recently and it included a number of underage kids drinking alcohol. Details of the party were pretty scant, but apparently it was made much worse by the social networking site Facebook.

While the event wasn’t as high profile as other similar parties in the past, school officials did find out about it eventually and conducted a number of interviews with the student and his parents.

That led to the discipline.

The student hockey player was levied the following penalties:

• stripped of hockey team captain status

• banned from hockey practice this week

• will miss the team’s first game today, Dec. 15th

• already missed last weekend’s team jamboree

• has been suspended from school for two days

Administrators said it is a case that they hope students and parents will take note of.

“I think I could say our athletic department and school community expects our students and student-athletes not to partake in such activities,” said Athletic Director Shaun Hart. “It’s spelled out very well in our Student Handbook and our Athletics Handbook. We hold our student-athletes to a very high standard. It’s important for all of them to know that playing here requires one to behave with sportsmanship and discipline. When you put on a Revere uniform, we expect a high standard. When that’s not the case, we are going to make sure we uphold the high standard for them when they aren’t willing to do it themselves.”

Superintendent Paul Dakin echoed those statements, saying that the schools will not ignore bad behavior – even outside of school.

“Hopefully all of the kids will learn from this experience,” said Dakin. “Penalties are enforced and are required by the state and the Student Handbook if we find out things. That’s just the way this works.”