Road Tripping: Big Red visits the Big Green

In my two and a half years in the pep band, I had not gone on an overnight trip with the band until a few months ago. There were a variety of factors that led me to this decision. One, I’d never been on an overnight trip before and it would overlap with February break so I’d have time after the trip to relax. Two, I would only be missing two lectures (and production lab) instead of three or four lectures and a recitation. Three, it was the Harvard-Dartmouth trip. Four, I would be able to meet my parents in Boston in the middle of the trip. And five, I wanted to go.

I signed up and got on the trip and so I found myself hauling myself, Hezekiah, and a blanket, among other things, up the slope at 8:15 on Friday morning. The blanket was in case we got stuck in Boston after the Harvard game on Saturday night, which should give you an idea of how bad the weather in the northeast was this past winter.

We left Ithaca by nine and stopped for lunch at noon, kicking off two days of minimal nutrition healthy foods like pizza, burgers, and donuts. I had a sandwich and returned to the bus to finish reading Walden for environmental history. We watched Dodgeball and pulled into Hanover around five. Based on the minimal time I got to spend in Hanover, it seems like a nice town. It feels New England-ish.

From dinner, we walked back to the rink, where we arrived not only in time to play for the team as they came out of the locker room but also before the Dartmouth band. As far as the rink itself, it’s pretty nice, though I was doing some research on Thompson Arena and I have a couple points from Dartmouth Athletics’ official website to refute. For one, their statement that “Crowds of more than 4,000 regularly attend Dartmouth men's hockey games and the atmosphere can be electric . . .” The box score reports attendance at the game as 2,673, and this was on a Friday night in the midst of a six-game win streak for Dartmouth. Also, on our way out, we were informed that the 25+ people with the pep band outcheered the other 2,640 Dartmouth fans in the arena. Second, “One of the toughest arenas for visiting teams in all of college hockey, Thompson Arena’s design has been replicated by other schools trying to the create a similar feel.” First of all, good job proofreading. I’m interested in how other schools try to the create a similar feel. Next, Lynah is older; its first game was played in 1957 compared to 1975 for Thompson Arena.

You know what those things are at the back?  Empty seats.

As for the game itself, the first period saw Dartmouth jump out to a two goal lead only to be matched by Cornell. The second period was scoreless, and we thought we were heading into overtime . . . when Dartmouth scored with eight minutes left in the third period. Cornell couldn't come up with another goal, and so we left Hanover with the loss. On our way over to Harvard, we watched Love Story, and arrived at the hotel around midnight.