It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town

The hardreading staff (full disclosure: we’re a BU mass communication professor) keeps waiting for the Boston Herald to shift into overdrive on the Boston University hockey team rumpus, especially in the wake of the BU administration’s public report on the school’s debased hockey culture.

After all, the Herald always puts the pedal to the metal on this sort of scandal (nude parties! naked skating! sex in the penalty box!).

But no – the feisty local tabloid has barely hit second gear in its coverage.

It’s the Boston Globe that’s been driving the story, starting with its publication of appendices to BU’s public report:

Sex, drinking detailed in report on BU hockey

When Boston University released its report Wednesday on hockey players’ “culture of sexual entitlement,” it kept most of the investigation details — including accounts of sexual debauchery and wide-ranging allegations of academic trouble — confined to confidential subcommittee reports.

In the documents, which were obtained by the Globe on Thursday, were tales of a late-night 2009 NCAA championship party at Agganis Arena where dozens of guests drank from kegs in the locker room showers and took to the ice naked to shoot pucks.

“It was insane,” one former student who attended told the BU task force. “People were having sex in the penalty box.”

Campus police did not find out about the party, nor did BU administrators — until this year, when the task force started asking questions. During interviews with the task force, hockey coach Jack Parker also professed ignorance, at first saying he had never heard about the bash, but later acknowledging he knew of “a few guys drinking in the locker room.”

Yet at least two players and an athletics staffer told the task force that within days of the party, Parker reprimanded the entire team for its behavior.

The Globe has added to that a scathing editorial, a smashmouth Brian McGrory column,  and a tough follow-up:

BU reels after allegations of hockey team misconducts

Boston University is reeling in the wake of allegations of misbehavior on the hockey team that until Friday were unknown to nearly everyone at the school, including most of its board of trustees.

The allegations surfaced in appendices to a public report on BU’s hockey culture, released by an internal task force Wednesday. The additional seamy details, describing rampant disrespect of women by some team members and a secret nude party at Agganis Arena in 2009, were not released to anyone beyond the task force members, a few administrators, and the board’s 16-member executive committee.

That left most of the 39 trustees unaware of the documents’ graphic contents — which raised serious questions about the actions of celebrated hockey coach Jack Parker — until details were reported in Friday’s Globe. Those trustees were also not consulted about how the school should reform its hockey culture; the task force’s 14 sweeping recommendations were devised with little input from the board.

Here’s guessing there’ll be plenty of input now.