DETROIT — Sixteen former hockey players sued the University of Michigan on Wednesday in federal court in Detroit. The men, who played for the Wolverines between 1984 and 2001, allege that older teammates sexually abused them in hazing rituals that the coaching staff knew about and allowed to continue.
None of the plaintiffs is named. The complaint, filed by the Royal Oak law firm Pitt, McGhee, Palmer, Bonanni & Rivers, identifies them as John Doe 1 through 16. It says the men did not understand at the time that what happened to them was sexual abuse.
“The abuse was ritualized, meticulously planned, and sadistic. … Enduring sexual abuse was required to be a member of the Michigan Men’s Ice Hockey team,” the lawsuit states, according to The Associated Press.
The university has known about the potential lawsuit for more than a year and has “declined to engage our clients in meaningful discussions about resolution,” attorney Michael Pitt told the Detroit Free Press.
“They want accountability but they want their privacy to go with their efforts to achieve accountability,” Pitt said. “Given the nature of the allegations that are in the complaint, that’s totally understandable.”
Michigan called the allegations “disturbing” but denies responsibility, the AP reported.
“To the extent any former student athlete engaged in hazing or other misconduct, they were violating university policy,” university spokesperson Paul Corliss said in a written statement.
“The university first adopted an official anti-hazing policy in 1982. It was one of the first universities in the country to do so, and it has earned its standing as a leader in this area,” Corliss added.
Complaint Alleges Red Berenson And Mel Pearson Knew Of The Hazing
The university and its Board of Regents are the only defendants. The complaint alleges that Red Berenson, Michigan’s coach from 1984 to 2017, directed and facilitated the hazing. It also alleges that Mel Pearson, a longtime Berenson assistant who later became head coach, knew about it and did nothing to stop it. Neither man is a defendant.
According to the lawsuit, the abuse included the forced shaving of players’ genitals. The complaint also alleges players were sexually assaulted with the handles of disposable razors, had pubic hair burned, and were stripped and left outside in near-freezing weather.
Players who objected or reported the hazing were told to be a “Michigan man” or a “good teammate,” the complaint says. It alleges players feared retaliation that included reduced playing time, the loss of scholarships, and damage to their professional hockey prospects, WDIV-TV reported.
“Berenson instructed upperclassmen to shave only ‘from the neck down,’ so the abuse would be invisible when [the former players who are now suing] were clothed,” the lawsuit states. “The sexualized hazing was part of Berenson’s abusive coaching style: demanding extreme interpersonal deference, arbitrarily benching disfavored players, cultivating hostility to lowerclassmen, and other tactics that served to demoralize players to such an extent that they were desperate for approval and belonging on the team.”
In 2012, Berenson announced the end of freshman hazing in the program, referring to duties such as first-year players carrying equipment. He acknowledged at the time that some captains had “got too carried away,” and he made no mention of physical abuse.
“We’ve taken all of the little freshmen things out of our program,” Berenson said then, according to The Ann Arbor News. “It’s hard enough to make the transition as a freshman without going through some of that. It’s borderline embarrassment or humiliation.”
Berenson, 86, declined to comment on the lawsuit Thursday.
“Give me a chance to absorb what’s going on,” Berenson told the AP.
Michigan went 848-426-92 under Berenson and won NCAA championships in 1996 and 1998. Before coaching, he played 17 NHL seasons with the Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, St. Louis Blues, and Detroit Red Wings, finishing with 261 goals, 397 assists, and 658 points in 987 games. He is a member of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.
Pearson was a Michigan assistant from the late 1980s until 2011, when he became head coach at Michigan Tech. He returned to replace Berenson in 2017. Michigan did not renew his contract in 2022 after an outside investigation into the program’s culture. Pearson did not respond to messages from the Free Press.
Title IX Lawsuit Names University Of Michigan And Its Board Of Regents
The complaint accuses the university of violating Title IX, the federal law barring sex discrimination in education, through deliberate indifference to sexualized hazing and a failure to investigate or stop it. It cites a publicly reported 1980 hazing incident involving Michigan hockey players that led to suspensions. It alleges the university was on notice of the risk before the conduct described by the plaintiffs began. The lawsuit also alleges the university failed to investigate Berenson’s 2012 comments or disclose the extent of the conduct.
Staff treated the hazing as a form of team bonding, the plaintiffs allege.
“With the abuse condoned, and in some cases mandated, by trusted adults, the young men relied on their coaches to understand what was happening to them and believe that it was normal,” the complaint states. “Coaching staff made clear to players that participation in the sexualized abuse was a mandatory condition of playing hockey for Michigan.”
Several former teammates began comparing accounts in 2024 and learned that similar practices had occurred across multiple classes of players, according to the lawsuit. The complaint lists depression and post-traumatic stress disorder among the harms the men say they suffered. It seeks punitive and liquidated damages.
In 2022, the university agreed to pay $490 million to settle claims by more than 1,000 people who said Dr. Robert Anderson, a sports doctor, sexually assaulted them during his nearly 40-year career at the school.
