The first rule of fight club is you don’t talk about fight club, but that didn’t stop University of Manitoba staff from discovering one such club operating in the U of M’s Frank Kennedy Recreation Centre.
Earlier this month, five people, including one staff member, were suspended from the facility for a month, said Leah Janzen, U of M’s communications manager.
“We suspended the people involved in this particular event because they violated the use of facilities policy,” Janzen said. “No one came forward to register a formal complaint, so we had to proceed on the basis of the fact that they violated the use of space policy.”
The staff at the centre received an e-mail in late November 2009 from a concerned facility member who claimed to have seen someone leave a third-floor squash court with a bloody face.
The member also sent a link to the club’s Facebook page, which claimed to have staged fights in the squash court and linked 87 people to it. Although only five were directly responsible, the other 82 people were initially suspended from the facility as well. Their punishment was dropped when they were found not to be closely involved.
Janzen said the club wasn’t caught immediately because the participants weren’t drawing attention to themselves. The courts were on the third floor, were not frequently used and were not glassed in, making them hard to observe.
The students received their punishment for misusing the court.
According to Janzen, this sort of abuse of university property is not common, and the participants’ punishment ensures that the facility will be kept safe and enjoyable.
In the wake of the discovery, Janzen said the university has alerted security, is checking the squash courts more regularly, and has begun monitoring Facebook sites to prevent similar behaviour. She adds that the university continues to consider further penalties against those involved.