>
> Dave writes:
> >   As I recall, RPI's amazing '84-'85 team was known informally
> >as The Red Swarm; hence that ridiculous frowning bee that skates around
> >Houston and hexes the visiting team even to this day.
>
Mike writes:
 
> I may be wrong, but I think the Swarm was around for a while before 1984-85.
> BTW, it was a guy in his 30s who played the Swarm.  Quite a nut.  That reminds
> me of the 1985 RPI Invitational when LSSU met RPI and the Swarm matched wits
> with LSSU's pelican.
 
Didn't see this performance, but Mike is right about the origin of
the Swarm.  It actually derived from a very rare successful RPI football
season of the early '80s when the defense was known as the Red Swarm.
However, I agree with Dave's overall assessment.  My first
reaction when I saw the Swarm was to ask other fans why a termite had
been chosen as a mascot............
 
What other schools have skating mascots?  Cornell has the bear (Dave
informs me that it has evolved to a male bear and a female bear), RPI
has the Swarm...how about a Michigan Wolverine, Minnesota Gopher,
Wisconsin Badger, Maine Black Bear, Ohio State Buckeye (that would
certainly be different), etc.?
 
>
> >To all you RPIers
> >out there ---- I dislike the "puck guy" on your uniforms (although as
> >I recall Tony Hejna feels that the puck guy is "huge").
>
> You'll get quite an argument from the RPI team if you attack the puck guy.
> The first season Buddy was there, when only the home jerseys were changed
> and the road ones remained the same, I talked to some of the players I
> still knew there and they all loved having the puck guy on the jerseys.
> I think it had something to do with being representational of a change in
> management, so to speak.
>
The puck guy is another matter (for the uninitiated, imagine Peter Puck
with a hardhat).....it is the perfect logo for an engineering school
hockey team.
 
Jon Greene
RPI '82  Cornell '84
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Data General, Westboro, MA