The Single Funniest Moment...

... in Buffalo.

This may have been mentioned on another thread, by it deserves a place of honor all its own in the archive.

We had just been heckling UNH goalie Mike Ayers mercilessly, taunting him with all the usual (and some unusual) chants and jeers. During the ensuing stoppage the jumbotron was scanning the crowd and stopped on a middle-aged, just plain folks looking woman, and held there. After a moment, a caption came up noting that this was Ayers' mother. And then the camera pulled slowly back, and the friend she had next to her was leaning into the picture, talking on a cell phone.

One of the most precious memories of being a member of the Faithful I'll ever have.

I don't get it...

I thought the funniest moment was when the entire arena, in unison, decided that they had enough of those "There are 360,000 NCAA student-athletes" ads and bood lustily about halfway through the Minn./Mich. game. That alone made it worth sticking around after The Red came up short.

> I don't get it...

I really, really hope I don't, but do I have to explain?

Not necessarily a "moment" here, but the funniest outfits of the weekend must go to the three fans wearing referee jerseys...

One jersey had the name "S. Wonder" on the back... The second was "R. Charles", and the third was "H. Keller"...

Very, very nasty, though I think leaving off the first initial would make it ten times funnier.

I have to go with Greg's, "Which team is the Safety School?"

[Q]I have to go with Greg's, "Which team is the Safety School?"[/Q]

I agree. Classic.

I also liked it when we cheered "it's all your fault!" to Ayers after the 4th goal and had the UNH fans start yelling at us.

And...when the UNH fans started leaving after that goal...I'd like to think that the Faithful would have stuck around to cheer our team on even if they lost!

Hey, Ayers! Your Mom called. . .

Sully '00 wrote:
I thought the funniest moment was when the entire arena, in unison, decided that they had enough of those "There are 360,000 NCAA student-athletes" ads and bood lustily about halfway through the Minn./Mich. game. That alone made it worth sticking around after The Red came up short.

What was great about that was that it worked. However, the funniest part for me was when the ads got booed during the commercial breaks at the Hobey ceremony and someone had to lean over and explain to the host of the program what we were booing about.

I was really impressed how the folks at HSBC adjusted to the demands of the college hockey crowd. I would've loved to see the scramble behind the scences as the boos got louder and louder for the NCAA stuff. We were doing "shotput sucks!" chants during our semifinal. Also, did anyone else notice that they changed the way they announced the 1:00 announcement? For our game, the first time was "This is the last minute of play in the period" But the rest of the time, it was "One minute remaining in the period." I can't prove that the change was due to the traditional college hockey cheer of "How much time is left", but I'd like to think so.

My funniest moment comes along the same lines. During the intermissions, they played highlights of great overtime NCAA games. The clips were a little too long, IMO...it was a shame they didn't give the bands more time. Anyway, back to my funniest moment. For the first intermission of the Final, they started to show the OT of the 1999 National Championship, where Maine defeated......UNH. About a minute or so into the film, the sound dropped out, followed by the picture being yanked with no explaination. Again, I would've liked to have seen the scramble to the control booth when a tournament official realized that they were about to show one of the most heartbreaking losses of one of the participants in the Final. I'm just guessing that that was the reason for yanking the video.



Post Edited (04-14-03 15:34)

[q]We were doing "shotput sucks!"[/q]
Not quite accurate. Scersk was chanting "shot put sucks!"

I'm glad they got the message about those ads on Saturday. They might have been slightly more bearable had there been more then only three of them. Maybe unveil one that hadn't been shown relentlessly during the hoops tournaments - perhaps one with, say, a hockey player?



Post Edited (04-14-03 15:45)

Matt Carberry wrote:

[q]We were doing "shotput sucks!"[/q]
Not quite accurate. Scersk was chanting "shot put sucks!"

I was doing it the first 2 times. Once he started beating it into the ground the next 12 times, I stopped.

The funniest moment may have been during the Humanitarian presentation when Sammy called up his team and they played Davy from an old marching band recording. When the band on the recording sang, "remember me to Tee Fee Crane, THAT BITCH" there were some mighty confused/shocked fans near where I was sitting.

Ayers throwing a tantrum during the timeout after the 4th UMN goal was pretty funny too.

I don't feel like started a whole new thread but I thought classiest moment in the tournament was Thomas Vanek after the final. When the game ended the media rushed to Vanek and Gopher goalie Travis Weber for interviews. While the interviews were taking place the teams shook hands. When he was finally free of the media, Vanek skated over to the opposite blue line where the UNH team was patiently waiting for the awards to begin and made a point to shake everyone's hand on down the line. It would have been easy for him to just celebrate with his team and not bother since the hand shaking was already completed, but I thought it showed a lot of class that he went over and did that. I don't think Weber did the same. Did anyone see if he did?

[Q]And...when the UNH fans started leaving after that goal...[/Q]

Obviously grad students who did their undergrad work at RIP!

He didn't. I remember commenting to my father about that.

Midway through the final, the Minnesota fans start going "Spin your head! Spin your head!" and in response Goldie the Gopher does a Linda Blair. Right after that the fans start a different chant (I couldn't understand what they were saying though). This time Goldie holds his head facing in one direction and spins his body beneath it.

Priceless. Can we teach the bear that one?

JH

Greg wrote:

... in Buffalo.

This may have been mentioned on another thread, by it deserves a place of honor all its own in the archive.

We had just been heckling UNH goalie Mike Ayers mercilessly, taunting him with all the usual (and some unusual) chants and jeers. During the ensuing stoppage the jumbotron was scanning the crowd and stopped on a middle-aged, just plain folks looking woman, and held there. After a moment, a caption came up noting that this was Ayers' mother. And then the camera pulled slowly back, and the friend she had next to her was leaning into the picture, talking on a cell phone.

One of the most precious memories of being a member of the Faithful I'll ever have.

What makes that even funnier is the new Southwest "Wanna get away?" commercial that's been airing during the NHL playoffs. Same idea, with the heckler shown on the jumbotron sitting right behind the hecklee's parents, who are announced as visiting from Russia.

Along similar lines, I was sitting one row in front of Jack Parker during the final. Unfortunately, he had stepped out when they showed the StL-BU 4 OT game on the scoreboard, but I caught a glance at one of his party, who was just shaking her head. After it was over, I commented, "Painful to watch that, isn't it?"

Was anyone as amused by the cheerleaders as I was?

> Was anyone as amused by the cheerleaders as I was?

I would say fascinated, horrified, and a little turned on, but not amused.



Post Edited (04-14-03 21:02)

LOL Greg.

I was gonna say, depends on your definition of amused - with simultaneous , , , and (and probably more if I felt like scrolling through the full list)

The second chant was "Spin your body!" This Goldy is easily the best mascot I've seen.

To Cornell Athletics:

In caser you're getting ideas, we tried the idea of skating cheerleaders in 1981. They got booed off the ice. As it should be.

The faithful are nothing if not traditionalists.

JH

Greenberg '97 wrote:

What makes that even funnier is the new Southwest "Wanna get away?" commercial that's been airing during the NHL playoffs. Same idea, with the heckler shown on the jumbotron sitting right behind the hecklee's parents, who are announced as visiting from Russia.

Heh, I haven't seen that commercial. Reminds me of my most chagrined moment at a Cornell event though. At some point in the late '80's our football team was playing one of those Patriot League schools we line up for OOC opponents every year. This particular team was a pretty mediocre team with an outstanding quarterback who was getting Heisman consideration and had just appeared in Sports Illustrated.

It was late in a close game, we were leading, they were driving and at about our 30. Their QB drops back to pass, one of our guys breaks through the line and starts chasing him down. A friend and I start shouting "Decapitate him! Decapitate him!" (Hey, we were students )

An older lady sitting in front of us turns around and says "Oh my goodness, no!"

Turns out we were sitting right behind the quarterbacks *grandmother*.

(We quickly apologized for our youthful exuberance).

Was that Frank Baur from Lafayette?

Peter Schoaff wrote:It was late in a close game, we were leading, they were driving and at about our 30. Their QB drops back to pass, one of our guys breaks through the line and starts chasing him down. A friend and I start shouting "Decapitate him! Decapitate him!" (Hey, we were students )

An older lady sitting in front of us turns around and says "Oh my goodness, no!"

Turns out we were sitting right behind the quarterbacks *grandmother*.

(We quickly apologized for our youthful exuberance).

Similar story. I was at a Yale game back in '96 ('97?) and my friend commented about all of the abuse being heaped on the players. "What if their parents are here?," she asked. "Not really an issue for us," I said, "all of our players are Canadian, so I don't expect that parents can make many road trips."

Rick Sacchetti's mom (Chelmsford, MA), who was sitting right next to me, tapped me on the shoulder and corrected me.

When I was young, dumb, and full of you know what, Laing Kennedy was making an award presentation on the ice just after he had harrangued the crowd for using profanity during a game. So, I booed him, for about 2 seconds, after which a middle aged but surprisingly attractive woman standing right behind me clubbed me right over the head, HARD, with her umbrella. Turns out that was his wife.

I never got the chance to apologize to her, but if she's out there somewhere, I deserved it and thanks.

Personally, I find these types of stories hilarious. I remember being at a Yankees-White Sox game in old Comiskey back in 1990, sitting in comp seats. I was screaming at Carlton Fisk for something or other when the person next to me whispers that his wife was sitting about ten feet away. I think I toned down the abuse after that, but it still amuses me.

Also reminds me of the game at Brown back in 11/01. If you've been to Meehan, you know that the walkways at the ends of the rink essentially hang over the ice so you can be almost on top of the goalie. A couple of us decided to go heckle Brian Ecklund from that perch in the third period. We were giving him hell when this little girl, couldn't be more than seven, comes over to us. She starts screaming at us, telling us to stop yelling at her cousin. We tried to be ignore her or placate her nicely, but what do you say to a seven year old? She was on the verge of tears by the time she ran away. I felt a little bad about it, but what are you going to do?

Greg, you probably did deserve that umbrella...

[Q]Greg, you probably did deserve that umbrella... [/Q]

And that little girl, if she ever hunts you down might give you a kick.

I was at Lynah in '96 sitting in the only seats available in that year before the sellouts became the norm. There was a nice lady, a little older than me, in the crowd who seemed intensely interested in the game. I did some listening and realized it was P.C. Drouin's mom.

A few weeks later I saw her at the concession stands in Albany and said, "Hello, Mrs. Drouin." To say that she was taken aback by my greeting is understatement. We had a nice conversation and I remember her description of the team to this day. "A lot of heart."

There is something special in the families of the foreign student athletes. Whether from Sweden, Austria, Canada or Australia it is quite a trip. It adds a dimension to the game that grows and grows on me. I liked my Canadian friends on the teams of the early 70's but I respect them even more now that 30 years have passed.



Post Edited (04-16-03 22:54)

Marty'74 wrote:

I was at Lynah in '96 sitting in the only seats available in that year before the sellouts became the norm. There was a nice lady, a little older than me, in the crowd who seemed intensely interested in the game. I did some listening and realized it was P.C. Drouin's mom.

A few weeks later I saw her at the concession stands in Albany and said, "Hello, Mrs. Drouin." To say that she was taken aback by my greeting is understatement. We had a nice conversation and I remember her description of the team to this day. "A lot of heart."

That story would have been funnier if you had been shouting "PC3" at him.

A different "stop harassing the goalie" story...

In the 1980 ECAC tournament we were mercilessly harassing Bob Gaudet, Dartmouth's Goalie, now coach, during warm-ups (Ugly sieve!). He actually winged a puck into the crowd. It was nowhere near us, but it got us going even more, especially after we beat Dartmouth.

Well, a couple weeks later we were playing Dartmouth in the NCAA consolation match. We started in on Gaudet in warm-ups again. After taking his reps, he skates over to us at the glass and says "Guys, you've been doing this shit for 3 games. Could you please give it a rest?"

Nice to know you're getting through!

JH

Okay, I hate to brag, but I think I've got a story that'll put these all to shame...

For the home Harvard game in '99-'00, myself and six others decided to paint the letters JR SUCKS on our chests in reference to Harvard seive J.R. Prestifilippo, who actually was probably the best goalie in the league at the time. The game was a pretty tight one, won 2-1 by Harvard (the last time they won at Lynah). J.R. played great, as usual, and after the game, we were all lingering in our seats in the front of section A, putting our shirts back on and gathering all of our things, when this 50-something, white-haired guy in a Harvard jacket comes over and starts talking to us.

He says something to the effect of "you guys are great, you're the best fans I've ever seen. I've been coming here for four years and my son's really gonna miss playing here." So my friend Johnny says "your son?" to which he replies, "yeah, J.R. Prestifilippo."

Yup - J.R.'s dad thought we were phenomenal, even after we asked him, two or three times, if I'm not mistaken, "you DID see what we had written on our chests, right?" Really nice guy - we told him we were going to the game in Cambridge and to keep his eyes open for us, and he just laughed and kept saying "you guys are great, this place is great." I don't think he believed us about going to Cambridge, so he must have loved it when we painted the same thing in Bright before the team dropped four goals on J.R. and he got pulled in favor of Oliver Jonas (of course, we changed our R into an A and recruited three other guys to help us spell JONAS SUCKS for the rest of the game).

There was more fun with J.R.'s parents in the playoffs that year, but this is getting kind of long, so I'll have to save that for another time. Needless to say, I enjoyed the J.R. Prestifilippo era...

In the playoff series against Harvard in 99/00 (I don't recall which game), a bandie decided to get a little creative with the spelling cheer. He yelled:

"Give me an F! Give me a U! Give me a J! Give me an R! What does that spell? F U J R!"

Even the cops were impressed by that one.

Anybody remember the "hey prestifilippo, your mom puts the 'S' in SUCKS!" cheer we had going during the playoffs that year? Or was it supermom the next year who put the S in sucks? My memory is fading.. *sigh*

In either case it was funny.

In high school I knew the son of an N.L. administrator, so we used to be comped to Mets games and sat in the players' family section (sa-weet, even it was the 1981 Mets). Needless to say we *never* gave any player crap. However, George Foster's wife used to sit a few seats away from us, and she gave George unremitting shit all game, every game, making the funniest off-color cracks you'll ever hear and having the entire section peeing their pants. She could make the Lynah first team any day.



Post Edited (04-17-03 10:07)

It was that Harvard game, when a bunch of Harvard fans (including JR's family) had t-shirts made (in direct response to my row, if I can get one more self-plug in ) that spelled out CORNELL SUCKS. And JR's mom - who was actually foolish enough to bring a big sign that said "I'm JR's Mom!!!" - was the first S.

When those band members yelled that out... well, that might have been the funniest spur of the moment cheer I'd ever heard at Lynah (and at my final game, too...).



Post Edited (04-17-03 10:11)

JR's Mom and company were definitely a fun part of that weekend (which also featured the infamous drunken slurred "HARVARD IS IN CAMBRIDGE...[etc]" cheer). If only Hahvahd sent such enthusiastic fans to Lynah on a regular basis.

The F U, JR cheer is the funniest cheer I've ever heard, hands down. I was in Section O (sucks) for it, and it could clearly see/hear it. Not only was the creativity there, but the delivery was perfect, with clearly enunciated "Give - Me - An - 'F'!". A tip of the cap to Mr. Leigh Bernstein '00, and I'm not just saying this because he was my Hausmate for a year.



Post Edited (04-17-03 12:17)

John T. Whelan '91 wrote:

JR's Mom and company were definitely a fun part of that weekend (which also featured the infamous drunken slurred "HARVARD IS IN CAMBRIDGE...[etc]" cheer). If only Hahvahd sent such enthusiastic fans to Lynah on a regular basis.

For the record, I think it was really stoned, not drunk as those guys became known to some of us as the "Cornell Smoking Team", particularly after they liberated (and consumed) an entire food service sized flat of hotdog buns at LP that year.

Anyway, the cheer when something like this:

Harvard is in Cambridge
Cambridge is in Boston
Boston's in Massachusetts
Two shits! Two Shits!

(the alternate ending was You're all douches!)

Sully '00 wrote:
I don't think he believed us about going to Cambridge, so he must have loved it when we painted the same thing in Bright before the team dropped four goals on J.R. and he got pulled in favor of Oliver Jonas (of course, we changed our R into an A and recruited three other guys to help us spell JONAS SUCKS for the rest of the game).

Which letter were you? I'm the N as evidenced by the (now gone) grad student sloth gut. Adam Ganderson MIT '97 Cornell '? Yale '05 is the exclamation point. (talk about a trifecta of schools that hate Harvard). I'm thinking Lynch is the A?





Post Edited (04-17-03 12:42)

Keith K '93 wrote:
Also reminds me of the game at Brown back in 11/01. If you've been to Meehan, you know that the walkways at the ends of the rink essentially hang over the ice so you can be almost on top of the goalie. A couple of us decided to go heckle Brian Ecklund from that perch in the third period. We were giving him hell when this little girl, couldn't be more than seven, comes over to us. She starts screaming at us, telling us to stop yelling at her cousin. We tried to be ignore her or placate her nicely, but what do you say to a seven year old? She was on the verge of tears by the time she ran away. I felt a little bad about it, but what are you going to do?

a) She was 6.

b) She did actually kick me.

c) I did see her crying later and felt really bad.

d) Not sure but I think it was you, me and Hovorka? unleashing a stream of vitriol that would make a drunken sailor with Tourettes proud. Brown really shouldn't leave 3 folding chairs right there when Cornell comes to town.



Post Edited (04-18-03 15:09)

Yup, it was you, me and Hovorka.

Keith K '93 wrote:

Yup, it was you, me and Hovorka.

Yepper. Good times... It was definitely Brian Eklund right below us, and it was a great perch to watch the PP suceed.



Post Edited (04-17-03 13:30)

John E Hayes '98 '00 wrote:
For the record, I think it was really stoned, not drunk as those guys became known to some of us as the "Cornell Smoking Team"

Wait, that was the Cornell Smoking Team too? Cool.

Anyway, the cheer when something like this:

Harvard is in Cambridge
Cambridge is in Boston
Boston's in Massachusetts
Two shits! Two Shits!

(the alternate ending was You're all douches!)

Actually, the version I remember Molly telling at Joe's the following night, and which I've repeated, ended with
[Q]
Boston is in Massachusetts
Two shits! Two Shits!
You're all douches!
[/Q]
So as to be as long as possible and not fit any meter. It's also very important to pause way too long between each line and make it sound like it's a strugle to maintain equlibrium, let alone the power of speech. (I actually heard the "cheer" from C, but of course at the time it sounded like "Ahhguugaaahhg..." That weekend was so much fun.

"Burt ... puttin' on the hurt!"

[Q]John E Hayes '98 '00 wrote:

Which letter were you? I'm the N as evidenced by the (now gone) grad student sloth gut. Adam Ganderson MIT '97 Cornell '? Yale '05 is the exclamation point. (talk about a trifecta of schools that hate Harvard). I'm thinking Lynch is the A?[/Q]


Man, I haven't seen a full shot of all of us since the one that was in the Sun. Lynch was the R turned A, I was the J - and basically the whole word "SUCKS" were our pledges. Good times...

(Sidenote - Lynch is now in Iraq with the army, but I know he would have loved to be at the Frozen Four. Hopefully he'll be back soon.)

I think that girl two rows above the first S (whose name is Matt), is the one who started chanting "Let's Go Har-vard!" really loud when we started the "We can't hear you!" chant at the entire other side of the rink. Of course, for her efforts, she got a few "Good fan!" chants, while the rest of the Harvard, um, "fans" got the "Bad fans!" thrown their way. There's no better way to shut up a good fan than to tell her she's the ONLY good fan in a pathetic fan base.

And it's good to put some names on the board to faces, also. How was your Florida trip?



Post Edited (04-17-03 14:56)

By the way, would this be an inapropriate background picture for my computer at work? I guess there's only one way to find out...

[Q]Well, a couple weeks later we were playing Dartmouth in the NCAA consolation match. We started in on Gaudet in warm-ups again. After taking his reps, he skates over to us at the glass and says "Guys, you've been doing this shit for 3 games. Could you please give it a rest?"[/Q]

Did you guys stop?

You forgot to mention on the Gaudet story who won in the 1980 NCAA Consolation game after getting through....

Ben Flickinger wrote:

You forgot to mention on the Gaudet story who won in the 1980 NCAA Consolation game after getting through....

Consolation games were intended for teams that have never won anything.

[q]but the delivery was perfect, with clearly enunciated "Give - Me - An - 'F'!". A tip of the cap to Mr. Leigh Bernstein '00[/q]

A Bernstein? Enunciating?

How now brown cow!



Post Edited (04-22-03 22:29)

Speaking of players parents and taunting opponents...

At Yost arena (where U of Michigan plays) after the opposition scores all of the opposing teams fans (many of them parents situated behind the benches) stand up to cheer. The Michigan fans launch into a chorus of "UG-LY parents, UG-LY parents." A bit cruel, but hilarious none the less.

I thought the Michigan fans in Buffalo were the most spirited despite us outnumbering them. I've actually heard that the MI fans got most of their cheering material from CU fans in a 1991 3-game ncaa play-in series in Ann Arbor where CU fans outnumbered MI fans. Anyone know if there's truth to that?

ARGH!

This would be the third time this has been discussed in the last month or so, so to recap the whole discussion go to - [www.rso.cornell.edu] . Search for "Arbor" on the page and it will bring up an article from the Ann Arbor News.

Dartmouth.

8-4 as I recall.