Re: Dartmouth College Hockey...is there anybody else out there?
I can speak to the tennis ball tradition. After all, I started it in 1993. My name is Sean Quinn and I was one of the two FiveThirtyEight guys who did all that math and reporting back in 2008 for the election, later working as a White House journalist. I'm not sure which of the two is my bigger claim to fame.
It has nothing to do with any tennis team rivalry. I used to be a PBP guy for Dartmouth hockey and the team was abysmal most of my years there. In the 92-93 season, they started out 1-7-1 but then beat then #4 UNH during the annual holiday tournament just before New Year's. That kind of got them going and they proceeded to win a bunch of games and get back to .500 just as the winter term was getting underway. Suddenly, the team had fans showing up in droves. The season prior, when I was calling a game down at Baker Rink, Princeton fans had done something similar. I was not just a PBP guy but a hardcore fan and was looking for ways to capitalize on the popularity of the team. I led a small group of mischievous, hockey-loving friends in brainstorming something that could be thrown on the ice that wouldn't hurt anyone, wouldn't damage the ice and would be easily and cheaply accessible. There aren't very many things in this category.
Ultimately, we settled on tennis balls, and we tried to figure out how to disseminate the information. We considered going to fraternity house meetings and hadn't yet decided on what to do when I had a further brainstorm very late one night just before bed. Even though it was still only '93, Dartmouth has always been a highly cutting edge computer campus and we all had had email and IM (blitzmail and broadcast, respectively) capabilities. I was an undergraduate adviser on the first floor of Mid-Fayer, and I composed an email in the form of a mock chain mail (forward this along to 20+ people for great happiness or else dire consequences, etc.). I sent the email out one time, to twenty people: my thirteen freshmen and my seven fellow UGAs/AC in the Fayers. This was sent a hair before 3AM on the Wednesday before the Friday game with Princeton. Back then the servers shut down between 3-6am, so nobody was going to read it until the morning. Noon was really about the time it might get going. It was cleverly written and signed Wilson Dunlop. It tapped themes of revenge and honor and wove them into chain mail snark.
At 6pm on Wednesday I checked my email. I'd received it back in my inbox five times. Holy ***ing S***. It was going to be big. If I'd gotten it five times, everyone on campus had received it. I recall walking around overhearing people talking about it. When you're 21 this is a great feeling. The Dartmouth coaching staff, with whom I was in routine contact as PBP guy, found out about the plan Thursday when they saw word of the email in a league-wide ECAC bulletin (which led us to merrily chant "You know what's com-ing!!" toward the Princeton netminder as the game got underway). Publicly they had a quote int he Friday edition of The Dartmouth which said they would prefer the fans not do this. Privately, they LOVED it and made me my own VHS copy of the game as a token of appreciation.
I wasn't calling that particular game, I was happier to be in the stands. As we entered, there were many more campus police than normal, and signs had been posted telling fans not to throw tennis balls. There were large recycling trash cans supposedly for fans to drop off their balls on the way inside. I gotta say, it was pretty fun stuff. Dartmouth then and probably still does have a late-arriving crowd, so I was fearful that the goal would be scored before most fans would be in their seat. I was nervous they wouldn't score a first period goal (the student section is to the opposing goalie's left where Dartmouth shoots twice). I was nervous premature ball-throwing would lead to the later true onslaught resulting in a penalty (I was a fan, didn't want to hurt the team).
The goal couldn't have been more perfect. Midway through the first period, Dartmouth was killing a penalty. Greg Chapman '93 went down to block a point shot, and the rebound went between the point defenders. Captain Chris Clark '93, who could never score on breakaways even in practice, raced for the puck and had a breakaway from the red line in. The crowd, now fully present, rose in unison. Clark roofed it. Roar. Apocalypse of tennis balls. Good thing too, because there were balls in the air a hair early. I personally launched three tennis balls and eleven racquetballs. While I was throwing fourteen motions, the deluge was going full force that whole time. There were easily, easily 1000+ balls on the ice. It was the first goal of the game, and it took about 12 minutes to clean up that volume.
Dartmouth won the game 5-4 in OT, and for the handful of folks who had gotten there a hair late, they unleashed another flurry of balls as the game ended.
Each subsequent year for the next five or six years, I continued to send the one email signed Wilson Dunlop. While my freshmen were still in school, I emailed them. I found other people to email later. During the seventh year, NESN was televising the game because the tennis ball thing had become a thing, and they had me on for a few minutes between periods since I'd driven up from Boston for the game.
I was always pleased that the tradition's origins had gotten a little lost and muddled. That's how you know you have a real tradition. The one we had when we entered was rushing the field during football games, particularly against Harvard. Before matriculation, the dean's office sent us dire warnings of suspensions because little old ladies with wheelchairs had been mangled by the rushing students (hilarious authority lie). I know that there was a big move to eradicate the tennis ball tradition but it makes me very happy to know it lives on.
And to answer the thread's OP, yes, there are some very true-blooded Dartmouth hockey fans out here.
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I actually came on the board today to see if anyone had a handy link to how RPI is calculated. Pending that calculation, it appears Dartmouth would get an at-large berth if Alaska-Anchorage beats Colorado College (but doesn't win their tournament) and if Dartmouth can beat Cornell, since that and a likely final with Yale should probably boost their RPI over a finished UNO and going 1-1 (obviously 2-0 is automatic berth) would boost their TUC over CC to flip both those PairWise comparisons. UNO has a .5327 RPI (and done playing) and Dartmouth's is .5308 at the moment. If CC loses to AA, their TUC record is .4697, and Dartmouth going 1-1 would give them .4705 and flip the PairWise, provided the .5308 to .5260 RPI edge Dartmouth has on CC holds.
As a huge St. Louis Blues fan, there's a minor conflict because Jaden Schwartz is a gifted prospect, our top in the NCAAs and he plays for CC. But Dartmouth hasn't made the NCAA tournament in decades, since before I was a fan. If Dartmouth can thread this needle they'd probably have the 13th or 14th spot. Northeastern getting an auto berth or AA getting an auto berth would hurt.
