I'm a recent employee of Northern Michigan University and thus a new
and enthusiastic Wildcat hockey fan.  I'm really enjoying becoming
reacquainted with collegiate hockey (was an undergraduate at Ohio
University in the early 60's when the Bobcats played hockey with the
likes of Ohio State and Bowling Green--was that the CCHA in those
days, too?).  For the twenty years previous to moving to Marquette
in 1990 I lived in the Spokane, Washington area.  For a while in the
mid-to-late 1970's I was pretty interested in the Spokane Jets, which
was a Senior Amateur team in the Western International Hockey League
(other teams were from the small cities in southeastern British
Columbia, including Nelson, Trail, and Kimberly).  More recently
the Spokane franchise became a high-level Junior one playing in the
WHL (I think).  Anyway, the collegiate brand of play is much to my
preference because the fighting and rough stuff is kept under much
more control than in the semipros.
 
Even so, the behavior of some collegiate "fans" really bothers me.
It's obvious some of them would rather see a devastating hit, even a
clearly dirty one, than a great pass (maybe even than a goal)--as
long, of course, as one of their "own" players is the hitter and not
the hittee.  How stupid!  A terrific example occurred in the NMU-MTU
game last weekend in which MTU broke Northern's long unbeaten-at-home
streak.  I happened to have a great view of the critical play.  Tony
Szabo of the Wildcats, not a particularly nasty player at all, for
some reason rather brutally checked from behind an MTU player and
rammed him into the bar on top of the goal.  The "fan" next to me
yelled "Way to go, Tony!"  This was right in front of the referee
in the third period with the score tied.  Of course, a penalty was
called and MTU scored the game-winner during the power play.  Much
as I hated to see NMU lose, it would have been a great satisfaction
to say to that "fan," "What do you think of that play now?!"
 
As far as cheers go, I think the "Sieve" cheer doesn't deserve the
name "cheer."  It's taunting, pure and simple, and usually not
deserved, given that it's chanted with great orchestration by the
cheerleaders, accompanied by the band, after EVERY home goal.  In
baseball you usually give the opposing pitcher a hand, if anything,
if he gets knocked out by your team.  Taunting is real low class.
I wish this great game weren't marred by it.
 
I take it the goalie to whom reference about "Gambler" cheers was
recently made has been in some sort of gambling trouble.  That's
real classy too--like once when a basketball team I followed had a
player who had been in trouble on a drug charge and the fans of an
opposing team threw little bags of "drugs" at him when he was
introduced.
 
This list is great.  I really enjoy reading the items.  Just had to
get the above off my chest.
                              Steve Christopher