Tonight at 5:30, my roommate offered me two tickets to tonight’s Michigan hockey game, as some friends of her parents had given them to her and she couldn’t use them. Unfortunately, at two hour’s notice I couldn’t find anyone else to join me, so I went alone to my first Michigan sporting event. Now despite having played hockey in college (and those really are my stats), I’m not enough of a hockey aficionado to give you a great retelling of the game. But the short version is something like this:
Michigan struck early in the first period with two goals before Boston College finally got one back. In the second period, each team scored once more putting the score at 3-2. With less than a minute left, a Wolverine in the penalty box, and Boston’s goalie pulled, the Eagles appeared to have scored on a power play and tied the game. Moans and groans went up around the crowd until the ref nulled the goal by calling a BC player for charging and putting him in the penalty box. The arena went nuts for the remaining ~30 seconds of the game as Michigan kept their opponents from scoring to earn the win. In general, Boston College was a faster, but smaller team and Michigan just seemed to overpower them, despite looking sloppy on a number of plays.
The actually hockey game aside, the most entertaining part of the evening was listening to the fans. My sister assures me that this is true at the other U of M, Minnesota, as well. (For what it’s worth, I couldn’t bring myself to sing Hail to the Victors — I’d still rather sing the Minnesota Rouser.) I wasn’t sitting in the student section, so I didn’t catch every chant, but I managed to catch enough of them and even figure out when to anticipate some of them. Most of them were variations on “You suck,” and directed at anyone on the ice who didn’t play for Michigan, but some of them were a little more surreal.

• “Who cares?” (chanted after the introduction of each Boston College player)
• “Ref, you suck, ref, you suck!” (chanted everytime a Michigan player got a penalty)
• “Ugly goalie, ugly goalie!” (chanted everytime the BC goalie removed his mask)
• “Ugly parents, ugly parents!” (chanted everytime the opponent scores)
• A ringing phone sound effect plays “Phone’s for you; it’s your mom. She says YOU SUCK!” (chanted everytime the ref made a bad call, according to the woman in front of me)
• “You just suck, you just suck!” (chanted whenever it threatened to get quiet, I think)

The most surreal call of the night…

• “Porno mustache, porno mustache” (I think this was directed at the ref, who didn’t seem to have a mustache, but I confirmed with the people sitting around me that that indeed was what they were saying.)

And my favorite call of the night…

• “You’re not a vaccuum, you’re not a black hole, you just suck!” (I’d like to think of this as the lalopez cheer.)