Attendance at Lynah

[Johnny 5]

How disappointing was it to see section A last Saturday night ?  Not sure what else might have been going on but I counted 29 bodies plus the band in section A 10 minutes into the 1st period.  It did get a little better during the second period, but not even close to 1/2 full.  There are other pockets of empty seats for every home game in section F and G.  

It won't be long and the much ballyhooed belief that Lynah is an intimidating place to play will be just a distant memory.

Winning a few games would help.

Sure, but things were fading even 4-5 years ago, when we were playing pretty good hockey.  I still think a lot of it is the behavior crackdown.  I mean, there's about a dozen other factors, too.  Cracking down on swearing is one thing.  Harassing students over being loud/obnoxious is another.

So, you're saying the students won't go to games unless they can be obscene, loud or obnoxious?? Well, wah, wah, wah, cry me a river.

Actually I think there are other factors at play here.
Back in the day there was no ILDN. If you wanted to see a game you hadta buy a ticket. And, there weren't 500 program options on TV, or X-Box, or Netflix, ad nauseum.

No, though it may be exciting and entertaining to us die-hards, I think the millenials may be looking at other ways to get their adrenalin fix.
Why trudge to Lynah in the cold & snow when you can view the action in the comfort of your living room, and crack a few brewskies in the process??

::drunk::

[Rosey]

So, you're saying the students won't go to games unless they can be obscene, loud or obnoxious?? Well, wah, wah, wah, cry me a river.

If you don't give the students the opportunity to have fun the way they want, don't complain when they don't show up. Simple as that. I'll add you to my list of "STFU about students not showing up" and call you out on it next time. Agreed?

I love how we're going around in circles. There are lots of factors adding up to lower attendance and lower enthusiasm. Cornell can't do anything about the weather, Netflix, X-Box, or ad nauseam; but they can do something about the oppressive environment at the hockey rink. When I was a student, most of the fun was about the crazy, obnoxious, loud crowd screaming often funny and (yes) often obscene things. If it were not for that, I would likely have consumed hockey some other way or, more likely, simply found something else to do. Kill the fun, and people who aren't already interested in watching Cornell play hockey in silence aren't going to show up.

Why is this so difficult to understand?

[Johnny 5]

So, you're saying the students won't go to games unless they can be obscene, loud or obnoxious?? Well, wah, wah, wah, cry me a river.

If you don't give the students the opportunity to have fun the way they want, don't complain when they don't show up. Simple as that. I'll add you to my list of "STFU about students not showing up" and call you out on it next time. Agreed?

I love how we're going around in circles. There are lots of factors adding up to lower attendance and lower enthusiasm. Cornell can't do anything about the weather, Netflix, X-Box, or ad nauseam; but they can do something about the oppressive environment at the hockey rink. When I was a student, most of the fun was about the crazy, obnoxious, loud crowd screaming often funny and (yes) often obscene things. If it were not for that, I would likely have consumed hockey some other way or, more likely, simply found something else to do. Kill the fun, and people who aren't already interested in watching Cornell play hockey in silence aren't going to show up.

Why is this so difficult to understand?

Not difficult to understand at all. Sorry if I confused you.
That wasn't my point. I'm not the one crying about students not showing up. Show up, don't show up...I don't give a rat.
Especially if in order for them to show up they have to be allowed to act like a-holes.
Nobody said that they had to attend in silence. Oppressive? What?? Where did that come from?!
All anybody is saying is, if this is going to be a family affair they shouldn't be screaming lewd, sexually explicit cheers.
And, yes, over the years the chants had gotten raunchier and raunchier.
Or, maybe we should have an age requirement? Say nobody under 16?? 18??
Joke. Didn't want you to misconstrue this, too.

Guess I may have to add you to my list of people who "JDFGI". Sorry if I'm being oppressive.

::whistle::

[Rosey]

Not difficult to understand at all. Sorry if I confused you.
That wasn't my point. I'm not the one crying about students not showing up. Show up, don't show up...I don't give a rat.
Especially if in order for them to show up they have to be allowed to act like a-holes.

Ok, then we're agreed.

IMO, it makes sense for people to complain about the crowd shouting raunchy things, or about students not showing up, but not both. Complaining about both is like pointlessly bitching about the unfairness of the facts of life: e.g., complaining that hot young coeds are pretty but won't pay any attention to your flabby 50 year old ass. You get students into the rink by giving them the opportunity to have a kind of fun they can't experience elsewhere. If you dictate the bounds of "fun" too much, you risk not overlapping with their definition of fun, which leads to lower attendance and lower enthusiasm.

When there were fewer entertainment options on the Hill and while Cornell was dominant in the ECAC, the administration could get away with this while still getting students to go to games (though attendance has been suffering since at least the first season I had tickets in G, which was probably 04-05 or 05-06); but now they can't.

Clearly I'm on the laissez faire side of rink behavior, mostly because I don't understand why old people get their knickers in a twist over hearing people use naughty words in unison; but regardless, my opinion is beside the point. The students have spoken. Everyone please stop complaining that students aren't showing up when you are not offering something they want to do.

[Trotsky]

I have never understood the crackdown on A and B.  I used to sit with the oldsters in the back of C, with the occasional high dollar, clueless VIP whose virginal ears the AD was presumably protecting, and we can't understand anything you say in A or B.  You could be reciting The Aristocrats and we'd be none the wiser, so where's the harm?

Though to put on my grumpy old hat for a moment, I have also never understood why kids who scored high enough to be admitted to Cornell are apparently unable to heckle without using the 7 (or 77, now, from what I hear) words you're not allowed to say in front of Lynah children.  Any line that uses the word "sucks" is by definition not clever.  While I don't think the censorship of the crowd is warranted or effective, a non-trivial portion of me is also thinking: reach a little higher, snowflakes.

I think part of the issue was the that 1,000 words you can't say in Lynah morphed into "anyone who is loud is subject to extra scrutiny."  Being loud and creative without vulgarity was as much a cause for abuse as "the ref fucks sheep."

I thought it might be something like that.  FWIW, which isn't much since I only get to Lynah about a dozen times a decade these days, if I saw an usher giving a student the SS treatment simply for being the tallest blade of grass, I'd interpose my considerable bulk and try to talk him down.

[upprdeck]

I think the family atmosphere issue is over blown. there are kids, but when you factor in that 95% of the cheers you cant understand and the fact that most of the kids are even further away Im not sure any amount of swearing is really making any difference to families staying away.   its clear less people are coming, i know as a townie its not nearly as fun if the kids are not creating an atmosphere.

I dont recall hearing anything at a game that i dont hear walking down the halls at any middle school in the country.   how people talk at a hockey game to an opponent is not how i want my kids talking to people in a real world environment but I also dont think how kids talk to each other really represents the type of person they are.

you go to pg-13 movie and you can hear almost anything you would ever hear at a cornell hockey game. parents take young kids there, you know you might hear or see something. if you are worried about it dont bring kids, most of the cheering is pretty harmless, the players and opp's actually like it from the ones i have talked to.

you want to add to place, dont let people in to the building except for between periods, get more people to show up on time, figure out how to get people moving around the building so a 15 min intermission isnt lost just getting to the bathroom or getting some food. fix the speakers, add a digital projector and show some highlights, and survey the kids to find out why they are not coming and always showing up late.

fix the ticket price issue, add incentives to buying season tickets.  why is bulk food cheaper but not tickets?  upgrade people to center ice/box seats like other venues do. market the program..

get an athletic office who knows what they are doing.

[Johnny 5]

Ya know, now that I think about it.....
As a big fan of the late, lamented George Carlin I have to ask myself, self, is there really anything fundamentally wrong if the 10 year old kid next to me is chanting,
"The Ref Fucks Sheep!!" at the top of his lungs?
I mean isn't the problem really just the anachronistic Puritanism of the listener?
Dunno. Just askin'.

::thud::

[Chris '03]

Ya know, now that I think about it.....
As a big fan of the late, lamented George Carlin I have to ask myself, self, is there really anything fundamentally wrong if the 10 year old kid next to me is chanting,
"The Ref Fucks Sheep!!" at the top of his lungs?
I mean isn't the problem really just the anachronistic Puritanism of the listener?
Dunno. Just askin'.

::thud::

I didn't know Cornell had a bunch of ten year old students now.

Speaking of anachronistic Purintanism, in what decade will we all finally accept that, for better or worse, "sucks" is such an enormously mainstream word that attempts to ban its use at a hockey game are idiotic?

To me the following rules should generally apply:
- no one is singled out just for being loud (or tall or tall and loud)
- If it's heard on basic cable between 6am and 10pm, it's not objectionable at a college hockey game
- no threats against players, officials, fans, bands, etc. (like the year A & B started chanting "parking lot" at the colgate band).

That said, vulgarity is a crutch and you can be creative without it.  But right now there seems to be no creativity either.

[RichH]

So, you're saying the students won't go to games unless they can be obscene, loud or obnoxious?? Well, wah, wah, wah, cry me a river.

Opinions over content can differ. But you're saying that it's OK for students to get hassled over being loud at a hockey game, and I disagree with that. That's what Chris '03 and Dafatone have said. Students have been getting targeted by this Athletics Department for being loud and supportive just as those being abusive.



My biggest observations (not really criticisms, but these may help figuring out why enthusiasm has waned):

1) Students aren't showing up on time. We've gone from B & D being packed at 6:30 for warmups...to the sections filling up just in time for the puck drop...to people wandering in near the end of the 1st period.  Once you have 2 years of that, "that's how it's always been" in the minds of half the student body.

2) Students aren't traveling to road games. Obviously internet games take care of that, but one of the best fan-bonding experiences are those wonderfully illogical caravans to godfersaken places like Canton or Troy and seeing the ushers scratch their heads at the presence and energy the younger fans bring. With numbers, we could take over any rink. That era is over. As an alumnus who lives within 2 hours of seven league foes, I'm now used to the visitor sections being populated by just a smattering of local alumni. (Band excluded).

3) Students aren't participating here. I'm calling it out: how many people posting on this forum are undergrads? We've had the same group of 15 or so regular posters for the past decade. Talking to online friends helped deepen my week-to-week fervor.

[Dafatone]

Count me in for someone who thinks that it's not the end of the world if a kid hears an occasional swear word.  I don't mind ditching the chant about the ref and his sheep habits, but that's about it.

I heard much, much worse at the last NHL game I went to (to be fair, it was Pens @Rangers and we were in the nosebleed seats).  There were also kids.  The world did not end.

[Chris '03]

Count me in for someone who thinks that it's not the end of the world if a kid hears an occasional swear word.  I don't mind ditching the chant about the ref and his sheep habits, but that's about it.

I heard much, much worse at the last NHL game I went to (to be fair, it was Pens @Rangers and we were in the nosebleed seats).  There were also kids.  The world did not end.

I went to my first NHL game when I was about 9.  Rob Shick was the referee.  For most of the game a bunch of drunks in the next section chanted "Shick is shit. Shick is shit."  I survived.

[BearLover]

How disappointing was it to see section A last Saturday night ?  Not sure what else might have been going on but I counted 29 bodies plus the band in section A 10 minutes into the 1st period.  It did get a little better during the second period, but not even close to 1/2 full.  There are other pockets of empty seats for every home game in section F and G.  

It won't be long and the much ballyhooed belief that Lynah is an intimidating place to play will be just a distant memory.

Winning a few games would help.

Sure, but things were fading even 4-5 years ago, when we were playing pretty good hockey.  I still think a lot of it is the behavior crackdown.  I mean, there's about a dozen other factors, too.  Cracking down on swearing is one thing.  Harassing students over being loud/obnoxious is another.

So, you're saying the students won't go to games unless they can be obscene, loud or obnoxious?? Well, wah, wah, wah, cry me a river.

Actually I think there are other factors at play here.
Back in the day there was no ILDN. If you wanted to see a game you hadta buy a ticket. And, there weren't 500 program options on TV, or X-Box, or Netflix, ad nauseum.

No, though it may be exciting and entertaining to us die-hards, I think the millenials may be looking at other ways to get their adrenalin fix.
Why trudge to Lynah in the cold & snow when you can view the action in the comfort of your living room, and crack a few brewskies in the process??

::drunk::

There may be kids playing XBox and watching Netflix, but I can promise you no students are watching Cornell play on ILDN.  I would wager that, for any given home game, there are less than ten Cornell students in their room watching the hockey game on their computer.

[semsox]

My first couple years going to games at Lynah ('05-'06, '06-'07), section A was full of the most inspired heckling I'd ever heard. That first season was Lynah's last one before taller glass panels went in, and the ability of fans to interact with the game directly, having players hear taunts and react to fans, was still in full effect. We were arguably a more hardcore bunch of fans than sat in section B those years (big shout to BMac), although both sections had its share of folks who'd be there for warmups. The infamous crackdowns on language were a major reason why students' sections lost some spirit in my time--I mean, almost noone wanted to risk a $200 season ticket for just saying "[sieve] sucks!" The level of overreach and zealotry in this enforcement initiative, coupled with an athletics department deaf to student hockey fans, left a lot of bitterness in its wake. It's unfortunate but true that the Lynah Faithful didn't get its voice heard by Athletics until ticket sales started dropping and proved its loyalty couldn't be taken for granted.

I think this pretty closely aligns with my perception of what has changed. It wasn't only the crackdown on language, but I think not allowing the student sections to go after individual players has also put a damper on some of the liveliness of the crowd. Not being able to do the Telephone chant anymore? Not being able to make fun of players last names and stuff whenever they're on the ice? Some of the most creative chants I can remember stem from something about a particular opposing player (I'll never forget your sock Joe Grossman). Going off of RichH's point a few posts above, who would show up at 6:30 for warm-ups when you can't make fun of the opposing team?

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Most of my favorite memories at Lynah were associated with taunts of individual players, such as Princeton's Ray "Bozo" Casey or Clarkson's Brian "Beaver" Cleaver.  It the admin has truly outlawed that kind of interplay, and I have no proof that they have other than the hearsay on this board, then they've destroyed the Lynah experience for the students as least as I recall it.

[LGR14]

The front rows of Section B still harp on individual players and coaches and have over the past few years.