Hockey players and fans are known for fierce competitiveness and intense trash talk. But the rhetoric surrounding a state ice hockey championship game between Connecticut high schools devolved last month into antisemitism.
Now, students at a Catholic high school in Fairfield, about an hour from New York City, have been disciplined in connection to anti-Jewish social media posts directed at members of their rival hockey team.
The Fairfield College Preparatory School Jesuits played the New Canaan High School Rams on March 23, with a few thousand fans from both communities packed into an arena at Quinnipiac University, in Hamden, Conn. The Rams beat the Jesuits 3-1.
Before the game, and for days after, hate speech invoking “Jew Canaan” and targeting some New Canaan student-athletes appeared on Instagram accounts linked to Fairfield Prep fans. The accounts have since been deleted.
“Win or lose we booze, and at least we’re not Jews. Hail Fairfield,” read one of the images that appeared on Instagram. It was festooned with beer emojis and profanity.
Administrators at Fairfield Prep, a boys’ high school with about 850 students and an annual tuition of $26,000, have disciplined students, a spokeswoman said.
“We are very aware of the offensive antisemitic comments and posts,” the spokeswoman, Lauren Castagnola, said. “Antisemitism is repugnant and antithetical to our values as a school and antithetical to the Jesuit tradition. There have been disciplinary actions that have been taken related to the social media posts.”
Ms. Castagnola said that privacy policies prevented her from sharing further details.
In a letter sent to the families of Fairfield Prep students this week, the school’s leaders informed parents of the “disparaging and antisemitic language” that was posted on social media, calling it “unacceptable” and “in direct opposition to the Jesuit, Catholic values and respect for human dignity we seek to instill in our students.” The letter said that students would continue to discuss and reflect on the episode and issues of personal accountability.
Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza, incidents of antisemitism in the United States have risen sharply. The Anti-Defamation League has said that there were 9,354 reported antisemitic incidents in 2024 — the most in the 46-year history of its annual audit of antisemitism, and an increase of 344 percent from five years before.
That audit identified 860 antisemitic incidents at K-12 schools not affiliated with Jewish organizations, a 74 percent increase from 2022.
Connecticut ranks 29th in population among states but has the eighth-highest rate of antisemitic incidents in K-12 schools, according to the A.D.L. About 154,000 Jewish people live in Connecticut, representing about 4.5 percent of the state’s population. Fairfield Prep and New Canaan High are both in Fairfield County, which has about 60,000 Jewish residents — nearly 40 percent of the state’s Jewish population, according to a 2020 report by Brandeis University.
The town of New Canaan has fewer Jewish residents than other Fairfield County towns, such as Westport.
Bill Egan, the principal of New Canaan High, a public school, said the school’s hockey team has one Jewish player.
When Mr. Egan learned of the antisemitic posts, he said, he reached out to the New Canaan students who were pictured in the posts or mentioned by name. He also contacted their parents.
“Hate speech has no place in school,” Mr. Egan said, “and it has no place anywhere in our community. We wanted to make sure that no student needed to face this situation alone.”
About 10 posts were shared, with some reposted by multiple accounts, and several with misspellings. One showed a hockey player wearing a yarmulke and an “Israel” jersey with a Star of David emoji over his face; the caption read “Netanyahu Cannan,” a reference to the Israeli prime minister, and the Hebrew song “Hava Nagila” played in the background.
There was also a video depicting what appeared to be a simulation of a sexual assault, with the victim’s head covered by the New Canaan High School logo and the assailant’s head obscured by a Fairfield Prep logo. “Jew Caanan,” the caption said, “getting what they deserve.” It was geo-tagged to Quinnipiac University, where the hockey game was played. (The Fairfield Prep spokeswoman said she could not confirm that this post was shared by a student from the school.)
One New Canaan hockey booster took screenshots of some of the images and shared them with Fairfield Prep administrators, and then with The New York Times.
Mr. Egan said a representative from Fairfield Prep had contacted him to apologize. The Fairfield Prep administrator asked if the school could reach out to the student most frequently targeted in the posts, some of which compared him to Jeffrey Epstein, the sex offender. The student and his parents, who are not Jewish, declined the request because they did not feel a personal apology was necessary, Mr. Egan said.
“We do try to work collaboratively with other educators in situations like this,” he said. “You want to help kids learn from their mistakes.”
Occurrences of anti-Jewish bias are a growing concern, said Jeremy Stein, the executive director of Temple Sinai in Stamford, Conn., which borders New Canaan. “We have seen an increase in antisemitism around Connecticut,” he said. “Since the war in Iran began, everyone has been on high alert.”
But one rabbi in New Canaan said that the town’s Jewish community had been embraced by neighbors.
“New Canaan is a welcoming, inclusive town,” Rabbi Levi Mendelow of Chabad of New Canaan said. He said that after the October 2023 attack on Israel, about 1,000 people representing different religions and backgrounds attended a local vigil.
“It was a public demonstration of support for Jewish people,” he said.
Katherine Rosman covers newsmakers, power players and individuals making an imprint on New York City.
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