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October 26, 2005
But funnily enough, my cold is better...
Ridley kids were nothing but ill-bred hooligans back in my day, and it appears nothing has changed:
The Ridley College junior football team was forced to forfeit its final regular-season game after 17 of its players admitted taking part in a "grotesque" hazing.
Jonathan Leigh, the headmaster at the private high school in St. Catharines, said yesterday that the 14-year-old rookies were goaded into rubbing a substance that gives a burning/stinging sensation on to their "lower private parts."
A welcome break, I would have thought, from being peed on in the shower. The fellow who told me of that little Ridley tradition sent me the following:
You know, more and more I'm remembering that my experience with this was extremely similar. It went like this:
The setting
A bus full of kids on their way to or from some athletic event.
How it went down
OLDER KID: Hey man, you've got to try rubbing this Vicks VapoRub on your nutsack. It feels awesome. All tingly and stuff.
YOUNGER KID: Really? Wow. Let me try.
OLDER KID: Just make sure you apply a lot.
And before you could say "medicated vapors" the younger kid would be in searing pain, clutching himself and writhing around. Cue universal derision from his peers.
I've played both parts in this particular set piece, and it was good times all around. It warms my heart to see that the tradition lives on. It doesn't warm my heart, though, that somebody squealed. What the fuck!
I don't think the foregoing falls under the definition of "hazing," either. Nobody scrotally applied the VapoRub by force; rather, it was self-administered. And however gullible I may have been before I smeared the slow-burning but fiery-hot ointment on my own nuts, I certainly wasn't nearly as credulous afterwards. There's a valuable life lesson in there somewhere.
More than one, I'd say. When all this kerfuffle dies down and the No Evidence that Anyone Was Sodomized University football team dusts off its hazing rituals for the 2007 season, I suggest they rename the star of the show Professor Broom.
Posted by Chris Selley at October 26, 2005 06:09 PM
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Comments
Figures. First time my town gets a mention in a major paper since Paul Bernardo (AFAIK), and it's this.
And you're correct, nothing has changed.
Posted by: Matt McIntosh at October 26, 2005 08:17 PM
I was appalled by the McGill hazing, but encouragingthe application of Vicks Vaporub to "lower private parts"? Pure comedic gold.
Posted by: matthew at October 27, 2005 12:04 PM
Come on! According to the website, Irshad Manji is speaking at Ridley. She's Muslim! And a woman! Surely Ridley must be quite the progressive place these days.
(Perhaps Ms. Manji will pull a Robin West on the place for those who remember that episode).
Posted by: Milan at October 27, 2005 02:37 PM
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Posted by: Dylan Campbell at November 11, 2005 03:21 PM