The Hockey Team Hockey players tend to be a rather rough lot. The game makes them that way -- and it carries over into the rest of their lives as well. If you don't believe me, consider how the members of the State University team treat each other, and especially how they treat their rookies. The locker room after the first practice in the fall is chaos. The returning players are noisily greeting each other, sparring and wrestling, snapping towels and so on. The language is foul and full of unmeant menace. The rookies are somewhat cowed by all this , and tend to stay to themselves. Their main goal is making the team, and the decisions are still several weeks off. The tension builds until one of the older players, usually the captain (who is typically the star of the team as well) decides to get things rolling. "Hey you," he yells at one of the rookies. In this case, Kevin, the team captain and star wingman, picked out Brian, one of the most promising of the rookies, who had done well at center on his high school team. "Come here." Brian is not what you would ordinarily think of as a timid kid, but he is a bit smaller than most of the other players and is somewhat intimidated by the locker room scene. He walks over to where Kevin is sitting on one of the benches, his feet extended forward with his skates still on. "Take off my skates, kid." Brian stops, not knowing how to react, but Kevin's look scares him even more. "Don't you want to be a member of the team? We can't be a team unless we help each other." Brian is smart enough to figure out that the "help" is likely to be a one-way street, and, if he hadn't been, the snickers of the other older players would have clued him in right away. But he did want to be a team player, and he figured some hazing of the rookies was probably to be expected. He knelt down in front of Kevin's skates and started unlacing them. Kevin smiled, as did the others. He grabbed himself and rubbed a bit as Brian removed his skates and, after a sharp look from Kevin, his socks as well.
When Kevin finished showering and dressing, and was about to leave the locker room, he noticed Brian was getting ready to leave as well. A thought struck him, and he called to Brian in a friendly manner: "Grab my bag, rook, and I'll give you a lift back to the dorm." The players lived in a separate dorm
about one-half mile from the rink -- since freshmen weren't allowed to have cars on campus, that meant a rather long walk, carrying all their gear. So, in one sense, Kevin was doing Brian a favor. Brian was flattered by the offer, and hardly noticed that he was being made to perform another menial service for Kevin, that of carrying his gear, along with his own , out to Kevin's car. When they got back to the dorm, Kevin pulled up in front of the entrance where the freshmen's rooms were, and told Brian as he was getting out: "Come on up to my room this evening, about nine o'= clock. I'm in 402." When Brian showed up that evening, Kevin and his two= roommates -- Joe and Pete, both members of the hockey team -- were there. The room was a mess, and Kevin offhandedly told Brian to clean it up. The rookie hesitated at first, but the three older players closed in on him and started throwing light, playful punches. After a few minutes, the punches started getting harder and the atmosphere less playful. It didn't take long for Brian to capitulate: "Sure, guys. No problem." From that evening on, Brian was a sort of servant of the three veterans.
During the first two weeks of practice, the players struggled to get into shape after the long summer break. There was a certain tension in the air -- the rookies were competing to be selected for the team, and the older players were competing to stay on it. Needless to say, the rookies bore the brunt of the stress that everyone was feeling. "Hey, rookies, let's have a song," one of the veterans would cry out in the post-practice locker room, and whichever rookies he happened to point to had to stand up on one of the benches and sing a few of the team's fight songs. And they had to do it immediately -- if one of them happened to be undressed at the time, he was not allowed even to take the time to wrap a towel around his waist. Enough of the older guys enjoyed humiliating the rookies that it was a common sight to see several of them, naked as the day they were born, standing on the benches and singing. Of course, singing and doing menial chores like unlacing an older guy's skates were only the mildest of the various forms of hazing. The older guys also enjoyed towel-snapping. Often, they would get into fights with each other, but those tended to be just playing around. When they were more determined, they picked on a rookie and cornered him in the shower room. As he tried to ward off the blows, which were coming from all directions, the veterans kept snapping at him. Once the rookie showed the least bit of fear, or started begging them to stopped, or cried, they really went into high gear and aimed directly at his cock. The shower room was soon punctuated with sharp yells whenever one of the veterans landed a direct hit. The veterans usually managed to "break" the rookie, to cause him to lose all composure and start begging for mercy and perhaps even curl up into the fetal position. When that happened, the veterans would taunt the rookie, calling him "wimp" and "pussy" and suggesting that they might have uses for his mouth and ass. When a rookie had a particularly bad practice , he might be forced to run the gauntlet. He had to run back and forth across the locker room three times, as all the older guys tried to smack him on the ass with their hockey sticks. It could be pretty painful if the rookie weren't agile enough to dodge the majority of the "slapshots." Even worse happened when a rookie was judged to have a bad attitude. Hugo, a short, stocky defenseman with a broad muscled back, had a reputation as something of a brawler in high school. Unfortunately for him, he carried over some of his style of play into the practice games, and the veterans didn't appreciate it. After a few incidents, they, led by Kevin, decided it was time to do something about it. After taking his skates off, or, rather, having Brian remove them for him, Kevin went over to where Hugo was getting undressed. "Come here, rook" -- one called a rookie "rook" when one wanted to demean him -- "I want to show you something." Kevin put his arm around Hugo and the two of them walked over to a wall where a paddle was hanging on the wall. "That's the team paddle," Kevin explained. "I want you to kiss it." Hugo looked at him like he was crazy, but Kevin insisted. Finally, Hugo put his lips to the paddle, but Kevin wasn 't satisfied. "I said kiss it, rook. Really kiss it. Pretend it's your girlfriend's cunt." All the players laughed, and Hugo turned red, but he
finally did as he was told. "Good. Now drop your pants and assume the position." Hugo dropped his pants, exposing his bare butt since he was wearing only a jockstrap beneath them, but didn't know what to do next. "I said assume the position," Kevin barked, and grabbed Hugo's neck and pushed it down, forcing him to bend all the way over. "Now listen carefully , rook, or we'll just have to keep at it until you get it right. You add ress me as 'sir' at all times. First, you count the number. Then you thank me. Then you ask for another. Have you got that, rook?" "Yes, sir," Hugo replied smartly. "Good. Now this team is based on love. You save your brawling for the other teams, have you got that?" "Yes, sir," Hugo answered, still doubled over. "OK, prepare to receive punishment. Welcome the pain and let it teach you to love your teammates." And Kevin took the paddle off the wall, and bringing it all the way back over his head, brought it down sharply on Hugo's bare behind. The smack reverberated through out the locker room. "One, sir! Thank you, sir! Please, sir, may I have another?" "Not bad, rook. Maybe there's some hope for you after all," mocked Kevin, and he indeed gave him another. And another. And another. By twenty, Hugo's voice was rather weak, and his butt was bright red. Kevin gave him five more, and then stopped. "I think you've learned your lesson for now. And I think you'll be reminded of it every time you sit down." The locker room dissolved in hilarity, and Hugo slinked off to endure the pain and humiliation in private. After a week or so, the coach was ready to make some decisions. One of the easiest was picking Brian for the team; he was by far the best of the rookies, and better than many of the older players as well. The coach announced his choice at the end of Friday's practice. As the players undressed in the locker room , there was a bit more hilarity than usual, at least among the veterans. The reason was a certain odd tradition that was about to come into play -- whenever a rookie made the team, the older players gave him a hard time. Kevin started it off by nodding to Pete, a returning senior who was one of his roommates. Pete went off to the bathroom and came back with a battery-operated hair clipper. Kevin grabbed Brian around the neck; the rookie struggled to get free, especially when he saw Pete approaching with the clippers. Kevin let him struggle for a while, and then started talking in a low, mockingly friendly tone: "Resist all you want, rook. The re are five of us" -- Brian looked around and noted that some of the other veterans had joined Kevin and Pete -- "and we'll have our way with you eventually." That calmed Brian down a bit, and Kevin let go of him and took the clippers from Pete. The other guys grabbed Brian to hold him still, as Kevin went to work on Brian's shoulder-length blond hair. He pretty soon discovered that wouldn't work. "Hey, I can't do this with a clippers, somebody get me a pair of scissors and a comb." They were produced, and soon Brian's hair was falling to the locker room floor in great locks. Once it was crewcut length, Kevin went back to the clippers and it wasn't long before Brian was completely bald. And that wasn't the end of it. After Kevin finished, one of the guys suggested that Brian needed a shave. The others agreed and grabbed and stripped him; as they hauled him off to the shower room, Kevin went and got a razor and can of shaving cream. Brian was held down on the floor under one of the shower heads -- Kevin ran some hot water over him, and then straddled his waist. After running his hand up and down Brian's chest, which really didn't have much hair at all, Kevin squirted some shaving cream and rubbed it on his victim's chest. "I'm not very good at this, rook, so you better hold still." The others laughed as Kevin shaved Brian's chest, and then his arm pits, and then the inside of his thighs. Brian got more and more nervous as it became clear what was going to happen. "Hey, man, no way!" Brian shouted as Kevin started to work some shaving cream into his pubic hair. "OK, " Kevin replied, "I can do it without cream if you really want to feel the pain." All the others laughed and Brian turned beet red. "Well, what' s it going to be?" Brian blushed some more and murmured, "Use the cream. " "I think you better say 'please.' You can't be too careful, you know." "Please use the cream." "You know, rook, I think you ought to be more respectful. You should call us veterans 'sir.'" "Please use the cream, sir." Brian's voice was so low that the others could hardly hear him. "OK, as long as you're being polite." And Kevin messaged the cream into Brian's pubic hair, causing him to get semi-erect, which only embarrassed him all the more. Finally, the ordeal was over, and shorn of every hair on his body, Brian was allowed to shower and dress. As usual, Kevin drove Brian back to the dorm. But when they got back, Kevin told Brian he didn't have to face the other freshmen just yet, but could come up to Kevin's room. Brian did so and was surprised to find that Pete and Joe weren't around. Once inside, Kevin didn't say anything, but just stared at Brian for a long time. "Take off your clothes, rook. I want to admire my handiwork." "Hey, man, don't make me do that." "Do it, or else." Brian still hesitated, and Kevin attacked him and wrestled him to the ground. Brian was a strong athlete, but no match for Kevin, and he was soon pinned to the ground. Kevin slapped him around, and then punched him a few times in the stomach. "Rook, I think you better learn to show some respect." Brian stopped struggling and Kevin quickly removed his shirt and belt. He then pulled Brian's pants down around his ankles, and took off his shoes and socks. He picked him up off the floor and forced him to waddle over to the bed, and threw him down on it. He grabbed his right hand and twisted it behind his back in a half-nelson. "You won't be on the team if your right arm is broken." And he made good his threat by pushing his right hand as far up his back as it would go. "Hey, man, stop. Don't hurt me . Please." "No way you're going to play on the team if I'm not satisfied with you." Brian stopped struggling, and Kevin relaxed the pressure on his right hand...