WASHINGTON — Mike Gilligan was there when Vermont hockey mattered for all the right reasons, coaching the Catamounts to the 1996 Frozen Four, the sticks-and-pucks version of basketball's Final Four.

He was there, too, when Vermont hockey mattered for all the wrong reasons — 3½ years later as a hazing scandal, a lawsuit, a cover-up and the canceling of half a season devastated the program.

"A sad part of Vermont hockey history," Gilligan said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "But it was something that I think everybody in the country learned from."

Nearly destroyed a decade ago, Vermont's beloved college hockey team was rebuilt — thanks in part to a university that regrouped and set an example for how to deal with hazing, an issue that continues to be a problem at colleges around the country.

On the ice, the Catamounts are all the way back. Frozen Four participants for the second time, they will play Boston University in the NCAA semifinals here Thursday night.

"It's great to see them developing their program, doing such a good job after a setback like that," said Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas, a member of Gilligan's 1996 team along with fellow NHL players Martin St. Louis of Tampa Bay and Eric Perrin of Atlanta.

Gilligan himself is still employed by the Burlington, Vt., school with about 10,000 undergraduates, no longer as coach of the men's hockey team but as an assistant to the athletic director. Now on medical leave as he fights throat cancer, he hopes to make the trip to the nation's capital to sit in the Verizon Center and see the Catamounts try to win their first NCAA hockey championship.

"It's been a few years," Gilligan said, "but it's certainly worth the wait."

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On Oct. 2, 1999, Vermont's hockey players held a party. The theme was freshman humiliation in the name of team bonding.

The agenda included sexually degrading acts, including forcing the new players to parade around in a line, naked. The first-year players were pressured to drink warm beer until vomiting, then had to eat until they vomited some more.

A report by the Vermont attorney general would later find that those sorts of initiation rituals — with older players belittling underclassmen — had been going on for years.

About two weeks before the party, freshman goalie Corey LaTulippe tried to warn the school what was about to happen.

The party took place anyway.

About two months later, LaTulippe sued the school, its president and athletic director, Gilligan and several teammates, blowing the whistle on the most popular team in a state without professional sports.

"I'm glad that I did it," LaTulippe said, "but it was really tough."

LaTulippe was a local, from Williston, Vt., excited to be playing in a place where college hockey matters, where the wait is an estimated 20 years to get a season ticket. These days, he has no interest in what happens on the ice, no desire whatsoever to know how Vermont fares this week.

"I just don't really care anymore," LaTulippe told the AP when contacted at the Florida golf course he runs. "I don't really follow college hockey, don't really care about it. It's not important in my life now."

LaTulippe eventually dropped his lawsuit and was paid $80,000 by the university. He reached other out-of-court settlements with ex-teammates.

Some people see him as a hero. To others, he will always be the troublemaker.

"That's exactly the way I was made to feel," he said.

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Page 2 of the NCAA handbook "Building New Traditions: Hazing Prevention in College Athletics" defines hazing this way: "Any act committed against someone joining or becoming a member or maintaining membership in any organization that is humiliating, intimidating or demeaning, or endangers the health and safety of the person."

Vermont is hardly the only school where hazing has taken place, of course.

"It was something that was going on," said Graham Mink, one of the players on Vermont's 1999-00 team originally sued by LaTulippe. "Obviously, it wasn't the right thing, but it could have happened at a number of other universities or other teams."

Not only could have, but most certainly did. A study released last year by two University of Maine professors — and supported by the NCAA — found that 74 percent of respondents who were students on varsity athletic teams experienced some form of hazing.

"It's not necessary. It's something that can hurt people and cause a lot of problems, obviously. I've seen that firsthand," said Mink, who appeared in two games with the NHL's Washington Capitals this season and is now with their top minor league affiliate. "It was something that was done. It was a once-every-year thing, and it was over with, and that was it. It was part of being on the team at the time. Certainly, I'd be shocked if that still happened at most universities now."

Maybe not at Vermont, but a simple Internet search will find unsavory examples from around the country.

"There's a denial of the reality, and part of that is a code of silence: 'What goes on in the locker room stays in the locker room,'" said Susan Lipkins, a New York psychologist and author of a book on hazing.

When she speaks to high school or college students, Lipkins sometimes will point to Vermont as a warning.

"We say, 'You could lose your season,'" she said.

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When Vermont learned some players lied to investigators looking into LaTulippe's allegations, it temporarily shut down the hockey program by calling off the final 15 games of the season. Then the school slowly began picking up the pieces.

Tracy Maxwell, executive director of Colorado-based hazingprevention.org, credits the university for the way it dealt with the aftermath of the scandal.

"What was perhaps unique about it was that the school really took a strong stand: They canceled the season. I can't imagine that happening with one of the teams in the Final Four or in college football," Maxwell said. "They took it very, very seriously. My sense is they probably don't have a problem with hazing with the hockey team any more because they handled it so well."

The state legislature passed an anti-hazing law in 2000, calling for fines of up to $5,000.

Also that year, Joe Gervais, an assistant coach under Gilligan, became an assistant athletic director and was put in charge of a "life skills" course required for all freshman varsity athletes.

By 2003, the university had a new president and a new athletic director.

Gilligan stayed as men's hockey coach until 2003, waiting until the last member of the 1999-00 team was gone before announcing his retirement. To this day, he insists the coaching staff had no knowledge of the hazing until LaTulippe spoke up, and did not think the players would go ahead with the party.

"Nobody knew what was going on — or it wouldn't have gone on," Gilligan said. "I don't know if some people may have overreacted to what had happened and the punishment for what went on, but, hey, that happened, so we just had to roll up our sleeves and get back to work and educate the kids."

At the time, Gervais thought the coaching staff would be fired in the fallout. Instead, he's been part of the solution, working to prevent hazing through the mandatory class that was added to the curriculum in 2000.

The one-credit course focuses on topics such as nutrition, sports psychology, alcohol and drug prevention, academic success and — most to the point regarding hazing — leadership skills. About 150 students take it in any given year.

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In Burlington, there will be a parade when the Catamounts return from Washington, win or lose. The hazing scandal is in the past, and the state is rallying behind a team that has risen from three wins in 2001-02 — when the program was still reeling — to the brink of a national title.

"The foundation never crumbled," said coach Kevin Sneddon, who was hired from upstate New York's Union College to succeed Gilligan. "We certainly had some down times."

Sneddon firmly believes the school learned its lesson, even before he arrived.

"There's certainly no room for hazing," he said. "It just doesn't bring a team together. It's probably the oldest sort of wives' tale going. It just doesn't work."

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Associated Press Writer Wilson Ring in Burlington, Vt., and AP Sports Writer Jimmy Golen in Boston contributed to this report.

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On the Web:

University of Maine professors' hazing study: http://www.hazingstudy.org