Cornell - MIH - 11/26/11

BU vs. Cornell Men’s Ice Hockey (Red Hot Hockey), 11/26/11 - Madison Square Garden, New York, NY


Bottom Line: BU beats Cornell 2-1 (OT)

The Memories: Cornell gets an almost goal on one of the weirdest plays imaginable / Ross Gaudet gets his first of the year in OT (followed by a Tebowing cele - one for the books) / Cornell fans basically wipe the ground with BU fans

This is the post I’ve been waiting to write since I came to BU.  Red Hot Hockey, round three.

First things first, this is one of the best things going for college hockey.  This tradition is one that I hope carries on for a very, very long time.  Giving two (usually) consistent schools in their respective conferences a chance to play on NHL turf in front of a sold-out 18,200 person crowd is unbelievable.  You can’t walk out of that place without having a good time, regardless of if you’re a player, a coach, a fan, a winner, or a loser.

But as far as the fan bases go, Boston University was almost embarrassing.  The worst part is I still cannot figure out why the Big Red Teddy Bears outnumber us.

1) Boston University is actually closer to Madison Square Garden than Cornell University.  Sure, sure, the game fan base is mostly composed of alumni and the time difference between BU to NYC and CU to NYC is only about 15 minutes, but come on.  The most important people at these games are the students, hands down.  Forget the drunk “I graduated 5 years ago and still haven’t found a life” or the “I can’t possibly move on from the glory days so I’ll take it out on these kids that are at least 20 years younger than I am” alumni.  The way this should be is student section versus student section.  And in that respect, the BU student section was less than spectacular.  I admit, there was a bigger showing of fans than I had anticipated, but that also applied to Cornell fans, too.

2) Cornell hasn’t done anything since 1970.  For those keeping count, that puts Cornell 40 years out of their prime, while BU is still chugging along on a three year old Championship (with an additional four since Cornell last held a trophy of relevance).

3) Chris Drury.

4) Red Hot Hockey has been played three times.  For anyone that doesn’t know the track record, after last night, BU’s record is now 2-0-1.  Or, conversely, Cornell’s record: 0-2-1.

5) BU fans, although I can’t speak for them all, are generally respectful people.  Case in point, let’s take my biggest pet peeve with the Cornell fans - screaming red during the National Anthem.  Congratulations, you know your colors (but apparently not your mascot - where the hell does this bear like thing come into play?).  Screaming in any way shape or form during the National Anthem is something I consider completely disrespectful.  Literally one of the worst things I’ve seen at sporting events, except that one time I heard a Celtics fan start a chant in the middle of a moment of silence for MLK.  Anyways.  BU fans do have a problem with “The Song” and yeah, I think we all know that.  But I’ve never heard a louder “f*** ‘em up, f*** ‘em up” than I did last night.  And it wasn’t coming out of our mouths.  Beyond proving that they’re sailor mouths, Cornell fans also proved to me that they’re illiterate on multiple occasions last night, as seen by their whit when every single time a “Go BU” chant broke out, they added in a nice “sucks” in the gap.  Not a sentence *clap* *clap* *clapclapclap*.  Thirdly, unoriginal chant material from these folks.  Why start off the night with a safety school chant?  Beyond that, what’s it like to just chant “Go Big Red” over and over and over again?  At least mix it up with a secondary generic chant.  Hey, that’s what we do.  But despite all of these, Cornell fans sure as hell are loud.  And they clearly enjoyed mopping the floor with us last night.

6) Chris Drury.

7) This is some personal bias coming in now (hey as if the whole blog isn’t biased), but the BU band literally was pulverizing the Cornell band.  The Cornell band director (can we even call that guy flapping his wings over there a director?) didn’t even know when to play and when not to (hint, hint, every other whistle barring goals and penalties).  The band, in my opinion, is the easiest way for a student section to get into a game.  ”The Song” being the most prominent example, obviously.  The BU fans need to harness what is a good but small band and use that to their advantage.

So, despite the fact that this was some incredible hockey to watch (maybe not as a BU fan, however, watching our defense scramble for literally 20 minutes in the third period) and even better to win (definitely not as a Cornell fan, take your fluky non goal and go back to the middle of nowhere), Cornell clearly took the cake in the noise department.  Both hockey teams had their moments, but the one thing that was really Red Hot was the Cornell fans.  And how I hated it.