Who stole whose cheers?

[A-19]

So I know that Michigan essentially took most of Cornell's cheers, dating back to a big road trip out there in the early 1990s (and since then, Michigan has vulgarized many of the cheers to the degree that they would not be allowed back in Lynah).

I also know that any team with fans persists in "Sieve," some version of "It's all your fault," and "ooooooooooooooh seeya..."

And just tonight after i criticized the harvard band for "stealing" our black hole cheer, i was informed on the Forum that we actually took that from them way back when.

So my question is, with so much in the realm of the public domain now, what of the things we say (and others say) can the Faithful lay claim to as our creation? the alum perspective could be pretty valuable here.

-mike '04

[calgARI '07]

Wow, after being caught up in work all night, I just noticed that Harvard BEAT BC.  Huge upset.  That ECAC is sure doing well this year against non-conference opponents.  On two occasions has an ECAC team not considered in the top eschelon defeated the standing #1 ranked team in the NCAA.

[Greg Berge]

Nothing belongs to anybody -- it's all a product of the college hockey zeitgeist. ;-)

Seriously, we'll probably never know about most cheers, and it hardly matters. The only cheer I'm 100% sure we invented was "Fight... maim... kill!," only because I was present at its birth.  Presumably "Screw BU!... X Too!" was a Cornell invention.  The player-specific cheers are a pretty good bet, too: "Hey Baby," and "Saaaaaaaaaaaaancimino!"

My advice is, claim everything, with a straight face.  :-D

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

OK, here's what I know...

"Winning team...Losing team" was stolen by Mike Wapner '82 from North Dakota after the 1980 NCAA Final Four in Providence.  Up until that point, we sang "Na Na, Hey Hey, Kiss Him Goodbye" during the last minute.

They were already doing "Screw BU" when I arrived in 1978.  So was everybody else in the ECAC.  The "X too" part was added by Pete Manos '80, Roy Kornbluh '82, and myself (as well as a few drunken others who I never knew) during the 1980 ECAC tournament.

I stole the "newspapers during introductions" from the fans of the University of Scranton basketball team who used to hold newspapers up when their opponents shot free throws.  Throwing them on the ice after the intros just evolved.

I can add that after a goal we counted the goals, yelled "we want more" and then "sieve" ad infinitum.  Occasionally someone would throw a kitchen strainer on the ice.  I'm not sure when "it's all your fault" was added, but I know we were doing that by the mid-90's.

On an opposition penalty, all we said was "You! You! You! You!" ad infinitum.  Not too creative.

Bottom line: Very few cheers are original.

[Robb]

"Saannnnciminooooo!" was an adaptation of some friends of mine who started out yelling "Zinnngooo!" at football games (Zingo was a linebacker who set a Cornell record for tackles).  They had a "Zingo-meter" to track his tackles, the works.  

My guess is that "The refs f sheep" is a Lynah original, for better or worse.  I went out to Lawson Arena for the WMU/ND game last Saturday, and heard several familiar refrains - I'm blind, I'm def, I wanna be a ref, etc.  Two new ones on me were "F the Irish (clap-clap-clapclapclap)" and "Kill the Catholics (clap-clap-clapclapclap)."  We were wondering what WMU's goalie (named Bellissimo) thought of that last one...

[Facetimer]

[Q]Greg Berge Wrote:

 Nothing belongs to anybody -- it's all a product of the college hockey zeitgeist.  

Seriously, we'll probably never know about most cheers, and it hardly matters. The only cheer I'm 100% sure we invented was "Fight... maim... kill!," only because I was present at its birth.  Presumably "Screw BU!... X Too!" was a Cornell invention.  The player-specific cheers are a pretty good bet, too: "Hey Bâby," and "Saaaaaaaaaaaaancimino!"

My advice is, claim everything, with a straight face.   [/q]

"[TEAM] Sucks" is the exclusive property of Greg Berge.  Also, the "Stars at Night"/Dave McKee chant was invented by the great fans at Alaska-Anchorage in the late 1970s.

[jkahn]

The "Screw BU" music was first heard by me from the BC band, with the words "Go BC."  Other schools, particularly BU, began to use it a lot, and we turned it into "Screw BU" by the '71-72 season, perhaps a few years earlier.  Wisconsin fans get credit for the first known use of "x too"  in '72 NCAA's.  The BU band would play, the Cornell fans (joined by Wisconsin fans who quickly caught on) would go "Screw BU" and then the Wisconsin fans would add "Cornell too."

[A-19]

the screw BU music is michigan's fight song, "let's go blue", isn't it

[Hillel Hoffmann]

I believe the provenance for Cornell's base version of the post-goal "sieve, sieve, sieve" taunt also traces back to Wisconsin fans ... perhaps at the '72 Final Four?

I think it's safe to say that Wisconsin's fans are the Typhoid Maries for much of what NCAA hockey followers consider standard crowd-participation behavior.

[jtwcornell91]

[Q]A-19 Wrote:

 the screw BU music is michigan's fight song, "let's go blue", isn't it[/q]

Well, Michigan certainly has a cheer that uses that tune (as do Colgate and Penn football) but it's not their fight song.  Go to a game involving Michigan and you'll have "Hail to the Victors" seared into your aural memory.

[billhoward]

Before laying claim to originality, definitely see if Wisconisn had it first. Their fans are legend. When Wisonsin made the NCAA final in Boston 1972, it seems as if dozens and dozens of charter buses loaded with red-shirted Badger fans descended on Boston Garden. And they probably spend time on those reds and at other times dreaming up more and better cheers, and insults.

[ninian '72]

The Michigan fight song is "The Victors."  (They have a better one called Varsity that I wish they would use more often.)  Anyhow, yes, Michigan uses the same tune with "Let's Go Blue."  More from what appears to be an Ohio State-related site:

"Although disputed by the Wisconsin band, the earliest appearance of the "Let's Go ___" or "Go ___" cheer was at Michigan, where it's known as "Let's Go Blue." It was arranged by Joe Carl, a tuba player from 1973 to 1976, and Albert Ahronheim, a drum major from 1972 to 1974. It originated as a cheer at Michigan hockey games before it came into use during the football season. (The Wisconsin band site says THEY were the first to use it, and Michigan stole it from them. Therefore, the Wisconsin band no longer plays it.)"

Take the dates with a grain of salt.  It was being used at football games in its current form in 1972.  I never heard Wisconsin play it when I was at Michigan in the '70's, but they played their version of the "Bud" song a lot.

[jkahn]

Yes, the first time I heard a goalie referred to as a "sieve" was by Wisconsin fans in '72.  They did it in a much slower (and in my opinion more effectve) cadence.

[Pace]

Is the "Ruff 'em up, ruff 'em up, go CU!" our invention?

[rstott]

I’m almost certain the “sieve” was used by the about 100 or so Wisconsin fans who made their way to Lake Placid in 1970.  Some even had sieves on poles they would dangle over the ice as they chanted.  I don't really remember if the Cornell fans picked it up then or after the still-painful-in-my-memory NCAAs in 73.

Yes, it’s now chanted too much too fast.  As is counting up after the goals.  In the late 1970s the count was slow and devastating â€" “O-N-E, T-W-O, T-H-R-E-E, F-O-U-R, F-I-V-E, WE WANT M-O-R-E!”