History of the Faithful

Hey everyone,

My girlfriend is writing a paper about an "interesting culture" shared by a large group of people and she has decided to write about the Lynah Faithful. I've been going to Cornell games for 2 years, and she's been going for 1 year, so if you guys can augment what we already know from our limited time here, that would be wonderful.

She is looking for any historical facts about the Faithful (perhaps how long we've been called that), and any other stories that would contribute to the unified culture of the Lynah Faithful. Your most memorable moments as fans would be interesting and helpful, but perhaps more important would be anything about the Lynah Faithful culture in general, the cheers past and present, the rituals past and present, why we're distinct from other hockey fans, and how long the Faithful has been such a force here at Cornell.

Hopefully that doesn't seem like too much, but here's a good reason to help her out: we all have nothing to do until Thursday anyway

Thanks everyone; any help would be really appreciated.

-Avash

I presume you have pointed your girlfriend to the Cheers page?

If not, go under the Lynah FAQ and you will find a Cheers link on the left-hand menu bar. This page is dedicated to cheers and has good explanations about origin and context.

There is a great deal of info on this forum, with links to other sources (Big Red Band, etc.). But it does require research, and there is alot of time between now and Thursday.

Hell, I bet if you looked hard enough, you can find that exact paper out there. Not that I'm encouraging that sort of thing.

Also checkout the TBRW? [www.spiritone.com] Although there's not a lot about the Lynah Faithful on the site, the affect of the Faithful on the team's performance at Lynah is well documented!

My most memorable (figurativelty, but not too literally) Lynah moment:

It was the spring of 1990 - my sophmore year. The Red had lost to Ha-ha-ha-rvard every god-damned time we played them for as long ans any student could remember. For years, we the Faithful had tied chickens to their goalposts, thrown newspapers, fish and even (a short-lived tradition of) dildos at those Cambridge punks, yet never got to point at them as the clock wound down and shout: "THIS team is the losing team!"

The Red had a solid regular season in 1989-90, and secured home ice in the first round of the ECAC tourney. Our opponent at Lynah: the hated Crimson. A last shot at redemption. With two games on tap, Wegmans and Tops were BOTH running low on haddock.

By midnight Friday, the losing streak was a welcome part of Cornell Hockey history, and the Faithful began to consider that, not only were we going to finally beat Harvard, but we might to it TWICE . . . in the PLAYOFFS! And as the Red protected a comfortable lead in the third on Saturday night, we all knew that it was going to happen. We were besides ourselves. We were drunk with exhuberation. We were exhuberatnly drunk.

And as the clock strolled past 5:00 left in the third, I turned to my buddies in Section A and declared: "If we win it, I'm going over the glass. Who's in?" They looked at me like I was crazy. (I may be dumb, but I've got smart friends.)

But this was a moment that We had been waiting a long time for. The place was absolutely rocking. I was plastered, and as far as I was concerned, the place to be was atop eight feet of plexiglass. So, after the roar of the final buzzer had yielded to that of the delighted Faithful (Townies and all), once the vanquised Crimson had skulked of the ice, I stood with my hands curled around the top of the glass. I looked over my shoulder for some sign of support - from anyone - that we were going to do this together. And some kid from the band, I don't know who he is (or was), stepped right up and started climbing over . . . and than so did I. And then, so did everone else in the whole fucking section.

According to an article I saw on USCHO three years ago recapping the Red's 2000 defeat of Harvard at Lynah in the ECACs, the postseason flight of the Faithful to the Lynah ice has remained a Cornell Hockey "tradition." That's so cool. (Although I confess that I was a little disappointed when I dropped in on the RPI game this year to see that the fans now use the door; kids these days.)

For the record, credit for the tradition belongs to that kid in the band - whoever and wherever he is. Here's hoping that the ritual goes on for a long, long time. And here's hoping that I run into that kid this Saturday night near the red line in Buffalo (no jinx, no jinx).

LET'S GO RED!

[Q]According to an article I saw on USCHO three years ago recapping the Red's 2000 defeat of Harvard at Lynah in the ECACs, the postseason flight of the Faithful to the Lynah ice has remained a Cornell Hockey "tradition." That's so cool. (Although I confess that I was a little disappointed when I dropped in on the RPI game this year to see that the fans now use the door; kids these days.)[/Q]
Not by choice. The seemless glass can't hold the weight of a person. My freshman year I climbed the glass, my sophomore year they announced that we cannot do it anymore because of the possibility of serious injury or death (or however they phrased it to get across the point it was a BAD, BAD, VERY BAD IDEA (tm).

I've posted on here once or twice that they should take down a couple pieces of glass and let people stream through, assuming that wouldn't take more than a minute or two. I've hoped Arthur or something with the program would pick up on it and pass it along, but it hasn't happened. I promise however that it's not "kids these days", it's "seemless glass / administration these days."

-Fred

[Q]For the record, credit for the tradition belongs to that kid in the band - whoever and wherever he is. Here's hoping that the ritual goes on for a long, long time. [/Q]

I don't want to burst your bubble, but the first time I remember fans going over the glass to celebrate with the team was in 1986, also after the quarterfinal playoff victory. It may have happened before that too, but I'll leave that to someone else. But we were definitely on the ice, en masse, in 1986.
Andy W. '86

Nathan Chicowdy wrote:
But this was a moment that We had been waiting a long time for. The place was absolutely rocking. I was plastered, and as far as I was concerned, the place to be was atop eight feet of plexiglass. So, after the roar of the final buzzer had yielded to that of the delighted Faithful (Townies and all), once the vanquised Crimson had skulked of the ice, I stood with my hands curled around the top of the glass. I looked over my shoulder for some sign of support - from anyone - that we were going to do this together. And some kid from the band, I don't know who he is (or was), stepped right up and started climbing over . . . and than so did I. And then, so did everone else in the whole fucking section.

That kid from the band was Jeff Weintraub '91... I've never seen anybody move so freakin' fast.

And he'll be in Buffalo.

Beeeej

[Q]Nathan wrote:
And as the Red protected a comfortable lead in the third on Saturday night, we all knew that it was going to happen. We were besides ourselves. We were drunk with exhuberation. We were exhuberatnly drunk.

And as the clock strolled past 5:00 left in the third, I turned to my buddies in Section A and declared: "If we win it, I'm going over the glass. Who's in?" They looked at me like I was crazy. (I may be dumb, but I've got smart friends.)

But this was a moment that We had been waiting a long time for. [/Q]

This is also my exact story for when we ended the 10-year regular season drought on 11/11/95. I was the "winning team" guy that year, and I was waiting in front of Section B to finally do the cheer vs. Harvard. An empty netter was scored (that was actually called back because of an offside call) that blew the roof off the ol' joint. I looked over and someone in B was jestering at the ice to me with the "we're going over" sign-language, and I vigorously nodded in return. The horn sounded, and about a dozen of us made the first plunge. When we weren't tackled to the ice by security, more people came over. The look on the Harvard players' faces that we would do that for a game in November was pretty priceless.

By the QF series vs. Colgate that year, it was just assumed that we were going over the glass, since we had already done it for a regular season game. Remember, none of us undergrads had ever witnessed an advance to the Final Four of the ECAC tourney, or even a home playoff QF series...heck, my freshman year, we didn't even make the playoffs! There was no tradition we were aware of, we just did it.

BTW...to the original poster of this thread...there was a cover article about the Lynah Faithful in Cornell Magazine several years ago. The issue had Section B on the cover, and gave a good history of cheers and fan support in the article.



Post Edited (04-09-03 02:39)

I'll go even further back. People went over the glass when we beat Providence in the ECAC QF at Lynah (the 6-5 OT comeback).

I, of course, took the civilized route and went through the door at section G.

JH

'90 was my Senior year as well. One thing that made it all the more special was that upon hearing Cornell would be their quarterfinal opponent one of the Harvard players said they were "ecstatic" to be playing Cornell.

If I had known about the woofing gods back then, I would have known we were a lock to win.

My greatest hockey memory is going over the glass after the 2000 ECAC playoff series with Harvard. That was the last year it was done.

On a side note, we went "on to the field" in the spring of 2000 after the lax victory over #1, undefeated, and future national champion Syracuse. I just remember flying over the wall at Schoellkopf and landing in a huge snowbank down below.

If I'm not mistaken, it was after the 2000 season when the new NHL-style "seamless glass" was installed in Lynah. That, I believe, is the main reason why glass scaling is no longer permissible.

My earliest memory of glass-scaling is from the 1984-5 season, after we beat Yale in the ECAC quarterfinals. You can't see the scaling, but you can see the end result in the 1985 yearbook.

Andy, I was at that game, and I, too, remember people going over glasses onto the ice to celebrate the team's return to Boston Gahden for the ECAC tournament. Ahh, the happy days....

Speaking of the earliest something has been done......does anyone know how long the name "Lynah Faithful" has been given to us?



Post Edited (04-09-03 16:34)

The school wouldn't take down the glass for us because it doesn't really want fans climbing the glass at all. Liability and all. I imagine glass climbing was only tolerated because they couldn't really do much about it. I'm glad they were willing to let people go on the ice through the door now, but it's not the same.

First over the glass - Kevin Pettit scores in overtime at Boston Garden to beat BU 3-2 in the '69 ECAC semi-final. One of the Cornell sections was right down by the boards, pretty much center ice, and a few dozen of us went spontaneously over the boards.

And with good reason. When going over the glass in 2000, I was kicked in the head HARD. didn't lose my grip, but i was really mad and almost pushed the guy over. Luckily, i got hold of my senses and didn't. but if i hadn't, or if i had lost my grip, one of us would have fallen quite a ways to the ice and probably been seriously injured....

I don't know--before a friend and I went over the glass from section A in 2000, we asked if we could go through the door right at the bottom, seeing as that might be a bit safer. Rink guy said no and blocked us from going through, so we went over. I'm glad I did, as it was more fun that way, but I would think that would have been a huge liability thing had one of us gone splat.

But taking time to remove one of the sections of glass would ruin the whole spontaneous feeling of the experience. Although I haven't seen it lately--do people just wait to file through the doors?