What I like about being a Big Red fan

[Jerseygirl]

The line/mob/stampede has created a lot of negative energy. We've certainly built on that on the forum. I've built on that in the forum. A lot of people have. Let's try and get beyond it.

Maybe we should spend some time remembering the good stuff about Cornell hockey. What we love about it, why we cheer, etc.

Earlier this year I went to a baseball game with a friend of mine who used to play for the Big Red. We were sitting next to two fans who were classic hecklers: witty, loud, unrelenting, totally obnoxious and having a great time. My friend leaned over to me and said, "Can you believe these guys? They're awesome."

I replied, "Yeah. Now imagine you've got those guys sitting on your right and above and below you as well. Imagine they keep it up for the whole game. That's what it's like to sit in Section B."

It was so cool to be able to say that, and to see the look on my friend's face that showed it really meant something to him personally that people were that passionate about the sport he and his teammates worked so hard to excel at, and that it's not just a party line to keep the building filled every Friday and Saturday night during the colder Ithaca months.

So who else has a story?

[Beeeej]

After eighteen years of this stuff, I've got stories to spare.  But the one that came most immediately to mind was my vacation to Las Vegas two years ago.

A couple of weeks before my trip, I noted that the Everblades Tourney was going to be in the middle of it, and I started calling around to sportsbook rooms at Casinos in town to find out if there was any chance they'd be showing the games.  Naturally, I came up empty.  I did a search for sportsbars in the Vegas area, and started calling around.  Eventually, I found Screwballs, about five miles from the strip where the person on the other end of the phone told me they could show the games.

So I dropped a note to the president of the Cornell Club of Las Vegas, and asked him to spread the word.  Alas, when my friend Jason (non-Cornellian) and I got to the bar a half hour before the semifinal after a $15 cab ride, they not only couldn't get the games, they weren't apologetic that someone on their staff had claimed they could and would.  However, the manager did call around and found out that another sportsbar, three miles further down the strip, could show the games (can't remember the name).  They also called us another cab.  So Jason and I took off, asking that they send anyone else who showed up down to the other bar.

We ended up being a crowd of about ten for the semifinal at this other bar, which put the game on two of the TVs and had those speakers that just sit on your table which you can tune to specific TVs' audio output (very clever).  Only four or five of us showed up for the final game the next day, but overall both days it was a good, Cornellian-bonding experience (one guy who showed up happened to have been a good friend of the guy whose apartment I was renting in Gramercy at the time).  Plus Jason, who isn't a big hockey fan and could care less about Cornell, really got into the games and was jumping and screaming at Hornby's game-winner.

And the wings were good.  :-)

Other than actually attending the Everblades tourney three years earlier, I think the ridiculous cab fares getting to and from the sportsbar(s) were the most money I'd ever spent on seeing Cornell hockey games, and it wasn't even in person.

Beeeej

[Trotsky]

Every moment of a Lynah game is a potential catalyst for praise or mockery, and there is constant noise.  Yells of encouragement and devastating barbs explode out of the crowd like random and sporadic flash bulbs at a halftime show.  There are crests at goals and big hits, but they are like swells in an ocean of cheers and taunts.

A road trip is more typical of traveling crowds in the rest of the hockey world -- communal, collegial, good-naturedly competitive.  At the Gahden, and then Placid, and now Albany, the Clarkson or RPI fan you just spent three or more periods ripping on has, like you, been stuck in the mud driving to Hamilton, or in a midnight white-out driving home from Burlington, or has wandered around Schenectady on a Saturday morning looking for an aspirin.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Last year I went to the Princeton-Alabama Huntsville game at Baker with a co-worker of mine, his wife (a UAH alumna) and their four kids, three of whom play organized hockey.  I had a ball teaching his kids and the few UAH fans some of the Lynah cheers and just showing them what it feels like to be a member of the faithful.  

I don't know if his oldest is any good, but AFAIC, it was the first step of the recruiting process.

[Jacob '06]

Sitting at John Harvard's before a Cornell-Harvard game at Bright in a sea of red and hearing the Harvard sucks cheer ring through the whole restaurant.

[Drew]

Last year before the Clarkson-Cornell playoff game, I was wearing my Clarkson Hockey hat to work.   Riding the packed 4 or 5 train from Grand Central to Fulton street I noticed this guy staring at my hat through the crowd, we both exited the train at fulton street, he at one end of the train and me at the middle....as we both stepped off the train to the platform we looked at each other, he cried out "LET'S GO RED, LETS GO RED"  which I responded with a hearty "LET'S GO TECH, LET'S GO TECH"  Here we were two guys, in their thirties, in suits, barking at each other about a game that was to take place in 12 hours, 250 miles away.  We both smiled, waved and went our own ways....

[ORgrad]

... are the other fans.


Cheers to the original Nickerson has syphyllis sign, the 'ugly sweater' guy roasters and the 'color-university' (Brown) fans

[Nate 04]

Not to steal a story from Beeeej, but last year I somehow scheduled a vacation out to San Diego that spanned over the weekends of the ECAC tourney and the first round of the NCAA tourney.  We found a bar in Pacific Beach that said they should be able to show the championship game between Cornell and Harvard.  When we got there, the bar was packed with people watching basketball (this was also the first weekend of the basketball tourney).  The staff got us a table by one of the big screens and went to turn on the game.   The first game they got was the BC game in the HE tourney.  Once we told them that BC and Cornell were different schools, the got us the Cornell - Harvard game.  Amazingly they left the BC game on.  So here we were in San Diego, watching Cornell beat Harvard, with BC in the background and hundreds of other people all around us cheering for their basketball teams.  I was amazed that no one even mentioned the fact that they put on hockey.  Even more, I was amazed that there was a whole contingent of Wisconsin-Milwaukee fans there to see them beat the other BC baskebtall team.

Needless to say, getting to watch Cornell beat Harvard in 80 degree weather was about as good as you can get without being there in person.

[Molgestron]

I'm a current junior so I've only really had two years to compile, but here's my favorite:

Signing my Cornell acceptance letter was bittersweet for me. I had always wanted to go to Michigan but when college responses came back some coaxing by my parents and some self-realization that Wolverine football wasn't all that mattered in an undergraduate experience convinced me to choose Cornell. The night I mailed in my acceptance, I was a little down at never getting to experience games in the Big House as an undergrad, so my and my friends went to a sports bar for the opening round of the NCAA bball tournament.

As soon as we sat down we noticed the loudest guys in the place were middle aged dudes decked in Carnelian red and white watching the 2003 ECAC final. The guys were going absolutely apeshit at the TV and we were just kinda in awe. We watched with them (we're all bigger hockey fans anyway) and after the game I turned to my buddy who had been accepted early at Harvard and said "You guys suck." And I haven't stopped.

Small story, but it crosses my mind about this time every year.

[Jordan 04]

I'll have to think of a moment, but I absolutely love the fact that every time I hear the national anthem -- now and for the rest of my life probably -- I'll give a little fist pump (with varying degrees of emphasis depending on the surroundings) and hear the Lynah roar of "RED!" echo inside my mind...

[French Rage]

[Q]ORgrad Wrote:Cheers to the original Nickerson has syphyllis sign[/q]


:-D

[Liz '05]

[Q]Jordan 04 Wrote:

 I'll have to think of a moment, but I absolutely love the fact that every time I hear the national anthem -- now and for the rest of my life probably -- I'll give a little fist pump (with varying degrees of emphasis depending on the surroundings) and hear the Lynah roar of "RED!" echo inside my mind...[/q]

I hear the National Anthem nearly every day (that's what you get for being in the military), and ALWAYS have that mental "RED!"

[cth95]

Every time I hear Gary Glitter I always think "Seive!!!!" and "We're gonna' beat the hell out of you...," even if it is just on the radio or at some other sporting event. Each year until about the middle of June I often just have the tune in my head.  It gives me a little kick every time I think about it.  I absolutely love how we fans continue the tune for a round or two when the band stops.  The packaged versions they play for pro sports can't come close to the vibe provided by our band and our fans.

[Beeeej]

Nate reminds me also of last season's viewing of the Cornell-Clarkson game at the Park Avenue Country Club.  Not only didn't I expect us to have the two enormous TV screens in the middle of the place (seriously, they're like fifteen feet), I didn't expect 120-150 Cornellians to show up.  It was heart-warming and a great win, besides.  I hope we do something like that again this season!

Beeeej

[cornelldavy]

[Q]Jordan 04 Wrote:

 I'll have to think of a moment, but I absolutely love the fact that every time I hear the national anthem -- now and for the rest of my life probably -- I'll give a little fist pump (with varying degrees of emphasis depending on the surroundings) and hear the Lynah roar of "RED!" echo inside my mind...[/q]

I couldn't agree with you more. Even now that I'm playing for UCLA's club team, when we line up on the blue line for the anthem before games, I'll tap my stick on the ice on "RED!"