"We Can't Hear You: The Story of the Children of Yost"
The Michigan Daily continues its impressive streak of outstanding sports feature writing with an article by Michael Florek on how Yost became the intimidating barn it is today.
The student section, barely extending blue line to blue line behind the benches, had already started the countdown.
No. 3 seed Michigan was up 4-3 on sixth-seeded Cornell as the seconds slowly counted down in the 1991 Regional. The crowd, staring at the approximately 200 Cornell fans situated near center ice on the side opposite of the student section, belted out the numbers. “Five! Four! Three! Two!...”. But the countdown never finished.
Big Red forward Kent Manderville slapped a backhand shot from the top of the circle past freshman goaltender Steve Shields to tie the game.
Cornell then scored on its first trip down the ice in overtime to end the game, but it was the halted countdown that spurred the veteran Big Red crowd.
“I’ve never heard a countdown stop,” William Sangrey, a Cornell graduate student at the time said. “Five, four, three, two, and it stopped. The whole building just stopped.”
The following night, as the first period waned down, the boisterous Cornellians added a new chant to their already versatile repertoire.
“They would go, ‘Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, OHHH!’ to make fun of the crowd reaction,” then-Michigan graduate student Matt Thullen said. “I was like, ‘hey that was actually pretty clever.’ ”
From there, it was on. The crowd started adopting (stealing) Cornell chants and learning how to make Yost work for them.
The article then retells the Molly McGannon/Blizzard story and closes with Michigan fans overtaking Munn Ice Arena, just the way MSU fans used to do at Yost in the years before the surge in Michigan hockey popularity among the student body.
“When we had all our fans there, it was kind of a slap in the face to them,” junior forward Louie Caporusso said two weeks ago. “It showed how much more we cared, and it really propelled our team to win those games.”
Michigan had finally done to Michigan State what had made Berenson so embarrassed in his early years in Ann Arbor — it had forced the Spartans to play a road game at home.
“It culminated in that,” Berenson said. “We have never had a home-ice advantage at Michigan State in all the years we’ve been here. You can just see there is so much momentum around this program that in a situation this past spring it showed up on the road.”
Early in game one, before the Wolverines pulled the first of four upsets to win the conference tournament and extend their NCAA Tournament streak, the Michigan section used its hallmark of recent years and belted out one of its impromptu cheers. It was a simple, but effective, statement directed at the Spartan student section.
“WE CAN’T HEAR YOU!”
And a great history lesson too.
i wish i could go back in time to witness the molly incident. it sounds so awesome
They got the Molly story exactly correct.... including the Blizzard spearing Brandon Rogers part. I remember going into my office at the Space Research Bldg the morning before the game and seeing the Molly quote in the paper. I thought to myself, "Damn... this chick doesn't know what hell she just unleashed on herself". By the time I went for lunch at Pierpont Commons, it was all over North Campus. To quote Dr Venkman, "This chick is TOAST!"
a two game sweep was so beautiful. We did take over that arena and you could tell how difficult it was for the Spartan crowd to oust our crowd in noise level. "It had forced the Spartans to play a road game at home" just leaves me speechless to hear that. Our hockey team played so magnificent in the CCHA playoffs that we truly were the hottest team in college hockey. It still is upsetting to know that we got screwed over in the semifinals but beating MSU twice at their house, destroying
They seem to have left out the Michigan-OSU series from the 03-04 season!
"Dirty Hobbit" anybody?
Andrew Schambri (sp?). What a little [insert profanity of choice]. That was around the same time that OSU had Nate Guinen (sp?) and his dirty mullet.
Also, 03/04 would have included a "Just Like Football clap-clap-clap-clap-clap."
but I'm in the flag picture :]
My dad's a huge hockey fan and he was very proud of his little heckler after I took him to his first game at Yost... but the last two hand motions in the Cya chant were kind of awkward with him there.
when the hell did "we" start getting the kid to toss their shoe while riding the zamboni? that's effing hilarious. in my day it was always just waving.
I know we definitely got a few to throw the shoe, among other things, during my freshman year (08). If the zamboni kids don't cooperate, we ask the kids in the upper level or across the ice.
my first year at yost was my soph year (07-08) and i don't remember it happening then
one of my favorite yost moments is from the shoe toss. this year an overenthusiastic female zamboni rider took off both shoes to wild cheers from the student section but then she started to take off her jersey too and was met with a chorus of "NO! NOOO"
I think it started in 2008. I was a freshman as well and the reqeuests for shoe throwing started a month or two into the season I think.
The kids this past season were either awesome or terrible, but we got a few to throw their shoes. And like you said, when the zamboni kids didn't we turned to people in the upper level.
and if so, do you remember the upper deck kid who tried to steal his little brother's shoe to throw? classic
I probably was. I was down on the glass off to the right of the Sweedish flag (looking at it from across the ice).
I'd probably know you if I saw you then
it could be replicated in the Big House
There would be heart attacks if it happened at a football game...
But if you mean at the Big Chill... It won't be the same, they have the students (football and hockey season ticket holders alike) all thrown together in the students' normal corner of the Big House. No, this does not please Gaga.
Excellent article. I live and breathe Michigan Hockey; Yost has been my mecca since about the tender age of 9, all the way up to the current age of 23. :)
I can't speak to what went on at Yost in the 80's, but I was there at the end of Al Renfrew's career and the beginning of Dan Ferrel's? in the mid 70's.
And I can say proudly, without fear of rebuke, we got the place rocking.
I was there both nights, probably in 73-4 when Robby Moore stood on his head all night long, two straight nights, to sweep a loaded Michigan Tech team which featured Mike Zuke (130+ career goals, maybe 300+ career points). Donny Dufek was flying around knocking guys on their ass.
I wish I could remember the guys who got our goals.
We went ape-shit, and had big time home ice advantage.
Robby, Dufek et. al. did it again the next year, and so did we.
Some of us on only one pint of Old Crow ..... each night.
We did let some Spartans get in when they came to town, but we drowned them out good enough.
We could and did get into games at their place in those days too.
Those were a little better than .500 teams.
We got our wins at home.