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For the second time in three months, the Harvard women’s hockey team and head coach Katey Stone are facing allegations of hazing and abusive behavior.
The latest report, from The Athletic, alleges that the program conducted annual “Naked Skates” and pressured underclassmen to mimic sex acts and drink alcohol at “Freshmen Fun Night,” among other instances that players within the program considered to be hazing.
At “Freshmen Fun Night,” first-year players were pressured to “put condoms on bananas, fake orgasms and act out skills that referenced their sexual orientation” in some instances, according to the report from Katie Strang and Hailey Salvian.
That night allegedly marked the end of the team’s “Initiation Week,” which also reportedly featured excessive and underage drinking.
The Athletic, which wrote that it spoke to more than 30 players or other members of the program from the two decades, reported that there didn’t appear to be a link between Stone and the “Freshmen Fun Night,” the team’s initiation week and the “Naked Skates.”
But one player told the publication that Stone would tell them that “there’s not a single thing on this team that goes on that I don’t know about.”
According to the report, the “Naked Skates” made some players uncomfortable — due to uncertainty of who had access to the rink or whether security camera recorded what transpired — while others were indifferent or thought the event that usually followed Harvard’s longest road trip of the season was “fun.”
In some instances, The Athletic wrote, freshmen were forced to do a “superman slide” across the ice, “leaving some with ice burns and bleeding nipples.”
Stone, McDermott and two other staff members declined to comment for The Athletic’s story.
A Harvard spokesman said in a statement, in part, that the “Naked Skates” were a “non-sanctioned team event” and one occurred Jan. 28 “that did not reflect the expectations of the Harvard women’s hockey team and clearly stated that all team activities that make any member of the team feel pressured or uncomfortable are not permitted.”
In January, the Boston Globe first reported on Stone’s alleged abusive behavior, revealing an example from 2022 where she used derogatory language toward two players of Indigenous descent — uttering the phrase “too many chiefs and not enough Indians.”
Following that March 2022 comment, Harvard director of athletics Erin McDermott told a player in email that “Coach Stone is not under investigation” and, in a later email, called the “review a ‘deeper dive’ into players’ experiences that would involve ‘conversations’ with a faculty member and assistant dean,” The Athletic wrote.
Another email from McDermott in July 2022 reportedly told players that “Coach Stone is our head coach and will remain our head coach.”
“They’re trying to light this program on fire,” Stone allegedly told a group of former players around the time the Globe was set to publish its story. “And we’re not going to let that happen.”
Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations vice chief Heather Bear called for Stone’s resignation after the Globe article was published, according to The Canadian Press, noting that the 56-year-old — who has been with Harvard since 1994-95 and compiled more than 500 career wins — has “no place in hockey.”
One player from the 2016-17 told The Athletic that “the whole team was centered around shame,” and a parent of a former player said that Stone’s program at Harvard was a “mental-health Hunger Games.”
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