You’re Not Welcome

Teams and organizations sometimes play psychological mind games with opponents in order to put them ill at ease when visiting. The best example I can think of off the top of my head is painting the visiting locker room pink, which is… I don’t know, emasculating or something? I’m not really sure. It’s kind of a pathetic, chauvinistic example, but it’s all I’ve got.

There are lots of things tUMD can do to make their opponents’ experience less than pleasurable. I mean, besides beating the crap out of them on the ice, which they regularly do.

One tactic tUMD and other teams have already implemented is limiting opposing fans’s access to tickets. UND fans are especially salty about this, because they operate under the belief that they deserve first priority to seats in opposing arenas because they are better than the rest of us. Well, they cling to a racist nickname, are repeatedly mistaken for their in-state rival that doesn’t even have D1 hockey, and don’t have a national championship this millennium, so I don’t know about that. I do know that Dirty scored himself two tickets to both games without having to purchase a ticket package, drive to Duluth, or pay extreme prices on the secondary market. It’s called making a friend, and if a creep like him can do it, so can anyone. Anyway, it’s not about you, UND fans. (Well it is, partially. At least to me!) It’s about giving home fans the best opportunity to see popular games, to provide the best home atmosphere. There we go, psychological warfare.

There are other things, mostly related to UND because I spend a lot of time talking to UND fans (I mean actually talking to, not belittling, which I do a lot of too.) For example, I thought wearing those terrible white DULUTH uniforms for the first game at AMSoil was a bad idea; tUMD should have worn dark jerseys to prevent UND from wearing their stupid black jerseys. Are UND players and fans superstitious about the “power” of the black jerseys? Yes. But they do have a bit of a placebo effect. Of course, again, we came out the victors in that season.

Not playing “Rock and Roll Part 2” when UND comes to town is another good idea. They like to yell “Hey! Go [Nickname-we-cling-to-desperately-for-no-actual-reason]!” No need to let them get in one of their cheers.

Similarly, playing “Jump Around” when Wisconsin is in town is basically asking for the Red Menace and their commie fans to get fired up. Just don’t do it!

I do like turning opponents’ cheers around on them. I like singing “Ole!” when tUMD scores on Mankato. I also like spelling out “M-I-N-N-E-S-O-T-A-SPACE-D-U-L-U-T-H! Minnesota Duluth! Minnesota Duluth! Heeeeeeeeeey Bulldogs!” because it takes awhile before people catch on and then Goof fans look at me with bewilderment. If they’re not rocking back and forth sobbing quietly, that is.

Drowning out bands of opposing fans is also good. Don’t let the Tech nerds get their little chants going. Drown them out, whether it’s the student section (ok, yeah right) or an old people section (also, yeah right). Silence their pathetic attempts to support their little team!

Or confuse them with all kinds of rules! Like, oh, you can’t have signs. Wisconsin does that, although they let that awful old man have signs too. #PullPhilsPlug! Or maybe you can’t have noisemakers! At all! And I don’t care if you have the rule book!

Arenas can also send ushers/police to stand near fans who aren’t really doing anything except cheering. I know this because it happens to me all the time. A lesser person would be silenced, but it doesn’t work on me. Most people are lesser than me, so it should be a fairly successful tactic. A full cavity search for all St. Cloud fans might be a good idea. Think of how many crackpipes would be confiscated!

So, tUMD, I’ve given you a free consultation on guerilla warfare here, what are you going to do about it?