There are over 40,000 Harlem Shake videos on YouTube, but only one may have abruptly ended a high school hockey team’s season.
The Nyack/Tappan Zee hockey team forfeited an upcoming playoff game, HyperVocal reported. There wasn’t an official response about the decision; head coach Nick DeSantis referred all questions pertaining to the forfeit to school administrators.
However, some of the players say that it was due to a Harlem Shake video the team made, a meme that has taken the Internet by storm in the past few weeks.
“We were forfeited from playoffs for a borderline inappropriate video in the locker room of Harlem shake,” senior Nyack/Tappan Zee forward Corey Aronson tweeted to a friend.
The NSFW video, which was filmed in a locker room, started off the same way just about every other Harlem Shake video does: someone in a mask (this time a goalkeeper helmet) dancing as seven other players text and go about their business.
But once the bass drops, more players, most who have their head covered by a mask, join the room wearing nothing more than their underwear or compression shorts. One person is wearing nothing but a mask and a sock while another uses a hockey stick to thrust at a teammate.
Aronson has also tweeted that the hockey team was suspended for their video, which has amassed over 57,000 views since it was uploaded on Friday. He, along with other players and students at Nyack and Tappan Zee (the two high schools play hockey as one team), tried to spread the word using the hashtag #FREENTZ, but it quickly died down after an initial push on Feb. 15, according to Topsy, a social media analytical tool. It only had 164 mentions in the past three days.
LoHud’s Mike Dougherty noted that this could serve as a lesson for the students involved that anyone can see anything you post on the Internet and how it may be perceived by others.
“A forfeit in this case seems a little harsh, they weren’t being destructive, but they weren’t exactly representing those uniforms that were discarded before somebody turned up the music and screamed, ‘Action!’” Dougherty wrote.
Lakeland/Panas will now play against Somers/North Salem on Wednesday, leaving Nyack/Tappan Zee with a popular video and a lost shot at the state title.
Photo via ApExPr0diiGy/YouTube