Reed H Munson writes: >Maybe this sounds dumb, but perhaps if the announcer guy announced at the >beginning of the game that throwing objects out onto the ice can endanger >the safety of the players people wouldn't throw stuff on the ice. It's not a dumb idea, but it's not going to work every place either. Merrimack is trying to deal with a problem where some students throw stuff on the ice even after the announcement is made - and the announcement includes a warning that more stuff being thrown will result in a penalty against the home team. This has drawn the Warriors several delay of game penalties at home games the last two seasons, including three in one game against BU last year. The next home game is tomorrow night vs Northeastern, and we will see if the administration is successful in curbing this. Clearly there are some people for whom the threat of a penalty against their team isn't a deterrent...this is why the administration has to step in and take charge. To this extent, I would suggest that even many of the students who did not throw anything a second or third time were still guilty...against Lowell Tuesday night, they vociferously booed the removal of four students who were supposed to have thrown many of the items. I think that BU fans would boo one of their own who dared to do something that might jeopardize the team's success. This is why I say that Merrimack fans could learn something from the other fans in HE and DivI. Last year after the BU incident which involved tennis balls, security started checking people for tennis balls as they came in. This year the items of choice are fruit and bagels. I don't know if security will be checking for these too, but it did sound as if there would be an increased presence of authority around the student section for the next game. --- --- Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] Cabletron Systems, Inc. *HMM* 11/13/93