This weekend, I had the opportunity to travel to Denver, Colorado to cover the men’s hockey series against the University of Denver Pioneers. One of the first things that I noticed is that their entire student fan base stands for the whole game. This group is much smaller than ours—not even able to fill an entire section behind the net. RPI should be proud that we are able to get as many students to the games as we do, even with a smaller student body than DU and a hockey team that isn’t nationally ranked (DU was ranked 11th in the nation). There are other fans that sit behind, or around, the student section, and there is no animosity toward the students.
If the flyers placed on everybody’s seat before the Boston University hockey game last weekend didn’t give it away, the Red Army has the full support of the Houston Field House staff. This is not meant to annoy other students or to make them feel helpless, but it is essential that we keep our backing from the Field House staff in order to ensure better seating for next season.
This year the Red Army’s budget (constructed last year by the Go Be Red staff) predicted 75 members, the amount that GBR had registered. We were going to purchase 65 seats in the Field House. After the Activities Fair and the Big Red Stakeout, we had over 300 members, making us one of the largest Union-recognized clubs on campus. It was obvious that we needed to buy more than just section 33. We tried to get a sizable portion—located directly behind section 33—so that there wouldn’t be a lot of fans behind us who didn’t want to stand. However, the athletics department owns a great deal of those seats, and we were forced to move around the corner to sections 44 and part of 14. The Red Army is working with the athletics department to move those holds to another area of the Field House so that we can move up the building instead of over.
The Red Army may be blocking your view of the ice this season, but it is here to stay and needs to look at the long-term goals of the group. In order to have better seating for all fans in seasons to come, we need to have good relations with both the athletics department and the Field House.
Don’t be satisfied that we already have a good student section; we need to make it great. The Field House should be the most intimidating building in the ECACHL to play hockey inside of. Teams should dread playing RPI on our own ice. The coaching staff and players continually tell me how much they appreciate the standing and the energy it creates. The goal of the Red Army is to support RPI athletics, and we will continue to stand. The best thing you can do for yourself and for the team is to stand up as well. Let’s go red!
