UVM & UNH - MIH - 11/18/11 & 11/19/11

BU vs. UVM and UNH Men’s Ice Hockey, 11/18/11 and 11/19/11 - Agganis Arena, Boston, MA


Bottom Line:  BU beats UVM 4-3 / BU beats UNH 4-1

The Memories:  The success of BU’s PP all of the sudden makes an appearance / The dumb plays and penalties by BU all of the sudden don’t make an appearance / The Dog Pound makes a fool of ourselves on TV and otherwise

Hey, maybe I’m an idealist.  But I sure as hell expected a bigger turnout for this weekend’s men’s ice hockey games after that beauty of a game that was BC.  Especially considering the UVM game was televised.  Congratulations BU, now all NESN viewers can see just how flaky we are.

If you wanted to see a BU win, what was your excuse for not going?  UVM is probably the best (well, worst) opponent in Hockey East that we could be facing right now.  The chances of seeing a win on Friday night were greater than they have been (almost) all year.

If you didn’t want to go to a game on Friday night, hell, you had one on Saturday.  If you didn’t want to go to a game on Saturday, well hello, there was Friday night.

If you just don’t like hockey, why didn’t you go to these games?  People have not shut up about the BU/BC game.  Hockey is this school’s greatest source of student involvement and revenue.  We are located in Boston, where our professional hockey team just came out on top with the Cup.  Even if you hate sports, how could you not be swayed by everyone on campus to at least show up to one game?

So once again, I have this awesome feeling that I’m stuck at a school with such a great potential for athletic support who doesn’t follow through.

Let’s brainstorm some possibilities…

1) BU kids just don’t like sports.  While this could make sense, I just don’t understand why out of 18,000 people, we end up with 2,000 at our school’s biggest sport at best.  But it’s not even just men’s ice hockey.  Almost all of our programs are competing in DI conferences.  No, soccer and softball never draw much attention at schools anywhere.  But I find it near impossible to believe that every team is lacking in attendance for whatever reason.  In my opinion, it’s just a pathetic display of BU pride.

2)  The kids here have no sense of pride for our school.  This one almost seems laughable to me.  Boston University, with its crazy grade deflation and ridiculous cost, is still one of the most attended private schools in one of most college and university populous states relative to its size.  Every one I’ve ever met loves it here, for one reason or another.  From there, sports are one of the easiest ways to involve the student population and draw us all together.  The amount of Scarlet and White I see on a daily basis walking to class is absolutely mind blowing.  Every kid that owns an article of clothing that says “Boston University” anywhere on it should make an effort to attend at least one men’s ice hockey game.  (Believe me, I think they should go to more, but we’ll at least start with the easy stuff).  I think anyone, sports fan or not, can feel an overwhelming sense of pride and a deep connection to the kid sitting next to them by sitting in either 118 or 108 at Agganis.

3) Athletics does a bad job of marketing the games.  This one I’m kind of split on myself.  Yes, men’s ice hockey is the best marketed team on campus.  And yes, Agganis Arena is a beautiful place to be able to go see…something.  But I really can’t help but feel that athletics isn’t doing enough.  No, we can’t walk around and flaunt a National Championship that is now aging almost three years.  We can’t even flaunt a Hockey East championship (that’s pathetic, by the way).  But the things that will never get old - being the winningest team for the annual Beanpot, Travis Roy, oh, AND THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF TEAM.  Obviously, marketing sucks for any and all other teams, but we’ve gotta start somewhere.

4) Athletics sucks at scheduling.  There is no argument against this.  They literally do suck at this.  But this is a topic for another blog.

Something needs to change in the way this school looks at this team and this sport.  And it needs to change now or we literally will never get to another tournament.  No fans means no NCAA.