Bleak Seats at the Garden

Here's how it works you split the stadium into four equal sections, fill the stands any way you like, and send some skaters out on the ice to stir up some tension. It's a perfect equation--thousands of college students go into a frenzy over the old home team, then crowd onto a Green Line trolley toward a night of revelry, no matter who wins.

It's harder to think of a better idea for a college experience--the whole MBTA abuzz with "Go Terriers!" and "Kill Harvard!" and sporadic hummings of "Ten Thousand Men." The city of Boston loves its college students, and on these February nights, everything falls into place.

Even the sport itself ranks supreme. There's nothing better than the thrill of hockey (few sports are faster), the simplicity of the idea (no innings or fouls) and the artistry of the players.

It's a mystery, then, that while Boston College students scream along with their band, Northeastern fans sing their teams' praises to the rafters and Boston University spectators nearly bring the Garden balcony to the floor--Harvard rahs its way into silence.

A mystery, at least, for non-Harvardians. The Beanpot Syndrome may hold the key to the entire Harvard psyche, from the Faculty Club to FOPpers in the wilderness. One hockey tournament lets us in on dirty secrets we pretend not to understand. When Harvard squeezes into the Garden, the world sees us as we know we are--yawns and all.

I remember my first encounter with Harvard: I was about five, opening Christmas presents. An overeager aunt of mine bough me a Peanuts sweatshirt. There was Snoopy, dressed in a Harvard sweater, leaning on a football, and holding a pennant. The banner read, "Rah."

That's it. That's what dragged me away from the small hometown college I'd always thought I'd attend. That's what brought me to the big city. Rah. "Go Harvard!" offered from behind the clenched teeth of an uppits beagle.

This, of course, is what the world thinks of us. The old boy network, the deep leather chairs and old-fashioned pipes, the corporate actives and killer lawyers, all of them from Grosse Pointe--this is the Harvard we were all caused to imagine.

But when we get here, things are different Harvard's Old Boy glory vanishes once you set foot in Cambridge. If you're here, you work hard. You sweat. Sweat is quite unbecoming on deep leather chairs.

For some reason, this distant dream comes blaring to the surface at the Beanpot tournament. While B.C. screams SIEVE until the ice cracks, it's up to a few Harvard undergrads in the stands to fight back. Most of the Crimson's adoring crowd claps once in a while, but no one leaps from the bleachers to pledge everlasting love for Fair Harvard. The outsiders who thought they had us figured out were right.

A friend of my brother's put it most eloquently, I think, when he joined a group of us en route to the game "Root for Harvard?" he said. "Are you kidding" Everybody hates Harvard Ask anybody."

Everybody around him at the time was standing in Winthrop House, so the odds weren't in his favor. But then we got to the Garden and had a look at all the fun B.U. fans were having, and at all the fun B.C. and Northeastern students were pouring into the game. Even we die hard Harvard fans had to concede that sitting in our corner just wasn't that much fun.

It may be the preponderance of alumni at our games. They just don't make for the same excitement. The corporate lawyer banging on the glass screaming "You SUCK!" is an image no one, especially the corporate lawyer, could ever imagine. The Radcliffe grad in a plaid ankle length skirt asking friends and strangers for the best private preschool would never belch. "Fat this, Terriers!" from the balcony.

It there were only some way to outlaw alums to assign graduates, after their fifth reunion, to plague some other school, to sing some other fight song, and to leave the rest of us to scream the team to victory.

In any case, the yearly Beanpot tournaments are grim glimpses into our collective future. When the situation demands anarchy, no one but a few scrawny undergrads ever rises to the occasion. The glazed preppy attitude has even started to haunt The Game; when first-years and seniors alike are relegated to the nosebleeds, it's up to the alums to make some noise, Nope.

One would hope that hockey's wild nature would stirs some alums and quiet undergrads to decisive action. Next year, Harvard fans, hang that terrier out to dry. Don't just shame B.U. fans on the ice. Try pummeling them with water balloons. Fight back, and scream your loudest negative cheers. Don't let your energy wane as your diploma yellows.

B.U. fans yell, shriek, and threaten to topple the upper deck. Ours can barely spit out a "Rah."