> Date:    Mon, 4 Apr 1994 15:16:19 -0700
> From:    David O'Hara <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: BU poor sports
>
> I had a great time in St. Paul this last weekend, but I have to get
> something off my chest.
>
> The entire BU team and coaching staff left the ice immediately after
> receiving their runner-up awards.  I think they should have remained
> on the ice to congratulate the Lakers during their awards ceremony.  I
> also noticed the fans in the BU section left before Lake Superior
> received their awards.
>
> I think this is extremely poor sportsmanship.  Whatever happened to
> playing hard and congratulating the winner?  I'm sure BU was
> disappointed, but they knew by the end of the second period that they
> weren't going to win the game. It's not like they lost in OT on a
> disputed goal.
>
> Let's hope next year's runner-up behaves with more class.
 
I have to disagree with this.  Normally I'm very sensitive to good
sportsmanship kinds of things, and I felt that they acted in an
entirely appropriate manner.  They participated in the congratulatory
handshake line, got their own awards and then left the ice before the
LSSU awards started.  There was no need for them to hang around beyond
this.
 
  The winner deserves the ice to themselves for their awards (it's
symbolic...they're the ones that remain after all the others have been
defeated) and they did later use all of it to celebrate after the last
of the formal awards were handed out.  Additionally the tv people were
using the area where BU would have stood for their interviews with
LSSU players.
 
Besides, would you feel much like hanging around after being clobbered
9-1?  You'd feel pretty much like you didn't even belong there at all
and would probably want to get out of there asap.  As for the BU fans,
it's pretty easy to sit around and make comments when you don't have
much of an emotional attachment to the team that lost...for the BU
fans though it had to be an incredible emotional blow. It takes about
45min of thinking the world has just come to an end before you put
things into perspective and realize that it was just a game.
 
Plenty of Minnesota fans (in addition to us hockey-l'ers) hung around
for the duration of the awards and applauded all of them so it
wasn't like LSSU had an empty arena at that point.
 
In addition, BU's band continued to play spiritedly right on thru
the end of the game, even though defeat was increasingly certain from
early on.  They were being good sports about it.  The best LSSU's band
could do was to play Anchors Away over and over and over.
 
--------------------------------------------------------
 David Wojtowicz
 Atmospheric Sciences Department and
 National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
 email: [log in to unmask]  phone: (217)244-1982
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