Former hockey players sue Michigan over alleged sexualized hazing
Sixteen former Michigan hockey players sued the university Wednesday, alleging that the team's former coaches and other school employees turned a blind eye to decades of ritualized hazing that was sexual in nature.
The complaint says the hockey players, who attended Michigan between 1984 and 2001, had their genitals and other parts of their bodies shaved by upperclassmen, were anally penetrated with razor handles and were forced to complete other humiliating acts while nude at parties as part of their initiation to the team as freshmen.
The complaint alleges that Hall of Fame former coach Red Berenson condoned the hazing rituals and punished at least one player who complained. Then-assistant coach Mel Pearson, who later took over as the Wolverines' head coach, was also among several team employees who allegedly knew about the hazing and told freshmen to "just get through it," according to the lawsuit.
The 16 players, all of whom are anonymous John Does in the lawsuit, filed their case seeking financial damages in federal court in Detroit. The complaint says the players started discussing their hazing experiences in September 2024 and learned that the rituals were more widespread than they had realized.
Pearson did not respond to ESPN's requests for comment. Berenson denied the allegation that coaches encouraged the hazing activities in an interview with MLive on Thursday.
"We knew there was a certain element of initiation on our team, and it was usually orchestrated by the seniors," Berenson told MLive. "We didn't promote it. We didn't encourage it."
A university spokesman called the allegations "disturbing" but said many elements of the lawsuits were "misleading" because Michigan has had an anti-hazing policy in place since 1982.
"The former student athletes, who attended the university more than 25 years ago, describe behavior at the hands of fellow teammates that allegedly happened in the 1980s and 1990s," spokesman Paul Corliss said in a statement provided to ESPN. "To the extent that any former student-athlete engaged in hazing or other misconduct, they were violating university policy. The university denies that it is any way responsible or liable for the claims alleged."
Berenson, 86, won two national championships in the 1990s as Michigan's head coach following a decorated career as a player in the NHL. He retired as Michigan's coach in 2017. The players in the lawsuit claim that it was a well-known team tradition to haze the freshmen by shaving their genitals in the team locker room at the start of their season. They claim Berenson told players to make sure they only shaved "below the neck" to keep the ritual hidden, according to the complaint.
Berenson told reporters in 2012 that he was stopping any hazing on the team, but referred then only to examples of freshmen carrying the upperclassmen's equipment bags and some instances where his "captains got too carried away."
Some of the players in the lawsuit said their pubic hair was removed with a blowtorch. Others said their penis was tied to a helmet or five-gallon bucket, which older players filled with hockey pucks.
The former players said that equipment managers and team trainers were present for the alleged abuse during some years, according to the lawsuit. One of the players said he reported the abuse to the university's athletic director. The lawsuit doesn't name the athletic director. The player said Berenson responded by "drastically" cutting his playing time.
Michigan hired an outside law firm in 2022 to investigate separate concerns about the culture of the hockey program under Pearson's leadership. He left the team when his contract expired shortly after that investigation was completed.
Michigan's athletic department has been the subject of several lawsuits related to sexual impropriety in recent years. The school fired its head football coach Sherrone Moore in December after he was accused of threatening a team employee after having an affair with her. This summer, the university reached a $1.2 million settlement with a woman who accused a former Michigan football staffer of sexual assault.
Matt Weiss, another former football coach, was fired in 2023 and later indicted for hacking into student online accounts to download intimate photos and videos. In January 2022, Michigan paid $490 million to settle hundreds of claims that former team doctor Robert Anderson had sexually assaulted athletes during a nearly four-decade span working with the university.
In late 2025, the university commissioned an independent investigation into the culture of its athletic department, which found that issues were not "widespread." Michigan announced shortly after the investigation concluded that athletic director Warde Manuel will step down at the end of the year.
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