Attempting to retrieve the cowbell

[jtwcornell91]

Hey, Pep made the trip!  Dunbar's West!

[CU at Stanford]

They are not cheap.  I have a few small ones from bicycle races (imprinted with Saturn and T-Mobile logos), as cowbells are popular among the Europeans at bike races.  Of course, you should see the real cowbells they bring from their farms.  But the kind Age uses will probably run $25-50 easily, depending quality and size.

[Jim Hyla]

[Q]duffs4 Wrote: Biggest waste of three cops EVAR!!!  Did anyone catch the older man getting escorted out after sunday's incedent?  What was the story with that?[/q]Well, you might mean me, although I wouldn't say escorted out. It was interesting however.
I came to the top of the stairs when I saw the ruckus and was not quite escorted out when the police got finished with Age.

Let me go back to my beginning (of this, not of my life). At the end of Saturday's game we were all milling around trying to solve the problem. The rink staff were totally unhelpful, as previously described. I was with my roommate and a student sitting next to us. As luck would have it, he walked out and saw a policeman and described what happened. The policeman then said, "You mean this cowbell?" and proceeded to show him the bell. He eventually gave him the bell, but it could not be played outside of the band.

When I got to the rink Sunday, the student gave me the bell, and I gave it back to Age. However we were not going to play it without getting permission. I went to three security guards before getting someone who knew someone that might give us permission, or say no. That person was to come to our section to talk about it. Unfortunately, after waiting over five minutes without anyone showing up, I had to leave, but Age stayed behind with a rink person waiting for our contact. We had been told that it was against NCAA regs to use any noisemakers except with the band. It was implied, but not yet approved that it could be played, if done with the band. I don't know what the final conversation was with Age, but hope he can shed some light on that.

When I heard that the police were again coming for it, I again went to the section to see the police "talking" to Age, and eventually getting the cowbell, I believe from the band where it was being kept. They continued to interogate Age, so I started to chant "crimestoppers, crimestoppers. ...". That was after I yelled down to strip search him. The police then turned their attention to me. One came up the stairs, grabbed my jersey, and shoved me against the wall. With his face no more than two inches from mine, he began to ask me if I had a problem with him trying to enforce the law (wow)? After asking the question over and over, without letting me reply, the rink security guy (I believe he was the head man) also asked what my problem was and actually let me speak. All this time the policeman was pinning me to the wall. After telling him all the effort we went through to try and get permission, and do it right, I thought they didn't need to come on with such intimidating force, as it was only going to make things worse, not better. He told me he had to bring all of the policemen, I believe there were four, for his own safety. Ha, ha. I don't remember exactly what was said next, but they let go of me and left.

Needless to say the whole incident on their part was about intimidation. It would have been easy to ask who was the band director and manager, and who might have been there from the university. Someone could certainly have pointed out Sue Detzer or someone from the AD's office who could have resolved the whole thing themselves. I can't believe that any of us who wanted to play the bell, would not have complied with Sue telling us that only a band member could do it, and we had to give up the bell.

Sorry for the long post, but I'm in the process of writing a letter to the president of U of MN, their AD, and the police about the whole thing. I guess by writing this I've about done my letter. I just need to know from Age what was said before the game about the bell, get a few names and addresses, and off goes the letter.

I'll also say that as a product of college in the 60's, I am very sensitive to police intimidation and how much more can be accomplished by trying to talk reasonably first. However, when you bring in four policemen, maybe it was only three with the rink security guy, to try and stop a cowbell from playing, you have got your priorities all screwed up.

[RedAR]

Well, there's Minnesota nice for ya. ::rolleyes::
I cannot believe the childish pettiness of the upper management at Mariucci, but is surely something I'm sure that all the "nice" Minnesotans take pride in.

[Lauren '06]

To complete Jim's story above....

[q]I went to three security guards before getting someone who knew someone that might give us permission, or say no. That person was to come to our section to talk about it. Unfortunately, after waiting over five minutes without anyone showing up, I had to leave, but Age stayed behind with a rink person waiting for our contact. We had been told that it was against NCAA regs to use any noisemakers except with the band. It was implied, but not yet approved that it could be played, if done with the band. I don't know what the final conversation was with Age, but hope he can shed some light on that. [/q]
The guy (in other places on the forum referred to as green shirt man) did come by eventually, and he spoke with me about the issue.  His opening line to me was "Look, I don't mean to be an ass about this, but...", the warning sign of the century.  He said that it was all right for the cowbell to be played as long as we didn't do so inappropriately.  I asked him flat out what he defined as inappropriate, and he gave me no answer, presumably to leave himself some wiggle room in case he decided to take action against the cowbell later.  So I gave him some suggestions... banging the cowbell during play?  Oh, yes, that's inappropriate.  How about if our guy plays it once during a stoppage in the second period and once during a stoppage in the third?  Well, that'll be fine.  I thought at that point that the troubles were over.  Age came up and stood with the band in the middle of the second period, and played his riff without incident.

Then came the second intermission, where I was approached by the four uniformed officers mentioned above.  They demanded to know who was playing the cowbell and where he was keeping it.  (For some additional background, at the beginning of the game, the old lady usher in charge of section 2 had come over to the band pointing and squawking about how we were hiding the cowbell in some newspapers... I'd set it on our pile of newspapers before the game so that it wouldn't get dinged on the concrete floor.  Fortunately, green shirt man didn't seem to care about what she was saying.)  The officer was not happy with any answers I gave to any of his questions about the cowbell, straightforward or evasive.  He pissed and moaned about how he'd had to worry about this damn cowbell all weekend (to which I think... well whose fault is that?) and that he was just going to take it away so he wouldn't have to negotiate logistics with us.  I asked him why he couldn't just ask Age to not play the cowbell rather than take it away and got no answer, as he was already in the process of storming down toward him as Jim described.

I followed him down about halfway, then asked him what the big deal was.  He said it was against NCAA regulations to have more than 25 people with instruments at an event.  The rink manager had never once mentioned this to me as a problem--much less THE problem--when we talked about it before.  I asked about giving the cowbell to one of our percussionists, at which point I was rebuffed and bluntly told that we'd given the police too much of a runaround to bother asking for concessions anymore, and that I'd be given back the cowbell at the end of the game if I went to the stairwell at the far end of the rink.  Happily, this happened as promised, and the cowbell is back in Age's possession.

Absolutely insane.

[abmarks]

Jim-

Copy your letter to the Cornell AD and president as well as the NCAA as long as you are writing the thing.  

[jtwcornell91]

Is it safe to assume that the cowbell was played without incident in Buffalo and Providence in 2003 and in Albany in 2002?

Clearly the only solution is to abandon the cowbell tradition and replace it with a cheerleading squad. ::rolleyes::

[DeltaOne81]

Not to mention every other visiting rink we've been to through the regular season for what, a decade? Well, okay, maybe not 'incident free', but other than Age getting in trouble for throwing a hat or two, I can't recall too many incidents

[jtwcornell91]

[Q]DeltaOne81 Wrote:

 Not to mention every other visiting rink we've been to through the regular season for what, a decade? Well, okay, maybe not 'incident free', but other than Age getting in trouble for throwing a hat or two, I can't recall too many incidents [/q]

Yeah, but those weren't NCAA events where there is an anal-retentive rulebook about how many bandmembers, mascots, and cheerleaders can be in your travel party.

One thing to not is that in the WCHA, visiting teams are not allowed to bring bands to regular season games.  So the Mariiucci staff probably needed a special briefing on there being a band there at all, and took the NCAA rules on the subject a little too literally.

[CowbellGuy]

Actually, most of the rest of my conversation with her was about their other pet peeve: Canadians.

Basically she said if it was played up with the pep band, it would be ok. Then she went on to ask what it was used for. It seemed like a simple enough explanation, but she had some trouble grasping it. Eventually, her synopsis was, "That sounds kind of farmish." I pointed out that Cornell was partly a state ag school, which really shocked her. Her next reply was, "You sure have a lot of Canadians for an ag school." So I asked if she felt they weren't entitled to educations, as well. Next rebuttal: "Well you're paying for their educations." You know what's next. No scholarships, Ivy League, yadda, yadda. Then she said something like, "But Texas A&M offers scholarships!" And my brain fell out.

[dadeo]

wtf - I guess that would make sense as to Minny fans getting pissed when the band played after they scored a goal.  (their rouser).  Get over it.  Where did you hear that they don't allow visiting bands?  That sucks.

[dadeo]

I, too, want to thank all the Big Red (especially the band) for going to Mariucci.  Being immersed in our section 2, it felt just like any other away game (but in a better arena).  Normally, it seemed we were louder than them, except for maybe 1 or 2 points.  
I don't get why they warned two or 3 guys about flags and let them keep them, but just take the cowbell when they see fit.
As part of this saga (being the guy who sat next to Jim Hyla), I found it all to be ridiculous.  But - we saw 3 good games, great goaltending, and Mitch's shorthander (awesome!!!).  
As far as the reffing is concerned, I didn't disagree with our penalties, they just should have called it more down the line, (we only had 3 PPs), and where was the whistle for O'Byrne and company at the end of the game?  It was probably tied up for a good 30 seconds without a whistle.
Stupid scorekeeper, giving Minny shots for everything that McKee touched, and not giving us shots for anything.  
Be well, and LGR
dave '02

[Will]

[Q]CowbellGuy Wrote:

Then she went on to ask what it was used for. It seemed like a simple enough explanation, but she had some trouble grasping it. Eventually, her synopsis was, "That sounds kind of farmish." I pointed out that Cornell was partly a state ag school, which really shocked her.[/q]

I guess someone forgot to tell her that the University of Minnesota has an ag school as well: http://www.coafes.umn.edu/

(If she's going to complain about anything being "farmish", she should take a look in her own backyard first.)

[jtwcornell91]

[Q]CowbellGuy Wrote:
 "That sounds kind of farmish." I pointed out that Cornell was partly a state ag school[/q]

Although the cowbell tradition was brought to Cornell by a hotelie if I'm not mistaken...

[CowbellGuy]

Oh, one other thing I forgot. After all this, she saw the folded and rolled-up Canadian flag in my hand and asked what it was. I told her it was a flag and she said they're not permitted. I asked politely if I could just hang on to it but not use it. She said that was fine, but if I did, I would be thrown out. I said ok, but noted that there were a lot of Minnesota people with flags and would hate to see a double-standard being applied. She replied with the usual party line about all the rink staff being told to pay extra attention to it but that they can't catch everyone.