Boston University 2011-2012 Part V: At least 6 more games, maybe 13... who's with us?

[brassbonanza]

Re: Boston University 2011-2012 Part V: At least 6 more games, maybe 13... who's with

I also haven't seen Rhett lay a BC shirt over his fire hydrant and lift his leg while skating by...in a long time. I used to enjoy that one.

I wouldn't be shocked to see a guy in a blue windbreaker run onto the ice and tell Rhett he needs to take that off because it's against the rules. More seriously, if a student did this, they would be threatened by RSIG. I made a BU Bingo board once a long time ago, and the "free space" square was "BC Sucks". It was a piece of paper about four inches wide, and I had to argue with them for 10 minutes to even let me into the arena solely because of that. Finally, I agreed to cover it with a napkin and keep it covered with a napkin. It's the culture.

[brassbonanza]

Re: Boston University 2011-2012 Part V: At least 6 more games, maybe 13... who's with

I suggest we should be able to have a great atmosphere in the arena and still have it be family friendly.

Personally I think that instead of splitting the students up, they should have concentrated them all in the sections surrounding 118... sections 115 to 101 are students (or however many sections are required). People in those sections should expect to stand up for the whole game. Other sections, expect to be sitting down (and cheering) except for the points of the game when something brings you to your feet.

Cheers from the students need to be more creative. The "BC Sucks" thing inserted at every possible opportunity has become about as old and as lame as it gets. (Are they still inserting "the song" into the "seive" chant after a goal? Way back, I remember 108 being loud and even boarderline obnoxious, but never overly vulgar but at one point it did start to get pretty bad and they started leaving notes on everyones seats about the use of profanity etc.

There are some cheers that seem to be long lost that always seemed to involve the whole areana (not just the students):

- Rhett skating on the ice, pointing to sections 1-7, lowering his hands to the ice then lifting them up making the crowd louder, then repeating for sections 8-14... kind of like a contest between the two sides on who could be louder.

- Ogre or Roachman standing up with the "Hey Everybody... give me a T (etc etc) cheer.

I agree the atmosphere does need to improve though.

I agree, it can still be an atmosphere that everyone can enjoy, even children. I'm just objecting to them overdoing it to the point that it becomes a Sesame Street Live atmosphere. When I was student, there were some at Agganis that tried to get us to stop saying you're a racist when Yip took a penalty. They tried to get us to stop I suck, I blow, I'm Benedetto. Of course, this all stems from the original swearing ban that came at the beginning of 06-07, but it has gone WAY beyond what the original intentions of that were. And from what I understand, it's not even administrative, it's arena. From things I've heard since I graduated, there are many in the administration that don't believe the security presence is necessary anymore since there really are no problems, but the arena insists on having the RSIG in the student sections in high volume. I certainly am not advocating for the overt use of profanity, but even before I left in 09, it was reaching a point where the culture of the student sections was such that no one wanted to do anything or say anything beyond generic Go BU cheers so they wouldn't have to deal with RSIG. They still go around before games and tell everyone "let's keep it clean tonight", and I understand to this day, they still do it from time to time. THERE IS NO REASON FOR THAT! That is the overly proactive culture I'm talking about and what started the culture I saw if everyone just going mute. I think the students made some huge strides this year in getting back to a more unified fun atmosphere, especially on the road - interestingly enough, not under the constant watchful eyes of RSIG. (The guy at the bottom of 116 literally stands looking up into 117 and 118 the ENTIRE game, even these spring break UNH games when there were 50 kids there.) And sure enough, they still rarely use profanity. And I've even seen them self-police themselves, when some rogue kids start yelling BS, others around them tell them to shut up. We can discuss various cheers that should or shouldn't be used, but that's not the argument I'm making. I'm arguing about the culture that is created throughout the student sections, and to an extent, throughout the whole arena, by the needless pervasiveness of RSIG that has completely sucked the life out of the place and made it into a morgue, and it needs to stop, that place is becoming an embarrassing home environment, and that's one of the main reasons why. Get these freaking people out of the arena next year, they are a disgrace to the program and the atmosphere that I, many before me, many with me, and many after me worked extensively to create as students.

brass, have you brought this up with anyone? If the section feels that way, I'd strongly suggest contacting the school, particularly the President's office instead of just the athletic department. BU is desperate to increase their donor base as during the end of the Silber Reign of Terror they sunk down to single digits in % of alumni donating. Telling them that 1000 students are going to be so PO'd by their school experience and will give zero dollars due to an overaggressive arena staff might get somebody's attention.

In my experiences with the arena, albeit not within the past few years, they don't care. I've filled out the season ticket holder surveys with answers longer than anything I've written here, about various things, RSIG and beyond, and nothing has changed. I even complained to the head of security when I was age profiled and asked to take my hat off before the Denver game without being given a reason why (to check for nips?!) and he looked at me and justified it as a reasonable search for alcohol. He claimed there was an abundant problem of empty nips being found in the student sections after games. Never mind that was only the second regular season home game of the season so this problem apparently occurred in abundance at the first UNH game. In all of my time in the student sections, I never once saw anyone take out, drink from, or mix a nip into a drink. I also know of instances where RSIG got the arena into trouble at concerts and other non-BU events for taking too much action against concert goers and grossly mistreating other guests, and in the end, nothing was done. I would not anticipate getting any type of reasonable response from arena staff about this.

If anyone there is reading this and would like to contact me directly, my account number is 574344, you have my email/phone, I'd be more than happy to discuss this further with you.

[defkit]

Re: Boston University 2011-2012 Part V: At least 6 more games, maybe 13... who's with

I suggest we should be able to have a great atmosphere in the arena and still have it be family friendly.

Personally I think that instead of splitting the students up, they should have concentrated them all in the sections surrounding 118... sections 115 to 101 are students (or however many sections are required). People in those sections should expect to stand up for the whole game. Other sections, expect to be sitting down (and cheering) except for the points of the game when something brings you to your feet.

Cheers from the students need to be more creative. The "BC Sucks" thing inserted at every possible opportunity has become about as old and as lame as it gets. (Are they still inserting "the song" into the "seive" chant after a goal? Way back, I remember 108 being loud and even boarderline obnoxious, but never overly vulgar but at one point it did start to get pretty bad and they started leaving notes on everyones seats about the use of profanity etc.

There are some cheers that seem to be long lost that always seemed to involve the whole areana (not just the students):

- Rhett skating on the ice, pointing to sections 1-7, lowering his hands to the ice then lifting them up making the crowd louder, then repeating for sections 8-14... kind of like a contest between the two sides on who could be louder.

- Ogre or Roachman standing up with the "Hey Everybody... give me a T (etc etc) cheer.

I agree the atmosphere does need to improve though.

I also haven't seen Rhett lay a BC shirt over his fire hydrant and lift his leg while skating by...in a long time. I used to enjoy that one.

[pirate]

I cannot. It's a Dog Pound culture, it just is.

One of the things the MLS team in Philly does is ask you before you buy season tix, what you want to do during game (stand, sit, sing etc).

This way you can be grouped with like people. Re-sale impacts the purity of that but it helps the stodgy people congregate and keeps the crazies together too.

It also helps reduce conflicts between individual attendees

[ericredaxe]

Re: Boston University 2011-2012 Part V: At least 6 more games, maybe 13... who's with

To be fair, those people that called my friends obnoxious were only in those seats for that one game, so they clearly weren't season ticket holders, and may have just shown up for that one game. IIRC, they were a more elderly couple, so who knows what their views were. I do respect people's right to want to sit and watch the game, so I don't have a problem with sitting, it's more the culture of let's make this a "family atmosphere" that is so ridiculously perpetuated at Agganis where if you say a bad word, you scream at someone, or make any kind of negative comment, you're shunned. Last night after the fourth goal I yelled at the top of my lungs to the team to get their head out of their ***, and with the place being so dead, it was fairly audible. I fully expected some RSIG person to come down and get on me for using the word "***". Get rid of this family atmosphere BS, stop catering the sport to the Sesame Street Live families, and get the freaking RSIG language gestapo out of the dam aisles of every section. This is division 1 hockey, that's not a "family" sport. Sure, we should maintain decency and respect, and not turn into UMass, but this lecture hall family atmosphere thing has completely zapped the life out of the place and made it into a completely woeful atmosphere at times. Of course, Agganis doesn't care as long as they're still making money, selling their cold chicken finger boats, and RSIG makes sure to ask everyone that looks like they may be a college student to remove their hat to be sure that you're not sneaking in a nip under that hat. Yes, that happened to me this year. Of course, the older gentleman who walked in ahead of me with a hat on was not asked to remove his hat. In case you can't tell, I am not a fan of the way that arena is run and the gross negative effect it has had on our program, our fans, and our students. If there was a way I could still follow this team the same way I do without having to give a dime of my money to the clowns at that place, I would do so in a heartbeat.

Sheesh, I didn't realize I was that angry about it.

I suggest we should be able to have a great atmosphere in the arena and still have it be family friendly.

Personally I think that instead of splitting the students up, they should have concentrated them all in the sections surrounding 118... sections 115 to 101 are students (or however many sections are required). People in those sections should expect to stand up for the whole game. Other sections, expect to be sitting down (and cheering) except for the points of the game when something brings you to your feet.

Cheers from the students need to be more creative. The "BC Sucks" thing inserted at every possible opportunity has become about as old and as lame as it gets. (Are they still inserting "the song" into the "seive" chant after a goal? Way back, I remember 108 being loud and even boarderline obnoxious, but never overly vulgar but at one point it did start to get pretty bad and they started leaving notes on everyones seats about the use of profanity etc.

There are some cheers that seem to be long lost that always seemed to involve the whole areana (not just the students):

- Rhett skating on the ice, pointing to sections 1-7, lowering his hands to the ice then lifting them up making the crowd louder, then repeating for sections 8-14... kind of like a contest between the two sides on who could be louder.

- Ogre or Roachman standing up with the "Hey Everybody... give me a T (etc etc) cheer.

I agree the atmosphere does need to improve though.

[Agganis]

Re: Boston University 2011-2012 Part V: At least 6 more games, maybe 13... who's with

Yeah, can you clarify this? I saw the grapes. Many of us were confuzzled by them.

I cannot. It's a Dog Pound culture, it just is.

[Rover]

Re: Boston University 2011-2012 Part V: At least 6 more games, maybe 13... who's with

brass, have you brought this up with anyone? If the section feels that way, I'd strongly suggest contacting the school, particularly the President's office instead of just the athletic department. BU is desperate to increase their donor base as during the end of the Silber Reign of Terror they sunk down to single digits in % of alumni donating. Telling them that 1000 students are going to be so PO'd by their school experience and will give zero dollars due to an overaggressive arena staff might get somebody's attention.

[Scarlet]

Re: Boston University 2011-2012 Part V: At least 6 more games, maybe 13... who's with

too many grapes involved.

Yeah, can you clarify this? I saw the grapes. Many of us were confuzzled by them.

Nice article on NCAA.com about Chris Connolly and brother Jack.

For those of us that ordered tickets for this weekend, anyone hear about availability for pick up? Or will they be at a Will Call table like they have been in the past?

[Agganis]

Re: Boston University 2011-2012 Part V: At least 6 more games, maybe 13... who's with

Good news everyone! If the team gets drunk on St Patty's day they won't be hungover for a hockey game, practice, or film session! Hopefully they don't drink wine though, too many grapes involved.

[Bomber]

Re: Boston University 2011-2012 Part V: At least 6 more games, maybe 13... who's with

It's just very frustrating every year when someone like Maine or UNH scores the whole place explodes, and then we score and the decibel level is 1/4 as loud. And no, I can't "get over it."

I disagree. I hope 10,000 Maine fans make the trip. Make it a road game. #OurRoadRecordIsGood

Like the 2008-2009 season UVM home sweep and then redemption in the FF, here's hoping dropping those two home games to Maine adds a layer of motivation.

Getting back to the UNH series. Didn't UNH cough up a 4-0 lead to Harvard earlier this season? We should have realized it was in their DNA.

BU Hockey: New Life

[brassbonanza]

Re: Boston University 2011-2012 Part V: At least 6 more games, maybe 13... who's with

I don't blame you at all. But you know, it's interesting. Are any of those RSIG people at the basketball games? I don't ever recall seeing any. I was at the America East Championship Game against Stony Brook last year. It was the GREATEST atmosphere I had even seen at a BU event. The place was going beserk. Just ONCE I would like to see that for hockey. And the irony is, hockey is supposed to be THE sport at BU, but I guess we're so used to winning that we're almost desensitized. Strange...

RSIG covers every event at Agganis, as far as I know, and from what I remember, yes, they were at Agganis for that game. I don't know if they were under orders to not say anything to the fans or get in their way, but you're right, that was a great atmosphere. I know they tend to ignore the opposing team's fans at hockey games. There were times I literally had to point out something that an opposing fan was doing because RSIG was too busy paying attention to BU students who were doing nothing. The guy standing at the bottom of 116 who spends the whole game looking up into the student sections trying to read kid's mouths and see who's swearing once let a Northeastern fan walk right by him with a t-shirt that said "I (middle finger) BU". I had to call down to him and actually point the kid out in order to get him to notice. One game against Amherst, a group of UMass fans showed up and were very audibly yelling fruck em up fruck em up over and over fron their section all the way on the other side of the arena, and for a solid 15 minutes, no one did a thing. Again, I had to go find an RSIG person and tell them they're swearing over there and to enforce the dam rules uniformly. Finally, someone went over and said something to them. You can bet if a BU student was doing the same thing in 118, they'd be gone in no time. Of course, while they're so invested in "securing" the place of profanity, on multiple occasions this season, a puck has flown into the stands and not one RSIG person or event staff came down to see if the person was OK. There was also a small fight in the section next to me last season, again, no RSIG person sees it and they have to be summoned to do something about it. 116 lip reader is too busy turning the other way. It's absolutely ridiculous how that place is run and the how insanely proactive they are about non-existent problems while ignoring ones of greater significance. It's almost concerning how much these RSIG guys get a rise out of catching someone swearing, or finding someone that's had alcohol. I've heard them talk about kids they've busted, and you'd think they just won an Oscar. This is like the crowning achievement of their professional lives, that the guy at the bottom of the section saw a kid mouth a swear, radioed the guy up top, and they got him! It's ridiculous the systems they have set up to secure the place of these things in a select few sections (read: student sections), while blatantly ignoring it in others.

But as long as there's a family atmosphere, and they're filling the stands, who cares what effect it has on the performance of the team. Kudos to the students for taking it on the road and creating great atmospheres at numerous road games away from the RSIG profanity police.

[chickod]

Re: Boston University 2011-2012 Part V: At least 6 more games, maybe 13... who's with

Sheesh, I didn't realize I was that angry about it.

I don't blame you at all. But you know, it's interesting. Are any of those RSIG people at the basketball games? I don't ever recall seeing any. I was at the America East Championship Game against Stony Brook last year. It was the GREATEST atmosphere I had even seen at a BU event. The place was going beserk. Just ONCE I would like to see that for hockey. And the irony is, hockey is supposed to be THE sport at BU, but I guess we're so used to winning that we're almost desensitized. Strange...

[brassbonanza]

Re: Boston University 2011-2012 Part V: At least 6 more games, maybe 13... who's with

Well, that's my point. Not to get political, but it's the same "elitist" snobs that think it's beneath them to "cheer." My question is, why do they even bother to go to a game? If you expect it to be like a movie theatre, stay home. (I must say, though, nobody has ever told me to sit down and shut up, although I'm sure it happens because you're certainly not the first to mention it) That HAS happened me before at other venues, and my response is always: "Stand up if you can't see." And it's not like I stand the entire game. I only jump up for a goal (or if the puck is deep in the corner, it's a critical moment in the game and/or I can't see)...

To be fair, those people that called my friends obnoxious were only in those seats for that one game, so they clearly weren't season ticket holders, and may have just shown up for that one game. IIRC, they were a more elderly couple, so who knows what their views were. I do respect people's right to want to sit and watch the game, so I don't have a problem with sitting, it's more the culture of let's make this a "family atmosphere" that is so ridiculously perpetuated at Agganis where if you say a bad word, you scream at someone, or make any kind of negative comment, you're shunned. Last night after the fourth goal I yelled at the top of my lungs to the team to get their head out of their ***, and with the place being so dead, it was fairly audible. I fully expected some RSIG person to come down and get on me for using the word "***". Get rid of this family atmosphere BS, stop catering the sport to the Sesame Street Live families, and get the freaking RSIG language gestapo out of the dam aisles of every section. This is division 1 hockey, that's not a "family" sport. Sure, we should maintain decency and respect, and not turn into UMass, but this lecture hall family atmosphere thing has completely zapped the life out of the place and made it into a completely woeful atmosphere at times. Of course, Agganis doesn't care as long as they're still making money, selling their cold chicken finger boats, and RSIG makes sure to ask everyone that looks like they may be a college student to remove their hat to be sure that you're not sneaking in a nip under that hat. Yes, that happened to me this year. Of course, the older gentleman who walked in ahead of me with a hat on was not asked to remove his hat. In case you can't tell, I am not a fan of the way that arena is run and the gross negative effect it has had on our program, our fans, and our students. If there was a way I could still follow this team the same way I do without having to give a dime of my money to the clowns at that place, I would do so in a heartbeat.

Sheesh, I didn't realize I was that angry about it.

[KnightsOfTheRound]

Re: Boston University 2011-2012 Part V: At least 6 more games, maybe 13... who's with

I just addressed this in the Maine thread (there's a big controversy there [obviously we didn't see the game here] about a goal that was disallowed because it was purportedly "kicked in" when the Maine people say it just went "off" the skate). I just think we have gone down the wrong path with this replay thing. No matter how many times Tom Caron says "They just want to GET IT RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!" I still think it's a bad idea. It opens up more controversy than it solves. And Jack's right; you would have to review every play given some of the stuff they look at. Then there's the whole issue of whether or not is is "reviewable." Well, you're REVIEWING IT, aren't you?? Hello??? So it the official sees something illegal upon review he's supposed to IGNORE it??????? "Oh, but we can't review THAT." What a joke. We're all human and everyone makes mistakes. The breaks even out. If you don't like it, don't put yourself in a position to get beat by one bad call.

I hear you on not putting yourself in a position to get beaten by one bad call, but as a fan of the game I'm happy they do review scoring plays and try to get the call right. I don't agree with what the referees decide 100% of the time, but I almost always know why they arrived at the conclusion they did since the burden of proof is on overturning the call on the ice. Reviewing scoring plays is fine I say, but I don't by any stretch think they should be reviewing every play or going to an NFL style challenge system-- that would be bad.

[Rogie21]

Re: Boston University 2011-2012 Part V: At least 6 more games, maybe 13... who's with

[/QUOTE]
So I think it is interesting that it appears he called for a review on the same type of play and got it overturned. (Cue the complaints about the back pocket).[/QUOTE]

IIRC, the decision on Maiser's goal was that it wasn't conclusive that it was knocked down with a high stick. This video isn't exactly conclusive.

Reportedly, JP now sends the payments online. No more checks.