Letter from MetaEzra

[ugarte]

One thing I am curious about with attendance is if freshman season ticket holder numbers are down this year because the basketball team is less likely to sway upperclassmen who have had tickets before. But for freshman, basketball makes a great case considering it is free, general admission, they are good, and the ushers dont bother us at all except for Matt Coats occasionally throwing someone out for cursing

That could also result from incoming freshmen's attitudes towards sports being more influenced by the national milieu where basketball is king rather the Cornell one, where it's hockey.

That's no different now than it was ten years ago, though, is it?

Ten years ago basketball sucked. Even if you come to Cornell caring about basktball rather than hockey, a dead arena and a lot of losing sucks the fun out of it.

Granted, but that wasn't JTW's point.  :-}

We disagree. I think that was the context of JTW's point.

[French Rage]

Student season tickets didn't sell out

If student tickets did not sell out, do they sell them as part of the release on Thursday morning?

Inquiring minds (who need tickets to the RPI game) want to know! :-}

[phillysportsfan]

it's the high ticket prices that ensure people in the student sections are the most dedicated fans ... I know some freshmen who have season tickets but simply stopped coming.

This seems like a contradiction?

Fans come late / aren't involved / don't know the cheers / are sorority facetimers is an annual thread.  Does anybody think it's become qualitatively worse, or is this the same lament?  (At the few Lynah games I've been able to make the last few years, the crowd has actually seemed better than at any time since at least the mid-80's)

I didn't notice that when I typed it, but ya, I guess I'm wrong about the high ticket prices. Maybe Mitch was right in last year's article where he argued that Athletics should lower ticket prices and make tickets general admission so it's first come first serve. Ticket prices should react to fans' supple & demand and demand is definitely lower at this point. Someone start calling Andy Noel, I know I will tomorrow.

They definitely need to go general admission. General admission makes the basketball student section a good one because all the cheers start in the first 4 or 5 rows. If all these devoted fans were not near each other it would probably be much harder to get any chants going

[mnagowski]

Last night I sat in Section F with a couple of other recent alums. Said the townie in Section G: "I haven't heard the black hole cheer in years."

[ebilmes]

Last night I sat in Section F with a couple of other recent alums. Said the townie in Section G: "I haven't heard the black hole cheer in years."

That cheer comes out almost every game in the A/B area. It pisses me off when people do it when the score is 0-0 or 1-0 or something like that.

[mnagowski]

Last night I sat in Section F with a couple of other recent alums. Said the townie in Section G: "I haven't heard the black hole cheer in years."

That cheer comes out almost every game in the A/B area. It pisses me off when people do it when the score is 0-0 or 1-0 or something like that.

Well... heh. Then you would have been pissed when we did it at the end of the second. But hopefully you can excuse a couple of washed-up alums. We also did the 'Saturday night... you can't score' taunt, but not until the handshakes.

[ebilmes]

Last night I sat in Section F with a couple of other recent alums. Said the townie in Section G: "I haven't heard the black hole cheer in years."

That cheer comes out almost every game in the A/B area. It pisses me off when people do it when the score is 0-0 or 1-0 or something like that.

Well... heh. Then you would have been pissed when we did it at the end of the second. But hopefully you can excuse a couple of washed-up alums. We also did the 'Saturday night... you can't score' taunt, but not until the handshakes.

No hard feelings. But doesn't it seem a little silly to do Black Hole when Richter had stopped 23 of 24 shots?

[Jordan 04]

Last night I sat in Section F with a couple of other recent alums. Said the townie in Section G: "I haven't heard the black hole cheer in years."

That cheer comes out almost every game in the A/B area. It pisses me off when people do it when the score is 0-0 or 1-0 or something like that.

Well... heh. Then you would have been pissed when we did it at the end of the second. But hopefully you can excuse a couple of washed-up alums. We also did the 'Saturday night... you can't score' taunt, but not until the handshakes.

No hard feelings. But doesn't it seem a little silly to do Black Hole when Richter had stopped 23 of 24 shots?

No. He's still a worthless sieve.

[Jim Hyla]

One cheer that did bother me was "season's over" as Harvard was skating off. I just don't think you need to rub it in then. They know their season is over, let it be. You show your strength when you can be a gracious winner.

[mnagowski]

Last night I sat in Section F with a couple of other recent alums. Said the townie in Section G: "I haven't heard the black hole cheer in years."

That cheer comes out almost every game in the A/B area. It pisses me off when people do it when the score is 0-0 or 1-0 or something like that.

Well... heh. Then you would have been pissed when we did it at the end of the second. But hopefully you can excuse a couple of washed-up alums. We also did the 'Saturday night... you can't score' taunt, but not until the handshakes.

No hard feelings. But doesn't it seem a little silly to do Black Hole when Richter had stopped 23 of 24 shots?

Not when he let in 5 shots the night before.

One cheer that did bother me was "season's over" as Harvard was skating off. I just don't think you need to rub it in then. They know their season is over, let it be. You show your strength when you can be a gracious winner.

I see this in a little bit different light. I'm the type of person who really dislikes any swearing, but this is the type of "all in good fun" cheer that will give the Harvard players nightmares the next time they come to Ithaca. It's not being mean, per se, just helping to point out the obvious. It is what makes the Lynah atmosphere intimidating.  

And it certainly pales in comparison to the 'go jump off a bridge' chant I have heard from Harvard students at Lynah East. We can still be a gracious winner by not engaging in personal insults or trying to jump the other team's fans (a la RIT did in 2007).

[Rosey]

One cheer that did bother me was "season's over" as Harvard was skating off. I just don't think you need to rub it in then. They know their season is over, let it be. You show your strength when you can be a gracious winner.

I disagree: they're still fair game as long as they're in our barn, and fan ruthlessness is part of the Lynah mystique.  I wouldn't say anything but "good game" to them if I encountered them outside the rink, though.

[Jim Hyla]

Last night I sat in Section F with a couple of other recent alums. Said the townie in Section G: "I haven't heard the black hole cheer in years."

That cheer comes out almost every game in the A/B area. It pisses me off when people do it when the score is 0-0 or 1-0 or something like that.

Well... heh. Then you would have been pissed when we did it at the end of the second. But hopefully you can excuse a couple of washed-up alums. We also did the 'Saturday night... you can't score' taunt, but not until the handshakes.

No hard feelings. But doesn't it seem a little silly to do Black Hole when Richter had stopped 23 of 24 shots?

Not when he let in 5 shots the night before.

One cheer that did bother me was "season's over" as Harvard was skating off. I just don't think you need to rub it in then. They know their season is over, let it be. You show your strength when you can be a gracious winner.

I see this in a little bit different light. I'm the type of person who really dislikes any swearing, but this is the type of "all in good fun" cheer that will give the Harvard players nightmares the next time they come to Ithaca. It's not being mean, per se, just helping to point out the obvious. It is what makes the Lynah atmosphere intimidating.  

And it certainly pales in comparison to the 'go jump off a bridge' chant I have heard from Harvard students at Lynah East. We can still be a gracious winner by not engaging in personal insults or trying to jump the other team's fans (a la RIT did in 2007).

We will probably continue to disagree, but to me "all in good fun" is done to a friend, such as you're working with a Harvard grad and you come back to work smiling and chanting it. To say it to the team that just lost, isn't the same "good fun". As for giving the Harvard team nightmares,  two seasons of 9-16-6 & 9-21-3 should do that quite well.

[Jim Hyla]

One cheer that did bother me was "season's over" as Harvard was skating off. I just don't think you need to rub it in then. They know their season is over, let it be. You show your strength when you can be a gracious winner.

I disagree: they're still fair game as long as they're in our barn, and fan ruthlessness is part of the Lynah mystique.  I wouldn't say anything but "good game" to them if I encountered them outside the rink, though.

To me, when the game is over, the game is over. Even if they are fighting, once the horn sounds the end of the game, the teams shake hands. We should do the same.

[mnagowski]

Last night I sat in Section F with a couple of other recent alums. Said the townie in Section G: "I haven't heard the black hole cheer in years."

That cheer comes out almost every game in the A/B area. It pisses me off when people do it when the score is 0-0 or 1-0 or something like that.

Well... heh. Then you would have been pissed when we did it at the end of the second. But hopefully you can excuse a couple of washed-up alums. We also did the 'Saturday night... you can't score' taunt, but not until the handshakes.

No hard feelings. But doesn't it seem a little silly to do Black Hole when Richter had stopped 23 of 24 shots?

Not when he let in 5 shots the night before.

One cheer that did bother me was "season's over" as Harvard was skating off. I just don't think you need to rub it in then. They know their season is over, let it be. You show your strength when you can be a gracious winner.

I see this in a little bit different light. I'm the type of person who really dislikes any swearing, but this is the type of "all in good fun" cheer that will give the Harvard players nightmares the next time they come to Ithaca. It's not being mean, per se, just helping to point out the obvious. It is what makes the Lynah atmosphere intimidating.  

And it certainly pales in comparison to the 'go jump off a bridge' chant I have heard from Harvard students at Lynah East. We can still be a gracious winner by not engaging in personal insults or trying to jump the other team's fans (a la RIT did in 2007).

We will probably continue to disagree, but to me "all in good fun" is done to a friend, such as you're working with a Harvard grad and you come back to work smiling and chanting it. To say it to the team that just lost, isn't the same "good fun". As for giving the Harvard team nightmares,  two seasons of 9-16-6 & 9-21-3 should do that quite well.

Yeah. We'll just have to disagree. I would think that chanting 'season's over' to a friend at work the next day is a lot more inappropriate than when the team is still on the ice. Once they get off the ice, the tone should go to "good game" and "we won't look forward to playing you next year". I know that's how I converse with my colleagues who attended other ECAC schools.

But when the team is still on the ice, we want to make certain that they know that they are at Lynah.

[Trotsky]

To me, when the game is over, the game is over. Even if they are fighting, once the horn sounds the end of the game, the teams shake hands. We should do the same.

Does this mean we should not cheer "winning team, losing team" after the buzzer?

It's clearly not good if, for example, fans boo an opponent during the award ceremony in Albany.  That's classless.  But one final cheer just moments after buzzer seems like a continuation of the passion of the game -- the good-natured assholery of Lynah's winking hooliganism.  By all means, if you see them after the game go out of your way to shake the opposing player's or fan's hand and wish them well, to underscore that it's all in fun.