UCD Mens Hockey Club Apologise for Offensive Instagram Posts
By Aoife Hardesty and Dylan ONeill | Mar 12 2018
On Saturday night, posts appeared on Instagram from the official account of UCD Mens Hockey Club targeting a player from Corinthians Hockey Club, and the player's wife. The content was posted following a match earlier that day between UCD and Corinthians, in which UCD won 3-2.In the first Instagram post, under a photograph of the player from Corinthians and a UCD player, a comment from the official UCD Mens Hockey account said: "Here... enjoy this loss, you're a pussy and you've let your rig go." A second comment followed from Andrew Meates, a UCD player saying, "But nowhere near as bad as your wife's rig."More posts were to follow, but they have all, including the original post, been deleted. The University Observer has screenshots of some of the posts, including a poll. The poll shows a picture of a man's bum crack and asks voters to choose whether it's a picture of the grand canyon, or the player's wife's "crease."Another post on the Instagram account featured a poll "Do we give a f*!k?" thought to be in reference to the offensive comments posted earlier on the account.In a Facebook post that has since been deleted, the Corinthians player posted images of the offensive posts on Sunday, saying he was "deeply hurt and disgusted," he also noted that the Instagram posts had received multiple likes.UCD Mens Hockey Club released an apology on Sunday evening. The apology can be found on their Facebook and Instagram accounts. It reads: "UCD Mens Hockey Club would like to unreservedly apologize... for posts and related comments made on social media this weekend. The references made on the official Instagram page were completely unacceptable, and do not represent the character of the club. Those directly affected by derogatory comments made have been personally contacted and apologized to. The public comments were not made with insidious intentions, but we acknowledge and accept that they were absolutely out of order. Internal disciplinary action is being taken."The University Observer has reached out to UCD Mens Hockey Club for comment, but at the time of publishing, no response had been received.