More ex-Sarnia players come forward to detail hazing abuse
As soon as Dave Pszenyczny started reading Dan Carcillo’s tweets, he knew he had to speak with his dad and his wife.
Pszenyczny and Carcillo were 17year-old rookies together on the 200203 Sarnia Sting, and Carcillo has recently said that first-year players on the Ontario Hockey League team were subjected to abusive hazing from older teammates.
Inspired by his longtime friend, Pszenyczny wanted to speak up too. But not before telling his story to the people closest to him.
“It’s kind of weird, I’m 33-years old but I’m talking to my dad like I’m 16-years old again,” said Pszenyczny on Tuesday in a phone interview with The Canadian Press. “You almost don’t want to tell anybody, because you’re embarrassed about what happened.”
In a series of tweets over the weekend, Carcillo alleged he was beat with the paddle of a broken goalie stick, locked in the washroom on the team’s charter bus with six or seven other rookies as veteran players spat through the air vents, and urinated on in showers, among other incidents.
A two-time Stanley Cup champion, Carcillo was inspired to open up about his experience after news broke about an alleged sexual assault involving athletes at St. Michael’s College School, an all-boys private school in Toronto. The 33-year old also thought it would be helpful to share his story as part of Twitter’s Bullying Awareness Week.
Pszenyczny and Charles Amodeo, who joined the Sting for the 2003-04 season, saw Carcillo’s allegations and wanted to help end the toxic cycle of degrading behaviour by sharing their similar stories of abuse.
“Our goal is not to get anybody fired. It’s not to point fingers. It’s just to make people aware of what goes on,” Pszenyczny said.
“My parents let me leave home at 15, 16 years old. If they knew this stuff was happening I’m sure they’d have pulled me right out. It’s unfortunate that it’s come to this but at least we’re getting our story out now.”
All three former teammates agree that they handled the alleged abuse differently. Amodeo said he became skittish, terrified about what could happen to him next. Carcillo said he was prone to lashing out at the veteran players as the abuse was happening. Pszenyczny said he would play along but then at practice he would start fist fights, knowing the older players couldn’t gang up on him out on the ice.
Pszenyczny believes that the fighting saved him from the worst of the abuse — he has no memory of being urinated or spat on in the shower, but said he did witness it.
Still, he said he was subjected to horrific treatment. He said during practice or games the rookies’ street clothes would be soaked in the shower and then put in a freezer so they were frozen solid when it was time to get dressed. He also said younger players had to get naked and into rolling laundry bins filled with unwashed equipment and were then pushed around the arena in what the veteran players called “the Rookie Rocket.” He said one rookie fell out of his bin and required stitches afterwards.
Carcillo and Pszenyczny both allege that the coaching staff was aware of the hazing and say that a series of increasingly dangerous incidents brought things to a tipping point.
They say they believed complaining to the Sting management would fall on deaf ears. Instead, Carcillo contacted David Branch, the Ontario Hockey League’s commissioner, and Pszenyczny believes another of the 12 rookies in Sarnia contacted Hockey Canada.