Harvard fans?

According to someone on the USCHO board, the behavior of the Harvard fans was pretty sad, along the lines of throwing bottles at Cornell fans and a hat on the ice to try to get a Cornell penalty. Did anyone at the game have any such observations?

Here is roughly what I posted on that USCHO thread:

There was a penis drawn on something that resembled a pillsbury dough boy which had "Harvard" written on it and there was a sheep with "Cornell" on it. The dough boy was..... well lets just say it was XXX.

I was surprised to see that they filled up two sections with student fans. From what I heard in the past they are usually empty. They had some good cheers towards picking on our Hotel School (i guess they forgot it was the best in the world) and they had a few other good ones. Got desperate on more than one occasion and a few of them were flipping off the Cornell fans. Also tossed a hat on the ice about 2 minutes after Moulson's hat-trick, so that didn't do them any good. A lot more empty seats than I expected. Overall, it was a good, hard-fought game on the ice and between the fans and bands. There are bound to be a few bad seeds from both schools who go too far.

Hopefully Harvard will not have that stupid ticket policy next year and Cornell will be able to fill the empty seats.

p.s. THIS IS OUR HOUSE!

LGR!

Alex

Someone in the Harvard fan section did in fact wing a (roughly) full bottle of Sprite at the band. Fortunately it didn't hurt anyone.

Their fans tried hard but were kind of sad. A bunch of them were just acting out as much as possible to get on TV. A few took every taunt and chant we threw at them so personally they looked like they were going to have an aneurysm. I don't think they quite get the point.

There were many empty seats. Hahvahd had the one active student section behind the net, then the section with their band. The other sections were sort of politely interested and cheered for goals. They all got into it for a while there in third, making it all the sweeter when they left crushed and dejected.

Maybe the students who potentially sit in the empty seats were enjoying "unhappy" hour at the bahs in town.

I think the display by the Hahvahd fans, and how they took our taunts personally, is a sign that they are new to this game. Another indication that they didn't really understand the game was during the Bitz break-away. When Dov made the initial save, their fans went crazy (jumping up and down) and reacted as if the play was dead, even though we had 2 guys trailing Bitz, and there wasn't a Crimson jersey in sight. How sweet it was to see their dejected faces after Moulson tapped it in seconds later.

Hopefully, last nights game got under their skin enough for them to become devoted fans so that the rivalry (from a fan's perspective) is not so one-sided.

That being said, I think last night was the rowdiest Hahvahd contingent I had seen in the past 4-5 years.

So I take it that the ushers were keeping SRO ticket holders *cough*CornellFans*cough* from filling those empty seats?

The ushers were completely different from the ones at Lynah. The ones at Harvard didn't seem to be bothered by anything, except for a little kid that was climbing on the glass behind the Cornell bench.

I take it the ushrs at Lynah are still under orders to behave like the Gestapo?

JH

[Q]Justin Nachod '04 wrote:

The ushers were completely different from the ones at Lynah. The ones at Harvard didn't seem to be bothered by anything, except for a little kid that was climbing on the glass behind the Cornell bench.[/Q]Agreed, after we finished with our papers during the introductions, one of the ushers, who had come down to near the glass, was walking back up to the top of the rink. As he was walking I told him I guess he could leave, since his job was done and we didn't throw any papers on the ice. We struck up a conversation and his basic comment was that the whole thing was foolish and we should be able to do it before the game.

There was definitely a contingent of a dozen or so "Crimson Crazies" dressed up in random costumes like spaceman outfits. The only really obnoxious thing I encountered was one of them who decided to come over and stand in the middle of the Cornell section (right in front of me) and yell "Go Harvard" during the announcement of our lineups.

They had a few signs, including one in Italian which I realize in retrospect must have said "LASCIATE OGNE SPERANZA, VOI CH'INTRATE'" ("Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" from Dante's Inferno), which would have been clever (and intellectual, even), except it was written too thin a magic marker, and wasn't really legible from a few sections away. And he was holding it upside down, which gave us the opportunity to chant "He got ho-nors!"

Actually, I have a few friends who were in standing room who filled empty seats... and were eventually thrown out for swearing, even though they really never swore. Basically, the Harvard parents behind them were apalled that there were Cornell fans in their section actually cheering, so they called the ushers several times. Three strikes and you're out, I guess, but it was total bullshit. God I hate everything about that school.

Fortunately, as they were being led out of their section, Moulson finished off the hat trick, so they got one last round of taunts in.