#had to turn down free stadium series tickets bc i was gonna be out of state

[coolhockeygirl]

HIT HIM AGAIN

[welcome-to-the-end-of-eras]

My dad used to play club hockey when he was in college and has a lot of stories about different fights he got in, but he just told me about one and I can’t stop picturing the foxes so here we go:

-It’s a few years after the events of the book, and everyone except Neil has graduated

-The foxes make it to the championships, and to absolutely no one’s surprise they’re facing the ravens again, but thankfully the foxes will be at a home-court advantage

-Obviously both teams had changed a lot from the time R*ko was there, but I like to imagine that the ravens are still gargantuan pricks, just y’know less murder-y

-But none of the og champion foxes can’t bare to leave, so they’ve all gotten jobs helping around the stadium (student loans are also a real bitch and the school pays them pretty well)

-Matt, Dan, Andrew, and Renee work security for obvious reasons

-Allison and Nicky work the front desk (for the sake of this story he and Erik moved to the states) bc they like to shut down people looking to get in for free/being pricks about where their tickets are

-Aaron’s out selling the tickets bc he knows that if he sees someone being especially rough in the crowd Andrew’s gonna fight the guy and he just knows he’ll get roped into it

-But Kevin decided he’d come back and ref for the game, along with some former ravens to make sure it’s fair to both teams

-So the game’s going, it’s neck and neck, and Neil scores an point for the foxes that puts them just in the lead

-The ravens are having n o n e of that shit, so the next play Neil’s mark starts getting especially rough

-Like REALLY rough

-Kevin’s got his hand on the trigger with a red card, but the other refs are being bastards and saying “he hasn’t made an illegal play” and “it’s just a rough game, you’re being biased”

-But suddenly the guy marking Neil breaks off and starts going after some of the freshmen players, and Neil’s Captain/Mom Instincts start kicking in and he’s ready to fuckin demolish the guy

-The poor freshman his mark is targeting is trying to hold Neil back and tell him it’s not worth it, but as the kid turns his head Neil’s mark comes in swinging and does a baseball swing with his racket at the freshman’s head

-Ding ding, round one, Neil goes absolutely fucking batshit on the guy

-Kevin sprints over to break it up and he’s trying to pry Neil off the guy, but then he starts hearing all the shit his mark is spewing about how Neil’s “a psycho” and “deserves to rot like his dad”

-Ding ding, round two

-Suddenly THE Kevin Day, the same Kevin Day whose father is planning on making him run the Boston Marathon three times over if he so much as thinks about making a shit call on the ravens, is swinging on this guy with everything he has

-The people in the stands are going absolutely fucking nuts, the reporters are having a field day, and both teams have left the bench to help their respective teammates

-The security squad made an attempt to stay on task and make sure the crowd doesn’t riot, but as soon as one of the ravens knocked the cage off of Neil’s helmet Matt and Andrew took off running for the court

-Dan and Renee followed, intending to stop the two of them from getting involved, but they hear someone call Neil a fairy and suddenly Renee has her knives out and Dan’s knuckles are bruised and bloody

-Aaron went inside to hang out with Allison and Nicky after the game got started, and they all overhear some of the other stadium staff calling over the walkie-talkies for someone to call the campus police, so they turn on the monitor to see what the hell’s going on

-Aaron just mutters “ah, Christ” under his breath and makes a beeline for the court, Allison on his heels

-Nicky stayed behind to call the campus police, but as soon as he dialed the extension someone from the ravens put Andrew in a chokehold and started saying things in his ear with a smirk

-The small, almost imperceptible crack in his cousin’s apathetic facade had Nicky sprinting to catch up with Allison and Aaron

-On the court, Neil’s still swinging on the guy who hit the freshman when he notices Andrew in the chokehold

-If Neil wasn’t seeing red before, now he was drowning in it now

-Neil tears off towards them, rips the guy off Andrew, and takes the guy down

-Mind, the guy’s nearly twice his height and three times his width, but Neil is five feet and three inches of Rage and doesn’t stop wailing on him even after the guy passes out

-Andrew eventually gets Neil to stop, but at least 5 more guys are coming for them, so he grabs the guy’s racket and starts swinging it around

-Andrew: you want me, you gotta get through 6 feet of Christian

-Random Raven #1: only hockey sticks are called Christians, exy sticks-

-Renee, six feet of Christian: *body slams the guy*

-(I’m a simple lesbian and I love Tall Women so I choose to believe Renee is at least 6 ft tall, do not attempt to tell me otherwise)

-Eventually campus police get there and break up the fight, but over the years they had gotten pretty familiar with the foxes bc of their shenanigans, so they just go up to Neil and ask him “what’d these fuckers do to you to make you hit them so hard?”

-The ravens are fucking livid bc it’s OBVIOUSLY not THEIR fault (note the sarcasm), but no one’s rage can compare to Wymack’s

-Whew boy is man’s pissed

-He sits them all down (og foxes included) in the locker room and absolutely tears into them

-Wymack: WHAT THE FLYING FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO TELL THE DEAN HUH??? THAT MY GUYS GOT IN A FIGHT AND THE FUCKING R E F JOINED IN??? THAT SECURITY STARTED BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF THE OTHER TEAM??? THAT THE KIDS AT THE FUCKING DESK STARTED THROWING HANDS???

-Nicky: but coach you don’t understand, they’re fuckin pricks-

-Abby has to physically restrain him after that

-So the og foxes decide to have a little sleepover after things get sorted at the station and of course they get roaring drunk

-It’s a mess

-Kevin’s crying because he messed up the fox’s chance at a 4th consecutive championship title

-Matt can’t stop laughing and yelling “THAT’S MY WIFE” at the press footage of Dan bodying a girl on the ravens who tried to attack Allison while her back was turned

-Aaron just passes tf out. He’s Tired Of This Shit.

-Andrew and Neil aren’t quite as drunk as the others, but they’re a little tipsy when Neil asks why Andrew got involved if they got rid of their promise of protection

-Andrew just glares at him

-“117%”

-When they wake up the next morning, it’s to a series of missed calls from Wymack

-Neil answers after about 6 missed calls

-Neil: coach it’s 8 in the morning-

-Wymack: GET YOUR ASSES DOWNSTAIRS NOW

-So all of the v e r y hungover foxes drag their asses downstairs and who do they see but the dean of palmetto state holding up this morning’s headline that reads “NCAA Exy Championship Game Ends in All-Out War”

-Wymack is revving up to tear into them again despite being hungover himself, but the dean stops him and reads them all the statements from their favourite southern Californian exy team, who had been in the front row of the stands and witnessed everything firsthand

-“‘...the ravens were absolutely to blame,’ says former USC exy captain Jeremy Knox, who witnessed the altercation firsthand. ‘That backliner was way out of line, taking a shot like that at a kid half his size, and the rest of the Ravens were egging the guy on.’”

-Matt: I mean no shit-

-Dan: just keep reading, honey

-“‘...this is exactly the type of thing to be expected from one of Riko Moriyama’s protégée,’ Jean Moreau, both a former Raven and a former Trojan, tells the press. ‘Not only did he deviate from the game over a petty rivalry, but his teammates targeted specific players and staff with severe PTSD. The Raven’s should be held solely responsible for the altercation.’”

-Nicky: we already know that coach, what’d you drag us out of bed for???

-But before anyone could finish the article, someone in an official looking suit came in, wheeling the championship trophy into the middle of the confused group of kids

-They explained that both Jean and Jeremy’s first-hand accounts, as well as videos of the incident, convinced the board that there could absolutely not be a rematch between the two teams, but that the foxes would still be crowned the victors by default

-If Ichirou’s influence over the board had anything to do with their decision...well, a win’s a win for the foxes

-And that’s how the foxes, both old and new, ended up roaring drunk at the local Denny’s at 10 am on a Sunday

[junker-town]

College football at Fenway Park is a crass, silly money grab

(and it’s beautiful)

It's the second quarter of the Brown vs. Dartmouth football game at Fenway Park and the Celtics are losing. I’m in the reception area that leads to the press box with some of the ballpark’s quality specialists, and we’re watching basketball on TV. It’s a better game than the one taking place outside, and besides, it's warmer in here.

Outside these walls, the baseball diamond has been turned into a football field for the Gridiron Series, where college football teams from New England will play this weekend and next. Fenway has flirted with football since World War II, when an enterprising guy named Ted Collins tried to start a team called the Boston Yanks and make Fenway their home field (it didn’t work). A few years ago the park hosted a Boston College game against Notre Dame.

When I first saw field goals on the third-base line of America's oldest ballpark this afternoon, it was like walking into my favorite pizza place and discovering it had started serving bagels instead. There was some serious cognitive dissonance, but, at the same time, Fenway is Fenway. Standing on the field sent the same electricity down my spine that I felt as a 7-year-old when I went to my first Red Sox game.

Tickets were selling during the week, but very few people showed up on this 26-degree Friday night thanks to the windchill that feels like negative bajillion. There are probably only 7,000 people in the 37,000-capacity stadium. Next week, when Boston College plays UConn, the turnout will probably be higher, but who knows by how much.

Pat, one of the guys who works at Fenway on the weekends and teaches high school physics during the week, sits down on a chair next to me. He’s wearing a Patriots winter hat and his official Red Sox jacket. An older man named Sean sits behind the receptionist’s desk. The two work together now, but Sean was once Pat’s high school teacher in Medford. He scolds his former student for not wearing a Sox hat at Fenway. Pat laughs and tells Sean to buy him one if he wants him to wear it so badly.

Then Pat asks me why I’m here. I tell him I’m writing about college football at Fenway, and he rolls his eyes.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he says, gesturing out toward the field where Dartmouth is destroying Brown.

“UMass-UMaine will be better than this,” he continues, his Boston accent softening better to bettah. “But college football around here, who are we gonna root for? BC? And then BC gets trampled? Nah. Fenway just didn’t wanna have hockey here this year.”

“Why do they have to have anything here besides baseball?” I ask.

“Money,” Pat says, shrugging.

A few hours before l meet Pat and Sean and a few minutes after kickoff, I’m standing on the sidelines behind legendary ESPN sportscaster Chris Berman. He’s wearing his famous khaki slacks and leather loafers, watching each play with intense focus. Berman went to Brown, and the school made him an honorary captain for this, the final “home” game of the season. As far as I can tell, the crowd is made up mostly of alumni who live in Boston and families of players. It doesn’t seem like many current students showed up for the game.

To say Brown’s season has been tough is an understatement. They've lost to every other Ivy they’ve played. Berman wanted to speak to the team to pump them up before they took the field tonight, but he somehow got stuck talking to the boosters instead.

“This is playing at Fenway. This they remember. Even if they aren't from here.” — Chris Berman

“And what good does that do?” he asks an old classmate who’s come down from his seat to say hello. The two chat for a bit, and Berman tells him he made a bet with a different friend, someone who went to Dartmouth. If Dartmouth wins, Berman owes the guy a seafood dinner. If Brown wins, the friend has to send Berman a case of maple syrup. A proper mayor’s bet.

I ask him why playing at Fenway matters.

“It’s something [players] didn't think they'd get,” Berman says. “Playing Ivy League football is good enough, but this is playing at Fenway. This they remember. Even if they aren't from here. They haven’t won an Ivy game yet. But if they win this one ...”

He trails off as he watches one of Brown’s players get tackled. He shakes his head.

“This is one will be in their pocket for 60 years,” he continues, looking back at me. “If they get it at 20, they keep it at 80.”

Brown won't win — Dartmouth will beat them 33-10. There will be hardly anyone left in the stands by 10:30 to watch them lose.

It’s the next afternoon, about an hour before kickoff, and I’m talking to Maine offensive coordinator Liam Coen on the field. He’s very polite and soft-spoken, but he walks away in the middle of a sentence when he spots his old UMass roommate walking toward him. To be fair, so would a lot of other people; Coen’s college buddy is Victor Cruz, the wide receiver who played for the Giants for seven years and is now a free agent.

“Vic!” Coen says, and the two give each other one of those long, genuine, wow-it’s-so-good-to-see-you-I’ve-missed-you-so-much hugs. They’re obviously still close.

“You’re just like, what is this?” Cruz says to me after he and Coen catch up for a bit. Cruz laughs as he looks around the football-ified Fenway. “It’s almost like when you go to London and play on rugby fields. I played in London last year, and I was blown away by how they transformed these places. Initially it’s weird, but once you start playing, I mean, football is football. Draw those lines on the field, get those ticks on the sidelines.”

Photo by Omar Rawlings/Getty Images

Josh Mack

Josh Mack comes up to say hi to Cruz. Mack is a freshman running back for Maine from Rochester, N.Y., who’s quietly posting impressive numbers; he’s rushed for over 100 yards in six straight games. Mack asks to take a picture with Cruz for his Snapchat, and Cruz gladly agrees. I take it for them. Mack grins when I show him the photo. Then he tells me how excited he is to be here.

“This is my first time being in a major league stadium,” Mack says. He seems a little shy.

"I’ve never been to a basketball game, a football game, a baseball game, or hockey," he continues. "It’s very exciting, even though it’s a football field right now, just being here. Seeing it. My family’s going to be here, too. It’s amazing. If you asked me this last year, I wouldn’t have thought that would be me.”

Coen’s strategy for the game is basically just to give the ball the Mack. The offensive coordinator has been turning the team around, and knows what he’s doing; he has roots in college football that go about as deep as they can in this part of America. His father started the football program at Salve Regina college in Rhode Island, and Coen played quarterback for UMass from ’04 to ’08. He coached there for a few years, too, before joining the staff of the Black Bears last fall.

“I don’t want to say there’s a lack of respect for the game around here,” Coen says. “But maybe there’s a lack of importance at times. Our kids love the game as much as anybody else. Being at Fenway is unbelievable. I grew up going to games here.”

He pauses, looks around.

“Some kids understand what it is, some don’t,” he continues. “I mean, one of our kids just called the Green Monster the Big Green Wall.”

The game starts. UMass scores a touchdown immediately, and then UMaine scores on the next drive. The game is sloppy but fun. The seats have filled up a bit, and people in Minutemen and Black Bear gear roam the concourses, buying beers and hot dogs. The expansive UMass marching band, with its intricate choreography, makes the game feel celebratory, but it also kind of just highlights the emptiness. There are as many band members in the outfield stands as there are fans behind where home plate should be.

“New England has never been about college sports,” says Tom Tasker, a middle-aged guy in a Patriots hat sitting by the Sox dugout from Boylston, Mass. “If this were a Big Ten, SEC, even ACC game — it’d be sold out. I'd say there are 10,000 people here, tops. And we're freezing our asses off.”

We are freezing our asses off. I can’t feel mine, and half of my toes have gone numb. Tasker’s son is supposed to be sitting next to him, but Gillian’s, a bar down the street, is warmer and has cheaper booze, so he’s there instead. Tasker shrugs; this is normal. When UMass has played at Gillette in past seasons, hardly any students went. No one wanted to be stuck watching a bad team two hours away from campus.

“You got the Pats, the Celtics, the Sox, the Bruins. I mean, it's always been that way,” Tasker says. “UMass isn’t good; if they were good, people would rally. But I'll admit, I didn't give a rat’s ass about them ’til my son went there and his friend from high school was on the team. There are only so many hours a sports fan’s day, and only so many dollars in their wallet. If you ask me, this is about the Red Sox making money. I don't mean to be a cynic, but there are no students here.”

By the fourth quarter, Tasker is gone, and I’ve made my way up to the press box to try to seek out any bit of warmth. I’d be surprised if there are even 1,000 people remaining in the stands as the game ends. Those who did stay are mostly families of players.

These games are gimmicks, sure, but many college football games are. Take any random bowl game that doesn’t matter: It’s designed to pull in a profit for the school, venue, and the city. These Gridiron Series games ostensibly are too, though I’m not sure if the ballpark made any money on it. Fenway wouldn’t disclose figures, but in the media dining center earlier today an employee told me that while all the suites sold out for last night’s Ivy League game, hardly any did for UMass-UMaine. Regular ticket sales weren’t great across the board.

Playing not-great college football at a baseball stadium in a part of the country that cares more about professional teams makes no sense. But here we are, and for one game — even if it’s freezing cold and the crowd is small — the stage is bigger than these players are used to. The stage is Fenway, the wooden anchor in Boston’s sea of new glass and steel. We’re in the rickety, beating heart of a city, a state, a region. Whether you’re a player like Mack, who’s never been in a stadium before, or Chris Berman, who’s been in all of them, it’s exciting.

Sure, you can wine and dine alumni here. But these games this weekend have ended up mostly being gifts for college athletes who will never hear the roar of an entire state’s fan base fill a stadium, because that fan base doesn’t exist. Whether they’re from an exclusive institution or part of a public education system, these guys now all share the memory of celebrating a touchdown in Fenway’s outfield. For kids who grew up idolizing the players who smashed home runs over the Green Monster, this is the most home a game can get, and even kids who think it’s called the Big Green Wall can still recognize that today is special. And that it’s theirs forever.