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SPORTS

Players gear up for intramural hockey season

By Craig Cashman
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

Norwich students are looking to reignite the rivalry with the faculty, staff and alumni for the 2004- 05 intramural hockey season.

Every winter, the entire campus is buzzing with the anticipation of another run by the men’s varsity hockey team toward a national championship.

Meanwhile, many students and faculty/staff/alumni hockey players are gearing up for their own battles among themselves for campus bragging rights and championship T-shirts.

“I love it,” said Jeff Thomas, 20, a junior business management major from Colorado Springs, Colo. “It’s always fun to go out there and skate.”

For a small school, the Norwich Intramural Hockey League has typically six to eight teams and displays great talent. The league has also developed quite a fan base among some students at Norwich.

“I enjoy the camaraderie and the competition,” said Andrew Ready, 20, a criminal justice major from Biddeford, Maine. “It’s always exciting, especially when you personally know people on the different teams.”

Whether students show up to support their friends, see an occasional fight, or watch the students play against one of their professors, there is always an exciting atmosphere in Kreitzberg Arena.

“Hockey is a game where you live for the moment, and sometimes you just have to let your emotions out,” Ready said. “As long as there is a penalty and a cooling off period and it doesn’t spill out of the rink, there is means for the occasional scuffle.”

But for some students, the intramural hockey season means another championship lost to the faculty/staff/alumni team, who have won the league title four of the last five years, and were the runner-up in the year in which they did not win.

However, with every faculty/ staff/alumni championship comes controversy. Every year, members of all the student teams cry “stacking” or “ringers” when players who have no association to the school show up for the more important games.

“There is not a doubt in my mind; they stack it, and every game they get better. They got high schoolers out there playing for them, brothers, sisters,” said Thomas about the alleged misuse of players by the faculty/staff/ alumni team.

Meanwhile, many members of the faculty/staff/alumni team defend the integrity of their team.

“Don’t forget that it is faculty, staff and alumni,” said Carl Emmons, an English professor at Norwich. “Anybody that has been linked with the school in the past has been grandfathered in.”

The league, despite its great competitiveness and popularity among students, has not been too well-organized the past few years.

“I’ve been playing for two years, and it’s been a little rough,” Thomas said. “We haven’t had very good commissioners.”

“When we had our best organizational structure, it was done by a committee,” said Chan Stowell, director of student activities. “It’s more than one person can handle; it may take two people, so we’re looking for a good committee to run the league.”

Many people feel that there is a lot that has to be done in order to better the league and make it more enjoyable to play.

“There were a lot of deficiencies in the way the league is run,” said Emmons. “I’m a person who always says it starts at the top, and to me, the top is Chan Stowell. Chan is responsible for these things, and if these things don’t work, he must take responsibility for them.”

The Norwich Guidon is a twice-monthly student newspaper distributed at Norwich University. It provides laboratory experience for students in the Communications program. Claims asserted by letter writers, editorials and other articles do not represent the positions of Norwich University. The Norwich Guidon welcomes signed letters to the editor. They should be no longer than 300 words. Unsigned letters will not be printed, but names may be withheld upon worthy request. All letters are subject to editing for length and good taste. Mailing address: The Norwich Guidon, Communications Center, Norwich University, 158 Harmon Dr, Northfield, VT 05663. www.norwich.edu/guidon.