Re: UMass Lowell '12/'13 Season Thread
Student section was embarrassing with their "sit down, b****" ridiculousness.
I feel like I should be able to expect more out of them, but this is a group who chants "bulls***" twelve times a game, displaying both an Amherstian level of intellect and a lack of knowledge of the game.
Shameful.
Ok, time to weigh in. Someone named Bruce replied over on Ice is Life that we're all a bunch of old, angry guys and he seems perfectly fine with the lower-class student cheers. I for one do not like to see cheers that many of us actually created and used to lead like the "see ya..." one get bastardized. One thing we've always taken pride in is that our fans never stooped to the level of Amherst and other schools with classless cheers and/or profanity, that we would actually police ourselves and not let things get out of hand. The time may be now to nip this.
I love that tons of students finally go to the games, love the signs, love the costumes, love the energy and the noise. But the over the top bull$(#$ cheers for no reason (fine on that once in awhile instance where it is truly on outrageous, blatant time to chant it) or the revised "see ya..." chat need to go. Several years ago, the Tsongas Tstormtrooper ushers would be all over the 25 or so of us who actually used to cheer and heaven forbid, say s u c k. We had to educate them on what a college hockey atmosphere was and that we were trying to create one. Now we actually have one thanks to the efforts of UML and the great turn out now by the student body. Unfortunately there have been some signs that our fans are going down the route of Amherst, a place that I have vowed never to visit again as it is outright hostile and vulger.
Perhaps it's time for some better enforcement of that announcement at the beginning of each game to get things back in balance again. Reset the ground rules so that the newcomers know them and don't cross the boundaries. It would be great if the new blogs like HawkSquawk and 123 can spread the word to tone it down, especially HawkSquawk which is student created and run. It would be much appreciated.
We'll see how things go Friday night. I hoping for a sold out Tsongas, an energized crowd, and an exciting game. Hopefully the word will get around to cut out the bull cheers and keep things in check. If not, I'm not beyond a few well placed emails, phone calls, and personal conversations with some of the powers to perhaps do a little enforcement. But I do know that a fair number have been grumbling about this including long time ticket holders and donors.
So go Riverhawks and let's keep it clean!
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. It will just make next Friday so much better!
