Street Hockey Violence Under Attack

Students and Department of Athletics officials expressed concern this week over the growing violence displayed in intramural street hockey games. Last week, two athletes in Harvard's varsity program were rushed to the hospital with facial wounds.

Jonas I. Honick '77, a varsity basketball player, had two front teeth knocked out, and Pierre A. Pacquette '77, who plays junior varsity hockey, received a five-stitch gash on his forehead.

Both injuries resulted from intramural hockey players who "can't play hockey and so they use their sticks like clubs," Pacquette said yesterday.

Street hockey games have been unusually rough this year, and if the players do not "cool it we will take drastic action," Floyd S. Wilson, director of intramural athletics, said yesterday.

Because of its great popularity, it is doubtful the athletics department will stop offering street hockey as an intramural sport, Wilson said. But players who are unduly violent will be ejected from the game and not permitted to play anymore, he said.

Street hockey is presently the only intramural sport played without supervision, and until this year Wilson was pleased with the way the players supervise themselves, he said yesterday.

From now on, however, Wilson said, he will answer any report that a team is over-aggressive by having the game observed and then deciding if punitive measures should be employed.

One problem is that students watch violent professional hockey teams on television and lose their perspective when they come to play street hockey, Honick said yesterday.

"When you have a lot of people hacking around with sticks, tempers flare and injuries are inevitable--these guys become like savages with clubs," Pacquette said.

Honick said that he was not very upset because his injury was merely the result of a careless accident.