Brotherhood unites fans, continues traditions

Photo contributed by Justin Roberts

By Grace Remington, Senior Staff Writer

A biting winter wind sweeps across the lawn in front of Goggin Ice Arena and tugs at the sides of tents set up by Miami University students. Anyone who chooses to stand outside for hours in a 12-degree wind chill must be crazy - crazy for hockey.

Miami would be taking the ice in five hours, and these students were determined to stand guard by the home of their team.

"My whole college experience outside of classes revolves around this," senior Acacia Carman-Hauri said.

For these aficionados, hockey games take precedence over all else on a weekend night, even if that means waiting in line for hours for those coveted glass seats.

"We'd get there early and about 10 of us would take turns waiting in line throughout the day," senior Annie Reuter said. "We'd just sit there doing homework all day until the game, and we'd see tours walking by wondering what we were doing. We were waiting for the game, what else am I going to do on a Friday?"

Carman-Hauri has been attending Miami hockey games since her first year on campus; she has missed only one home game in her four years, collecting a grand total of attendance at 80-plus home games.

"They used to give wristbands to students at games and I started collecting them sophomore year," Reuter said. "I have them hanging up in my room. People will say 'Oh, you go to a lot of bars,' and I'm like 'No, these are from hockey games!'"

Once inside the arena, Miami devotees drop outside distractions and focus on helping the team.

Knowing the traditional chants, organized insults and responses to the pep band are just as important, or even more so, than knowing the alphabet. First-year students are expected to memorize the mantras - most of which are too inappropriate to put into writing - as soon as possible, in order to contribute to the power of the boisterous crowd.

Opposing goalies are taunted with deafening chants of "Sieve!" and "It's all your fault!" after a RedHawk goal. Older generations of students extended the tease beyond the arena in a game called "Poke the Sieve."

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"With the older classes, everyone would go find the other team's goalie on Facebook and start poking him," Reuter said.

Witty posters are scattered throughout the student section, including one that reads "Don't mess with Texas," in reference to senior forward Blake Coleman.

The Miami Stormtrooper is an important ritual for hockey games. Senior Justin Roberts, the man behind the costume, picked up the tradition from his cousin.

"My cousin actually started it probably two or three years ago when he was here," Roberts said. "He passed it along to me, and I've done it ever since."

The Stormtrooper is now an icon associated with the team.

"He's a public figure," Carman-Hauri said. "We were in Chicago for the Hockey City Classic and he wasn't able to make it. The refs were out stretching and one of them came over and asked, 'Hey, where's the stormtrooper?' Our jaws dropped."

Complete with a Twitter account, which he uses to live tweet the games, Roberts appears at almost every game with a sign that reads "Welcome to the M-pire."

"I try to make it to every game," Roberts said. "I think I've only missed five or six home games total in my four years. But, that's too many in my opinion."

The Stormtrooper isn't the only costume Miami fans have donned.

"When we played Notre Dame, my friend dressed up as the Pope," Carman-Hauri said. "He held a sign that said 'college senior looking for a job' because the Pope had just resigned a few days before. [ESPNU NCAA hockey analyst] Dave Starman interviewed him before the game."

Hockey - "the Brotherhood" - seems to be the most unifying factor both on campus and outside of Oxford.

"It's a family," Reuter said. "When you travel to away games and see people wearing Miami gear, you see how much of a community it is."

For hot-blooded Miami fans, Steve "Coach" Cady Arena is a home away from home. Games at the arena connect fans not only to Goggin, but also to the university.

"The Brotherhood gives us this togetherness," Carman-Hauri said. "It goes past the team and goes to us."

"Love and Honor" is a phrase familiar to all who relate to Miami. The concept may seem abstract to some at times, but it becomes tangible when applied to hockey.

"Think about the words," Reuter said. "Love - we're friends with some of the team, we go to the away games, we love watching them play. The honor part is tradition … singing the Alma Mater at the end of the game. All of us stay, win or loss."

At the end of the night, the lights go down and Goggin is locked. Older fans graduate and new ones arrive to carry on the decade-old traditions. No matter where life takes them, the Miami community remains united by three factors: Love, Honor and Brotherhood.