Who stole whose cheers?

[jkahn]

Correcting my earlier post, it certainly could have been '70 when I first heard "sieve" from those 100 Wisconsin crazies.  By '72 and then '73 their ranks seemed to grow to about 3000, and so the long, slow "sieve" cheer, which they carried on in unison in Boston Garden for probably two full minutes is emblazoned in my mind more than their '70 chants.  I know we enjoyed the enthusiasm of their fans in '70, and their numbers were limited basically by the allotment of only 100 tickets per team.  The old arena in Placid only sat about 1500 (it was a really stupid place to hold the tournament) and the rest had been pre-sold, almost all to Cornell fans who correctly assumed we would be there.

[Pace]

It sounds like the Wisconsin fans more that rival the Lynah Faithful. Or is Wisconsin fan glory only in the past?

[ninian '72]

[Q]Pace Wrote:

 It sounds like the Wisconsin fans more that rival the Lynah Faithful. Or is Wisconsin fan glory only in the past?[/q]

They're alive and well.  I think it was last season at a WCHA game when Minnesota fans (I believe ) were chanting "We're Number 1" that Wisconsin fans responded with "We're more fun."  That they are.

[Hillel Hoffmann]

[Q]rstott Wrote:

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!”[/q]

As I recall, Cornell fans were using the freshly-stolen sieve cheer during the 1973 semifinal nightmare (I think it was even mentioned in SPORTS ILLUSTRATED's coverage of the event). I don't remember Cornell folks using it in '72.

And I agree that the late-1970s-era sieve + goal count chant was brutally effective.

For a few brief years, there was the best of both worlds: a clear, loud, slow-starting sieve chant + the goal count + "it's all your fault." I may have the chronology wrong, but by the early 1980s, the goal count had started to get sublimated by the rush to get to "it's all your fault," and the sieve chant started to become more sped up -- and thus watered down.

The mystery: What's the provenance of "it's all your fault"?

[Killer]

I'm pretty sure our "Screw BU" came about in the NCAA tourney in 1972.  I was at the ECACs the week before, when we played BU in that final, and I don't recall shouting "Screw BU" when they finished their little jingle.  But the following week BU knocked off Wisconsin in the semis and the badger fans were letting them have it.  The next night, when we played BU in the final, though far outnumbered, Cornell fans started off much more vocal than the BU fans.  Early in the game "Screw..." was much more distinct than "Go..."  Unfortunately, as BU built up the score, we became a little quieter.

So, yes, it probably does come from Wisconsin, and 1972 is definitely the year we adopted it.  BTW, I kinda like it without "X too".  That way we show such disdain for the opponents that we don't even bother to mention them.

[Killer]

[Q]Hillel Hoffmann Wrote:

 [Q2]rstott Wrote:

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!”[/Q]
As I recall, Cornell fans were using the freshly-stolen sieve cheer during the 1973 semifinal nightmare (I think it was even mentioned in SPORTS ILLUSTRATED's coverage of the event). I don't remember Cornell folks using it in '72.

And I agree that the late-1970s-era sieve + goal count chant was brutally effective.

For a few brief years, there was the best of both worlds: a clear, loud, slow-starting sieve chant + the goal count + "it's all your fault." I may have the chronology wrong, but by the early 1980s, the goal count had started to get sublimated by the rush to get to "it's all your fault," and the sieve chant started to become more sped up -- and thus watered down.

The mystery: What's the provenance of "it's all your fault"?[/q]

Agreed that we didn't do the drawn out "sieve" cheer until 1973.  And yes, that was a nightmare NCAA semi.

I also like the old, slow goal count.  Maybe I'm just becoming an old fart, but it seemed to resonate with more power when it took longer to get out.  Especially good for when you started to get counts upwards of 5 or 6.  Imagine how nice it would have been to taunt Brown in the 3rd period last week with a seemingly endless goal cheer.  (Of course, they were probably taunted enough by a seemingly endless barrage of flying pucks.)

[Section N alum]

The screw BU cheer did start at the 1972 ECAC final which we lost 4-1.  The BU defensemen would freeze the puck along the boards every time we were in their end.  And after every whistle the BU band would play that irritating tune, and the BU fans (which was most of the Gahden) would respond "GO BU".  The Cornell fans started with "screw BU" - which was about their style of play as much as the cheer.   At least they did change the rules to not allow a player to freeze the puck along the boards.

Did you know that Section C used to be a student section?  It was taken away because of some out of control interaction with the penalty box.  There used to be just one penalty box with no glass partitions and the fans could really get in the player's face.  The offending Athletic Director was serenaded with "Section C sucks" for the rest of his tenure.  

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Section C used to be THE student section.  Great seats; rowdy fans.  I sat there two years out of four.

JKahn, it's interesting that the " X too"part of the cheer was done by Wisconsin in '72, cause if it ever caught on at Lynah, it was not being done when I arrived in '78.

The "it's all your fault" was added sometime between 1985 and 1996.  We weren't doing it at the 1985 ECAC tourney which I attended, but we were at the '96.  I also liked the slow count of goals to "We want more!"  As I recall, the band use to hit the drum with each number to make it that much louder.

Another question:  When exactly did the student section start standing for the games?  It's another one that I think happened  between '85 and '96, but I'm not sure.  I know we sat when I was a student.

[Will]

[Q]Killer Wrote:

Imagine how nice it would have been to taunt Brown in the 3rd period last week with a seemingly endless goal cheer.
[/q]

At one point, we were scoring so quickly that I think that we wouldn't have been able to complete the old-style count-out cheer before the next goal was scored. :-D

[Killer]

[Q]Will Wrote:

 [Q2]Killer Wrote:

Imagine how nice it would have been to taunt Brown in the 3rd period last week with a seemingly endless goal cheer.
[/Q]
At one point, we were scoring so quickly that I think that we wouldn't have been able to complete the old-style count-out cheer before the next goal was scored.[/q]

But that in and of itself would have led to more creative abuse:

"You're such a sieve, we don't even have time to finish our cheers."

"Are we going too fast for you?"

"How about if we just count by 2's?"

[Steve Marciniec \'85]

I have the answer to the "It's all your fault" mystery.  Paul Hummel '86 and I first heard it at SLU in the 84-85 season.  The Saints' fans used it at the end of the game that they won 4-2 IIRC.  We decided to bring it back to Lynah, and I wanted to do it the same way they had, at the end of the game (It's ALL your fault, i.e. the loss, not just one goal).  Paul, however, got it going when the sieve cheer had finished after our first goal at our next home game, and the rest is history.  After that the goal count and sieve cheer speeded up as everyone couldn't wait to get to "it's all your fault".  I also miss the slow count and sieve chant.  It was so intimidating seeing 3800 arms sweeping down to point in unison at the goalie to the old cadence of the sieve chant.  Oh well.

I can lay claim to adding the BORING cheer to go with holding up the newspapers.  I first got it going at the '86 ECACs in Boston in the middle of the 2nd period of the Harvard Yale consolation game while we were waiting our championship game against Clarkson to start.  Didn't steal that one from anyone.

[Robb]

I can narrow down the standing students a little more.  I'm positive when I went to my first game in the fall of '90, my brother ('92) explained to me that the students stood until after the first goal.  The next few years saw some home shutouts (3 in 92-93!) and undoubtedly some other games where it took Cornell forever to score, so we just kind of started standing for the whole game.

Not sure when the transition from sitting to standing-until-the-first-goal took place.

[KeithK]

Thankfully we did ake the transition.  Everytime I'm at a road game I'm reminded how much I hate sitting at hockey games. It just seems so much easier to follow the game back and forth across the ice when standing (you turn your body rather than just your neck).  Well "easier" isn't the right word but...

[Steve M]

The standing started sometime after the 86-86 season, my last year on the hill.

[RichH]

[Q]ninian '72 Wrote:

 [Q2]Pace Wrote:

 It sounds like the Wisconsin fans more that rival the Lynah Faithful. Or is Wisconsin fan glory only in the past?[/Q]
They're alive and well.  I think it was last season at a WCHA game when Minnesota fans (I believe ) were chanting "We're Number 1" that Wisconsin fans responded with "We're more fun."  That they are.





Edited 1 times. Last edit at 11/17/04 12:50PM by ninian '72.[/q]
At the 2003 NCAA Regional, there was a column in the Providence Journal, basically wishing that the Badgers had made it to Providence for the presence of their fans, and remeniscing their trip there in the '78 and '82 tournaments.  Unfortunately, the column is only available for purchase in the P-Journal's archive:
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/projo/320428481.html?did=320428481&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT&date=Mar+30%2C+2003&author=&desc=COLLEGE+HOCKEY%3A+THE+NCAA+TOURNAMENT+-+Let%27s+badger+NCAA+for+lovable+Wisconsin

From http://www.uwbadgers.com/sport_news/mhky/stat_poll/stats.aspx?id=2003_01_16_10_54_42_mhky
[q]1977-78 - Wisconsin fans take Providence, R.I., by storm for the 1978 NCAA Championship, and are proclaimed the "World's Greatest Hockey Fans" by the city.[/q]

Personally, I'll vouch for the quality of Wisconsin fans.  Pretty much all of them I've met have been incredibly knowledgable about hockey and very fun to drink with.  I've run into at least one group of them at a bar at every Frozen Four I've been to....especially at Albany in 2001, where I think we Cornellians impressed them with our partying ability.