DANTE LASTING
Sports Editor
On Saturday, Nov. 30, the men’s hockey team won the Castleton University Invitational. Unfortunately, an unintentional situation has taken away some luster from that big win.
The hockey team celebrated in the locker room after the win. The players were jumping up and down and shout-singing along to a song playing on a speaker.
This sort of thing happens in 99 percent of locker rooms around the country after a big team win.
The official Fredonia State hockey team Twitter account posted the clip on its page, and it was later re-tweeted by the Fredonia State Athletics account.
At first glance, the video is harmless, until you take a look at the song’s lyrics. As is a commonality in many current pop songs, the song contained vulgarities, some of them derogatory. When some members of the department and student-athletes saw the video and knew the song, they brought it to the attention of Fredonia Athletic Director Jerry Fisk.
After taking a closer look at the posted clip and the lyrics, the athletic department thought it was in everyone’s best interest to delete the post from Twitter. Shortly after, Fisk released a statement to all Fredonia’s athletes and athletic staff addressing the issue.
“A video was recently posted to a social media account connected to a Fredonia State athletic program,” he wrote. “I do not believe the content represents the best of Fredonia State Athletics and what we stand for. We should — and will — do better.”
When asked if he thought this social media situation took anything away from the wins, Fisk stated, “I don’t think it takes away from the tournament championship, but I think it creates mindfulness, pulls us back and reminds us we have to be better at everything. [The men’s hockey team] had a tough start to the season, but showed great heart and guts up in Vermont. The wins stand for themselves, but this situation makes us reflect and keeps working on many fronts.”
The challenge for the future is how to censor content fairly without hindering creativity. Jerry Fisk had some thoughts on that as well.
“What will happen moving forward is before the Athletic Department re-tweets anything, there will be a more careful review of the content,” he said.