By Stacey Askew
Ryerson’s Commerce society has a stolen hat in its possession — and it’s not just any hat. They say it’s the Engineering president’s prized golden helmet, but the owner maintains the precious head gear is merely “a hoax.”
Why? It turns out that two exist.
For those that don’t know, engineering helmets are only for engineering students, and as such they have popped up as major point scorers on frosh scavenger lists for decades.
This year, commerce students had a score to settle, and just any old helmet would not do.
According to Abdul Snobar, Commerce Society president, the story goes as follows.
As the newbie commerce students were walking around Ryerson, having been on our fine campus for a few hours, they were besieged by engineering students a day senior to themselves with water guns and water balloons.
To get back at the engineers, who later said they had been targeting everybody, the commerce student’s mission, and best chance at revenge, was to get the golden helmet.
Two students succeeded. “They got recognition like there was no tomorrow … they don’t even have to say it, everyone knows Sacha and Chris [last names withheld] got it!” said Shane Fields, last year’s Commerce Society president.
As for the Ryerson Engineering student society’s (RESS) response to the ordeal, RESS President Griffith D’Souza maintains the golden helmet, obtained during a chase through the Eaton Centre, is not the real deal. It is merely a spray painted hat while the real one, worn by D’Souza during the annual Parade, has real gold plating and was not carelessly worn during orientation activities.
Andrey Leonov, RESS’s VP of communications, laments, “there’s nothing valuable for us to steal from [commerce],” and consequently no way for them to reciprocate the thievery.
D’Souza jokingly questioned the bravado of Commerce. “If you steal a hard hat, you’re supposed to wear it. But they were too scared to,” he said.
“It’s all fun in spirit … Honestly we know we’re going to get it back.”
But when asked whether they would apologize to Commerce for the water attacks, as Snobar said they must before negotiations would continue, D’Souza and Leonov refused to comment.
An article, aptly titled, “Since when is there commerce at Ryerson?” was published in the Engineering society’s paper Golden Ram. Closing with: “If you would like to harass him about losing his hard hat e-mail [D’Souza] … or swing by KHE123 and give him a gas pedal in person.”
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