Preface: The following article contains disparaging remarks about the Ivy League and Ivy students/alums. My criticisms, obviously, do not apply to all people associated with these schools, as I have friends who have attended these institutions and have come out as thoroughly likeable, normal people (you know who you are).
Last weekend, my girlfriend, my friends, and I trekked into New York to watch BU take on Cornell in the "Red Hot Hockey" event at Madison Square Garden. We headed into the city some time before the game in order to give our best rendition of, at least for Giselle (my girlfriend, although I'm guessing both of my readers already know this) and I, "Small Town New England Yokels Hit The Big City." This was largely accomplished by craning our necks upward rapidly to gain perspective on the size of skyscrapers. Even after having lived in a decent-sized city for four years, the sheer size of everything in New York (buildings, crowds, odd smells) is almost incomprehensible, so the small-town role was quite easy to play, and I am quite surprised that I am not currently in a neck brace. Still, I was able to accomplish some key Manhattan tourist objectives before the game, including the following:
- Purchase a "Who Dat Ninja" magnet at the NBC store; stroll into the GE Building (aka "30 Rock"), casually point to the elevators and bust out with "OHMYGAWD THAT'S WHERE CONAN AND TINA FEY TAKE THE ELEVATOR BECAUSE WALKING UP THE STAIRS WOULD BE TOO FAR," or something like that.
- Check out the tree in Rockefeller Center, and realize that, when not lit up, it just looks like a big fucking pine tree, similar to those around my parents' house.
- Have my heel trampled by roughly a bazillion people in Times Square.
- Be yelled at by a homeless man that "COKE IS BAD BUT WEED IS GOOD AND WE NEED WEED." You know what else we need? Showers and better dental care.
- Eat at White Castle, not contract E. Coli.
Through all of this, the true highlight of the day was the hockey game itself. It certainly lived up to its "Red Hot" name, as both teams had red in their uniforms and I was quite warm under my jersey. In all seriousness, it was a great game, particularly as BU blew out Cornell, 6-3, providing an extremely satisfying victory. I do have a certain abhorrence for Ivy League schools, which, I must admit, partially is the result of being rejected by Harvard on two separate occasions. Regardless, this hatred has been more than backed up by my experiences with people from these schools, who seem to hold the opinion that those of us who have not attended an Ivy League institution are dumbass trash. These Ivy Leaguers were on full display at MSG last Saturday. I'll go into it a little later.
I initially realized I was in for one hell of a time when I took my seat and was immediately screamed at by a group of 6-8 year-olds sitting directly behind me.
"SCREW BU! BU SUCKS!"
This was roughly an hour before the opening face-off, mind you, so I figured this was just their reaction to BU fans entering their section, and they'd tire themselves out or otherwise be distracted within a few minutes. I was wrong (As an aside, what the fuck parent allows their children to shout stuff like that at a sporting event? Something like "Let's go Red" would have been entirely acceptable, but there is absolutely no way, as a child, I or anyone I know, would have been able to get away with yelling the word "screw" or "suck" in public. If I had pulled that shit at a game, my parents would have yanked me out of there before I could have even got to the 'w' in "screw." These parents did absolutely nothing but sit back and laugh. I'm guessing later they will be mystified as to why they can't control their kids.).
Eventually, after about the 7,000th "SCREW BU," I decided to do what any responsible, mature adult would do. I (and my friends) matched wits with those little brats and drove them into the ground. Our first strike was made as the players came out for warm-ups. Like any responsible fans in the joint, we stood and cheered our team. As the crowd settled down, I came to the realization that, as I am 6'4" and the munchkins were pushing four feet at best, the kids couldn't see the ice when we all stood (Any normal person would have figured this out immediately, but my mind is too full of random geography knowledge, classic TGIF facts and English Premiership scores to function properly). So we did not sit down, and the "BU SUCKS" chants turned into "SIT DOWN" screams, because God forbid those kids miss warm-ups. I think this just made these brats angrier, because after we got bored and sat back down (maybe 5 minutes later. Oh so mature.), I heard this:
"THE 'B' IN "BU" STANDS FOR B-E-T-C-H!"
Of course, I had to goad the kid on. "That's not how you spell 'bitch'."
Silence. But only briefly.
"HEY, WHAT DOES THE 'B' STAND FOR? B-WORD?"
"Which b-word?"
He glanced back to his parents, who expressed varying degrees of not giving a crap. "Um, nothing."
And so the "SCREW BU" chants started anew. It was time for us to pull out the big guns. We all knew what to do.
"THERE'S NO SANTA!" clap clap clapclapclap... "THERE'S NO SANTA!" clap clap clapclapclap...
As I turned around, I saw the look of dismay on the children's faces as their parents rushed to explain that we were lying. "Hey, you should shut up if you know what's good for you," I heard form the row of kids. From then on, not a peep was heard from the gallery behind us. We had won. Our rag-tag group of college graduates had successfully bested the 6-8 year olds.
Sports are kind of an odd thing. Games both bring people together and can prove extremely divisive. There's a huge mob mentality at sporting events. Sometimes, it's a wonderful thing. Other times, you'll end up chanting to a bunch of kids that there's no Santa Claus.
I think that something you learn as you grow up is how to ultimately separate yourself from the team at the end of the game. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't celebrate when your team wins or be upset when they lose, and it doesn't mean you shouldn't be a passionate fan. It's just that people seem to get so wrapped up in their identity as a fan that they forget when the game ends and continue their grudges against other fans indefinitely. This was particularly true for the Cornell fans on Saturday.
Personally, I have no problem with catching stick from the college/recent alumni demographic, because, when you're that age you're kind of expected to be an ass. However, after the game, it was Cornell-supporting middle-aged adults who gave us the biggest problems. Furthermore, if I spent my time gloating as I left, I'd totally expect to be given a hard time. In this case, all my friends and I did was engage in normal conversation, so I don't think we should have been given all kinds of crap on that end, either. I could write pages about all the unwarranted "You suck"s (mind you, BU won 6-3) we received as we exited the Garden, but I'll just discuss the most egregious example.
A few blocks away from MSG, a Cornell jersey-wearing lady broke away from her children, power walked up to us, and exclaimed "I HOPE YOU HAVE A HORRIBLE DAY!" I had no idea even how to react. Evidently this lady was angry enough about the failure of men wearing shirts with "Cornell" on the front to put a small rubber puck into a net more times than men wearing shirts with "Boston" on the front that she was willing to ABANDON HER KIDS in order to wish random people ill. Something about priorities comes to mind here. Now, honestly, I wasn't really offended about any of this, but I was a little surprised at how these people's passion for a hockey team turned them into complete dicks.
Anyway, back to the whole "Ivy League Superiority" thing. On of the most frequent things I heard from middle-aged Cornell fans after the game was "We're smarter than you." In fact, on the way back to the train from MSG, ANOTHER person broke away from their group to inform us of this. Again, this came from someone who was with their family. I've seen this arrogant attitude time and time again, and I think this is another one of those "grow up" things. I know intelligent people who dropped out of High School, and I know idiots who attended Ivies (i.e. our president). Out in the real world, one comes to the realization that intelligent people come from all walks of life. Evidently, in the insular world of the Ivies, where, apparently, one is constantly reminded that they are the best and brightest (I wonder if they are forced to listen to the "You're the best... AROUUUND" song from Karate Kid on a constant loop), students fail to realize this fact. Andrew Bernard on "The Office" provides a perfect example of this sort of air.
And so it was, to further reinforce his belief in his own superiority, a father needed to remind us (and himself) of his own intelligence in New York on Saturday. I wonder what this man is like in his everyday life. Would he not accept medical advice from a doctor trained at Johns Hopkins because he is "smarter" then the doctor? If his kids end up going to a state school, will he consider them failures?
I don't really know the answers to those questions. I guess, since I didn't attend an Ivy league school, I'm not smart enough to figure it out. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
