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Governing sports association backs Woodstock Thunder suspension

Governing sports association backs Woodstock Thunder suspension

The New Brunswick Interscholastic Athletic Association, the governing body for high school sports in the province, was not made aware of all the details of the decision to suspend the Woodstock High School hockey team for the remainder of the season.

"We support the school and their decision based on the limited information that we did receive," said Andy Clark, the president of the association.

Disciplinary action against players for behaviour that outside the game environment is a matter left to the individual school.

"The specifics of the Woodstock situation, I'm really not privy to," Clark said on Information Morning Fredericton. "That was an internal matter that the school dealt with on their own."

The Woodstock Thunder's suspension stemmed from a party held Nov. 10 after the team's first home game of the season.

While no further details have been released, Woodstock High's performance contract states that a player can be suspended for one year for failing to, "model appropriate legal and health choices as they pertain to tobacco, drugs and alcohol." said Clark.

Clark said the association would only get involved with a disciplinary action if it involved an incident at a game.

"We oversee basically the game environment of school sports," he said. "We leave the management of the teams themselves to the schools."

Not all sign contracts

Clark, who is principal of the Hartland Community School, said his school and the majority of others make their players sign performance contracts, but he couldn't confirm all schools do. Such contracts are up to the schools, he said.

"It is a school decision, and each school probably has a different performance contract that they have their athletes sign," said Clark.

After the Thunder players serve their suspensions, the association generally wouldn't keep the infractions on the students' NBIAA records.

"We'd wipe the record clean, I believe, because this was not a disciplinary thing from in-game events," Clark said.

Student athletes are supposed to represent their school and their community, he said, and violations of a school's contract can hurt a school's reputation.

"I think it's fairly damaging to the reputation," Clark said. "There's a lot of conversation in the community, I'm sure.

"It's a privilege people got to remember to play high school sports. It's not a right."