On Wed, 7 Dec 1994, John Kohlstrand wrote: > > But when I was there
Bowling Green fans were great. Not all students of the > game, but great,
great fans. BGSU Ice Arena was a fun place to watch hockey > then. > >
John Kohlstrand > Bowling Green '92 > When I went to Bowling Green
(1971-1975) it was a fun place to watch hockey, too.  Hockey was the only
sport where you could count on seeing a lot of winning games and the fans
really got into the game.  There were special cheers for the teams we saw
the most during the year and everybody had a great time at the game.  The
crowds were pretty rowdy, but I don't remember anybody being particularly
bloodthirsty (OTOH, it was 20 years ago!) The cheers I remember
particularly were a cheer that said the word Guelph like a sound seal
makes (for some reason we didn't like Guelph), shouting "Bozo" at an OSU
player who had long, curly red hair that stuck out of his helmet like Bozo
the clown, and, of course, all of the yells at the refs.  One of our
favorite things, rarely seen, was a ref sandwich where one player from
each team banged into each other with a ref in the middle.  This got the
crowd as excited as anything else.  I don't remember any of this as being
mean-spirited.  It was just a bunch of excited kids blowing off steam.
None of us wanted anybody to get hurt.  I can remember, a number of times,
seeing players from the other team down on the ice, hurt, and the crowd
applauding when he got up and skated to bench, apparently unhurt.
 
I don't know what the crowds at BG are like now, but 20 years ago they
were just a bunch of kids out for a good time.  You're right, though,
many of the fans were just learning about hockey.  For me and my 3
brothers who went to Bowling Green those were the first hockey games we'd
ever seen.  We all loved it and we're all still hockey fans.
 
Carol