A Misfit history teaser. The pre-organization days (note: no proofe reeding haz ben dun):
Pre-Organization – Long from the glory days of the 70’s and before, the John J. MacInnes Student Ice Arena had been far from the exciting and loud atmosphere it once housed. It was easy to see that a lack of student attendance and not having an official student section was not helping the cause. For no apparent reason, our loud mouth founders settled into Section L and began to gather similar deranged fans. Because Section L was located directly behind the opposing penalty box, the students quickly became excellent hecklers of the two minute visitors. The catalyst for turning this section into what it is today is due to a weary night on October 18th, 2003. Michigan Tech was taking on Upper Peninsula blood rival, Northern Michigan. The night before, Tech lost in overtime to this team in Marquette. Now at home, they were in pure desperation, as they were down 6-3 when NMU put in a goal with 4:38 left in the game. However, a late NMU penalty gave Michigan Tech what they needed to score one with 2:05 remaining; the comeback had started. Just 39 seconds later, they netted one off of an offensive zone faceoff, narrowing the gap to just one goal. Stunning the capacity crowd of 3,854, an extra attacker with the goalie pulled allowed Michigan Tech Husky Colin Murphy to net a hat trick goal and tie the game with just 28 seconds left. In overtime and with the momentum turning Michigan Tech into the Juggernaut, Colin scored again to end the game as a Tech win, an absolutely stunning victory. For months, the Tech student fans rode the excitement of this epic battle and it helped reignite the exciting in the arena.
The group of student fans now had a place to call home and had raised their morale, but they needed a name. Every student section had a catchy name; UMD is the Penalty Box, Wisconsin is the Crease Creatures, North Dakota is the Sioux Crew, NMU is the Puck Heads, etc. While co-founders Chris Nesbitt and Tim Braun were driving to Duluth to watch some Tech hockey on January 23rd, 2004, they were trying to come up with a name for the student section. They originally thought about the Dog Pound, but if you know football, you know that name is taken. Tim then started brainstorming and thought about the fact that they sat behind Mitch Lake and with the way things went during the 2003-2004 season with Public Safety (almost getting kicked out of a dozen home hockey games) he definitely felt like a misfit. So they asked Mitch that night while enjoying some snacks in a local watering hole in Duluth and he was all for it; thus, Mitch’s Misfits was born. Although Tech students Tim Braun and Greg Anthon (another passionate fan that helped spawn the Misfits) graduated at the end of the year, Chris Nesbitt, Mitchell O’Laughlin, and Tobias Smith went through the process the following year in order to make Mitch’s Misfits an official registered student organization.