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.

BU Women’s Ice Hockey

Here it is.  The blog post I’ve waited two years to write.  The blog post that needs to be written.

I cannot fathom, for the life of me, why the women’s ice hockey team has such a poor turnout of fans.  I don’t find validity in the “it’s a women’s team argument” (which sucks in general, by the way) because it doesn’t translate to any other sports in this school.

The most obvious comparison would be men’s and women’s basketball.  Obviously, basketball doesn’t get a killer amount of fans in general (except for the last game/home opener vs. Northeastern - that was mind blowing), but they are faithful fans.  The people that go to men’s basketball also go to women’s basketball and cheer, scream, and chant just as loud.  When they head to Hartford for the playoffs every year, it’s for both teams no matter what.

Now hockey - the school’s money maker.  We couldn’t even get a decent turnout of fans for last year’s game against Mercyhurst that sent us to the Frozen Four in Erie with a victory.  I think there were more Mercyhurst fans there.  Oh, and that Northeastern kid that decided to show up in his Northeastern jersey.  Get those kids away from my campus.

My biggest complaint about this is people who complain about Agganis not having that old time hockey feel.  The fans miss being on top of each other, having every seat filled to the brim, and overall just feeling like a legitimate part of the game.

Well guess what, you can get all of that at Walter Brown Arena.  Everything you miss is at Walter Brown Arena.  And Walter Brown Arena still functions.  It still holds hockey games.  You can still go.  It’s not a non-functioning museum.  It’s still an active hockey rink.

Maybe you don’t like women’s ice hockey.  I admit, of all the sports, I think there’s the biggest discrepancy in the no-checking rule.  Do I agree with that?  Not at all.  I think it changes the integrity of the game and I admit, the physicality is one of my favorite things.  But I still love women’s ice hockey.

People always forget what getting rid of checking adds.  The speed of the game is absolutely ridiculous.  Possession changes happen a lot, but in my opinion, it’s a lot cleaner as well.

But I digress.  Not my place to critique the game on this blog, otherwise I’d be studying sports journalism.  Which, well…let’s just say that’s not my cup of tea.

Anyways, my point is, if you’ve attended a men’s ice hockey game and loved it, get over to Walter Brown and watch a women’s ice hockey game.  Literally, you’ve got nothing to lose.  A lot of the time, you end up with a Saturday afternoon game before a Saturday night men’s game or a Sunday afternoon game after a men’s on Saturday.  Either way, it’s late enough in the afternoon for you not be hungover but not late enough to miss a men’s game.  Make a day out of hockey.

It’s my personal goal to try and increase the attendance at women’s games this year.  For anyone that doesn’t know, they’re probably the best team on campus.  And people suck for not going.  That’s all.

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.

BC - MIH - 11/13/11

BU vs. BC Men’s Ice Hockey, 11/13/11 - Conte Forum, Chestnut Hill, MA


Bottom Line:  BU beats BC 5-0

The Memories:  BC goes 0 for 8 on the PP / First BU shut out of BC since 1983 / The Dog Pound makes a showing and fills almost an entire section (LL) 

Boston University hockey is historic.  But lately, whatever they happen to be doing with puck is far from hockey.  Anyone who has seen a game this season could agree with that, save for the UNH game and possibly the Denver game.

But lo and behold, the storied rivalry did its job again.  Flocks of diehards and fairweathers alike showed up to support our less than stellar line-up versus the number two team in the country.

And it was wicked awesome.

Under normal circumstances, I’m certain The Dog Pound wouldn’t chant about a person’s religion (well, fairly certain).  But in BC’s house, on a SUNDAY?  That was just gold.  Even when the Superfans tried to tell us “Jesus hates you,” it was no more than a two second pause before we let them know “that’s not Christian.”

Beyond the quality of the BU section chants, there was quantity.  The last two to three minutes of the game was a straight up romping of the BC students.  Everybody wearing Scarlet and White was louder than they have been at any point this year, home or away.

So, in the short term, this is the boost we need.  Men’s ice hockey attendance, relative to the rest of the sports at this school, has never suffered.  But lately, it’s certainly been lagging.  There are already reports that the next BU/BC game at BC (December 2nd) is sold out.  BU students are now going on StubHub and hacking up $30 a ticket before fees just to be apart of, what we hope, to be part two of one of the most brutal season series to date. Not necessarily for the hockey, but for the fans.

Long term, however, I’m still nervous.  A 5-0 blow out is like seeing a unicorn riding a velociraptor.  If the new-to-BU-hockey students think this is what it will always be like, they’ve got a lot to learn.  Just like the freshman class last year who watched a 9-3 killing in the exhibition game at the start of the season.  From here, it’s a two way street.  The team needs us to show up and support them so they can play hard, and skate away with a win, and the fans need to stick around even through the heartbreakers to give them that presence.

All in all, here’s to looking forward, first and foremost to Friday night’s game versus Vermont.  Vermont, an absolute bottom dweller, could possibly shock us just like the Holy Crosses and UMass Lowells of the world.  But hey, one step at a time.