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Quick, name the starting forward line of the Stanley Cup Champion Edmonton Oilers...
Time's up.
Few of even the most avid sports fans in the United States follow the NHL at all. Football, baseball and basketball dominate the American sports scene, even in the northern areas of the country where hockey is a popular recreational activity.
But a closer look at college hockey reveals tremendous fan support, especially in the ECAC. Enthusiasm has not waned since the ECAC lost seven of its member institutions, which formed Hockey East in 1984.
ECAC hockey still rules.
"We started talking about hockey in August," says Wally Johnson, Director of Sports Information at St. Lawrence, last season's ECAC champion and NCAA Tournament runner-up.
Hockey in August?
August is the time for returning to school, choosing classes, retelling tales of your summer over and over again, talking about baseball pennant races, scrutinizing your school's chances in the upcoming football season and arguing about who will win the national football championship.
It is not the time to be talking about pucks, stick saves, power plays and beating the goalie on a breakaway.
But in Canton, N.Y., home of the St. Lawrence campus, August finds locals wondering about whether Coach Joe Marsh's Saints can repeat as champions in the upcoming ECAC season, which commences tonight.
Cantonians are already making plans for those Friday and Saturday nights in the winter when usually all 2400 of Appleton Arena's seats are sold out. Often, the Saints draw up to 1400 more fans standing behind a rail which encircles the seating area, similar to Harvard's Bright Center. According to Johnson, approximately 60 percent of the team's fans at a game are from town and 40 percent are students.
"There is no question that hockey is the number-one sport around here," Johnson says. "We are Division III in every sport but hockey. Advertising in the program and radio broadcasting is excellent and there are active local hockey boosters."
St. Lawrence drew 2600 fans against non-league opponent McGill University in the team's home opener this year.
"Last season's success has definitely increased interest and as evidence of that," Johnson says, "we've recently started Whitewave night when RPI comes to town in response to RPI's Freakout Night."
The Freakout Night is organized by RPI's Student Freakout Committee, and in the past has involved the handing out of noisemakers to everyone at the game. Since the institution of a rule banning excessive noise at college hockey games, the committee has had to come up with new ideas, including giving every fan last year cardboard cows with logos on them.
Probably the most popular hockey team in the ECAC, RPI--the 1985 national champion--has led the East in attendance during most of the last 25 years, usually averaging over 4000 people per game.
The key to RPI's popularity is a combination of students' strong interest in hockey, an excellent hockey program and facilities, and local support from the people of Troy, N.Y.
The university's 4500 undergraduates regularly form from 45 to 50 intramural hockey teams per year, according to R. Alan Shibley, RPI Director of Sports Information. Many intramural games are played before and after the varsity games on Friday and Saturday nights. In contrast, Harvard's 6400 students participate in an intramural league of about 10 hockey teams.
"RPI has a technically-oriented curriculum which can become a real grind for most students," Shibley said. "Going to the hockey games is a good release and because of the active involvement in the sport of hockey here, RPI has a student body with a built-in knowledge of the sport."
"Hockey is a social event, kind of like the Michigan-Ohio State football game is," Shibley adds. "Some people here have been season ticket holders for 35 to 40 years."
In Cornell, hockey tickets are such a hot item that students on campus not only have to pay $67 dollars for season tickets (most colleges, including Harvard, allow the students to attend hockey games for free), but they must camp out overnight to buy those tickets--similar to getting tickets for a Sting concert.
The police patrol the rink on Friday nights in November until 2 a.m., when the rink lights are turned out and the students remain in the stands until tickets go on sale the next morning.
"It's kind of a bizarre scene," Cornell sophomore Glenn Turell says. "All of us partying and spending the night in the hockey rink. I even got a back massage from a girl last year."
Another big hockey town is Burlington, Vt., home of the Vermont Catamounts.
Clare Friscino, Director of Marketing for The Downhill Edge, a local ski shop in Burlington which advertises in the Catamount program, says that Vermont hockey is Burlington's main attraction.
"There is a lot of involvement in hockey in this area, from the kids right on through to the older adults," Friscino says. "Subsequently, there is quite a bit of local business support. UVM is extremely visible here. The radio station UVMT, which broadcasts the games, has no problem selling advertising time."
Pep
One of the best pep bands in the ECAC, although annoying to most opposing fans, belongs to Clarkson University, which also has some of the more creative promotions in the league.
A local car dealer offers a free car to a Clarkson fan who can shoot a puck from the middle of the hockey rink through a small hole in the net during one of the intermissions. Also, a seat number is announced at every game and a local bank offers a $50 savings bond to a fan sitting in that seat--if the fan is wearing Clarkson green and gold.
"Tradition has a lot to do with the popularity of hockey here," says Gary Mikel, Clarkson's Director of Sports Information. "Hockey is big in the North country."
Whether it is the popularity of hockey as a recreational sport, the closeness of the fans to the game or the tremendous local support for most hockey teams, several campuses and towns have caught ECAC fever.
No one has yet to find a cure.
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