For four years, I played football at this college and over those years was subjected to a lot of indecent treatment at the hands of other Ivy League fans. One instance comes to mind more than any other: my junior year ,when we played Columbia in New York. After having played a hard-fought game on the turf and losing, we had approximately a 200-yard walk from the field to the locker room. I think there might have been a walkway there, but it was all a mob of Columbia fans that were taunting us, pushing us and even spitting on us. As someone who has been an athlete my entire life with experience at the collegiate level, you expect and are ready for taunting and heckling if you are the visitors. No player, however, expects or should have to deal with any kind of physical abuse that Dartmouth athletes have dealt with on many occasions. The point of this opinion article is to say that we have never even come close to doing any of the above acts against visiting teams at Thompson Arena.
So, there I was, sitting behind the penalty box anxiously awaiting another men's hockey game on Saturday night with my partner in crime, Ken Phelan. The Bulldogs of Yale were in town for possibly the biggest game of the year. With a victory or tie, the Big Green would bring an Ivy League title back to Hanover for the first time since the 1979-1980 season.
On this particular night, my folks were in town and decided to come with me to the game. Before sitting down, I warned my parents about what goes on behind the penalty box during these games (i.e., the heckling of players, referees, coaches and what not). Both agreed that they could handle whatever goes on and sat down a row behind us.
After we got comfortable, my dad tapped me on the shoulder and said, "What's the deal with the guy in front of you?" The guy in front of me who my dad was talking about was a Safety and Security Officer. To my father, I replied, "They assign an officer to sit with us every home game. I guess we are a lot to handle."
During the second period, a Yale player was called for a penalty and made his way over to the box. So, like standard hockey fans, we began heckling the kid within the guidelines given to us by Safety and Security: "no swearing" and "no touching the glass". We were in the middle of cheering and heckling when two Safety and Security officers and a police officer came down and began to give us a hard time.
We later found out through one of the other people in our section that the head Safety and Security officer at the game had been told by President Wright to tell us to stop what we were doing. A person who claims he loves the College has ruined what was once a proud bastion of traditions dating back to 1769. What happened to us at this hockey game is simply a sad commentary on what Dartmouth has become: a politically correct nightmare.
Going to sporting events here at Dartmouth and watching my friends and classmates compete has long been the best non-alcoholic event the college has had to offer. But, when Safety and Security will not allow us to cheer for our friends and classmates and the president who preaches about how Dartmouth needs more non-alcoholic programming events that students support, it ruins one of the few non-alcoholic events students enjoy very much. All this does is make students more bitter about the current state of affairs at this college and in the town of Hanover.
I cannot tell you how many times this winter Ken and I have walked out of Thompson Arena, wearing our jerseys proudly, and parents with small children have approached us and thanked us for the support we show for the team. If a father with a small child who is within earshot of us behind the penalty box is not offended by anything we say, then opposing players, Safety and Security officers and President James Wright all need to "lighten up".
Players on the Dartmouth team have told us that even with our fan support, Thompson Arena is by far the tamest place to play in the Ivy League. I then have to ask myself, what is the point of having a home game without home ice advantage?
