Cornell vs. Princeton--ECAC Semis

[Swampy]

In Ned's days, people used to ask me why anyone would enjoy going to a 15-1 hockey game....  It's simple... When it's my team scoring the 15 goals and I'm whooping it up 15 times that day, It's a fun time for me!!!

No guilt or sympathy for the other team...

Look, let's face it. Sports today fills a certain primitive, tribal urge to conquer and humiliate the opponent. As fellow Cornell alum Richard Farina wrote, "I am King fucking MONTEZUMA ... [and] I will have your heart torn out ... OUT OUT OUT of your body ... At the top of a pyramid. ... And I will eat it RAW."

Or, as Queen wrote:

    Buddy you're an old man poor man
    Pleading with your eyes gonna make some peace some day
    You got mud on your face
    Big disgrace
    Somebody better put you back in your place

This celebration of humiliation plays at arenas and stadiums across the country and around the world.

And if you go to Google Scholar and enter "tribalism sports" you will get dozens of hits of academic articles dealing with tribalism and sports. Most of them seem to be written by marketing types, explaining how one can use such primal instincts to sell more crap.

But who would deny that there's a certain thrill and joy with a 15-1 victory over an enemy college, one that is almost as thrilling as eating an enemy's heart raw, in front of them, and as they gasp their last breath. ;^)

[RichH]

It wasn't choreographed. The team just came out and skated a few laps as part of its warm-up. The first several bars of the Theme to Peter Gunn just happen to be perfect for this kind of fast, ominous skating. I suppose there was enough variation among the individual players that a bunch of them always seemed in time with the music. Alternatively, if your routine was to do 3-4 laps of the rink for the aerobic start to your warm-up before starting stretches, shooting, passing, and similar things, wouldn't you want to time the rhythm of your movement as you did your laps to be in tune with cool music?

In the previous decade, some hockey internet citizen made a post somewhere about how their team skated out to Live is Life by Opus. The crowd gets clapping along to the opening bass drum hits as the team does laps. I can see it. (Apparently, this is also famous because of Maradona).

[RichH]

Look, let's face it. Sports today fills a certain primitive, tribal urge to conquer and humiliate the opponent.

Since this is now a youtube thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjMQbzBhTb4

If Swampy's assertion is true, then why is there such a hard-on in our sports society for underdogs and upsets and Cinderellas?

[scoop85]

Look, let's face it. Sports today fills a certain primitive, tribal urge to conquer and humiliate the opponent.

Since this is now a youtube thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjMQbzBhTb4

If Swampy's assertion is true, then why is there such a hard-on in our sports society for underdogs and upsets and Cinderellas?

I typically root for the underdog when my team isn't involved.  But if it's Cornell or one of the pro teams I root for, then I'm all for the 9-1 beat downs.

[abmarks]

Look, let's face it. Sports today fills a certain primitive, tribal urge to conquer and humiliate the opponent.

Since this is now a youtube thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjMQbzBhTb4

If Swampy's assertion is true, then why is there such a hard-on in our sports society for underdogs and upsets and Cinderellas?

We want OUR team team to crush the opponent.   When we don't have one of our favorite teams playing, we tend to root for the underdog.

-New Englanders root for for the Patriots to not only win, but blow teams out.   Almost everyone else roots for our opponent, which is so often an underdog.  And the same sort of logic applies to any team (or individual athlete) that is having a dominant run of success.  

-A blowout win for one's team is basically a two hour party.  Watching your team win a close game is a tension-filled experience with a celebratory release once won.  And watching your underdog team bang out a win is much like the close game, except for the joyous party after the game;  the tension is basically the same, but the unlikelihood of the victory makes for more joy.

[abmarks]

Once a game gets out of reach for the other team, watching the rest of the game is like watching with the outcome predetermined--not why I follow sports. There is nothing so thrilling as hanging onto every lose puck, every shot, every tip, every rebound, knowing full well it could decide the game.

With that said, I'd probably amend my post to say I prefer the 3-2 nailbiters in the regular season and the 6-1 drubbings in the playoffs, as an extremely tight, critically important game is too much for me to bear.

But 3-2 nailbiters can go either way. While they are exciting, if you lose, it's not so good.

So I'm assuming you like 3-2 winning nail-biters better than 9-1 winners.

But what about 3-2 losers? Do you prefer those over 9-1 winners? When I'm watching a 9-1 I'm pretty happy about knowing I'll get a win. A 3-2 game, makes me shiver.

Above all I want a win and if it could be predetermined that I'd win, I'd take a 3-2, but it wouldn't be very exciting.

It's called tape delay.

I don't understand.

Watching a Tape delay is terribly unexciting if you already know your team won the game.

[Trotsky]

We want OUR team team to crush the opponent.   When we don't have one of our favorite teams playing, we tend to root for the underdog.

People who root for the favorite when they don't have a rooting interest are sociopaths or Austrian economists.

[scoop85]

I want to see more of this

[RichH]

I want to see more of this

I got through the first 15 seconds and felt sorry for these children. Thanks a lot.

[Chris '03]

I want to see more of this

I got through the first 15 seconds and felt sorry for these children. Thanks a lot.

It got better. Maybe it's the parent in me, but it wasn't that bad in all.

[scoop85]

I want to see more of this

I got through the first 15 seconds and felt sorry for these children. Thanks a lot.

It got better. Maybe it's the parent in me, but it wasn't that bad in all.

I began watching with morbid fascination, but by the end I thought the guys did a credible job

[RichH]

I want to see more of this

I got through the first 15 seconds and felt sorry for these children. Thanks a lot.

It got better. Maybe it's the parent in me, but it wasn't that bad in all.

I began watching with morbid fascination, but by the end I thought the guys did a credible job

Oh, I kid, I kid. They did a good job and were fair to both sides. And they had a natural rapport. I've seen Harvard student reporting that looks like a robotics lab.

[TimV]

While I hate all the staged game presentation crap that shows up nearly everywhere in sports these days...but, skating on to the ice, choreographed to a pep band playing?   I'd pay extra to see that.

That's what I was thinking.  It sounds like Tokyo's synchronized skating in Rollerball.

Houston had their own- the "Power Stride."   Jon-a-THAN!

[osorojo]

In '63 or '64 I attended a Cornell-Colgate game in Hamilton. It was a rout. At the end of the second period Cornell was up by several goals and dominating play. There were gaps in the bleachers leading to the dressing rooms and I was sitting on the end seat of one row above the gap. The coaches were following the teams to the locker rooms and Ned was walking next to the Colgate coach who I overheard quietly saying something about "taking it easy," to which Ned replied quite clearly, "Go fuck yourself!" Cornell poured it on the third period. Harkness enjoyed watching a good shellacking as well as any man.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

While I hate all the staged game presentation crap that shows up nearly everywhere in sports these days...but, skating on to the ice, choreographed to a pep band playing?   I'd pay extra to see that.

That's what I was thinking.  It sounds like Tokyo's synchronized skating in Rollerball.

Houston had their own- the "Power Stride."   Jon-a-THAN!

Cue the Bach "Tocata & Fugue in D Minor!"

In our high school gym, there were 6 foot baskets on the sides of the main court.  We used to play a contact game of basketball, no dribbling, where you had to slam dunk the ball through the 6 foot hoops.  Just like Rollerball without the wheels.