Eagle hockey fans' behavior drawing concern

NEW ULM -- Inappropriate conduct by some New Ulm High School students at the New Ulm-Rochester Lourdes Section 1A hockey title game last Thursday has resulted in a meeting of the Activities Committee.

"We are concerned about the behavior of student fans as well as adult fans," said District 88 Superintendent Harold Remme. "The (Activities) Committee is meeting, but it was not a special meeting. We are concerned about the conduct of our fans at some of our (hockey) contests this year and especially in the playoff setting. And I have asked Mr. (Tom) Macho (head hockey coach at New Ulm High School) to sit in with me to talk to some of the hockey boosters about what we can do correcting that situation in the future."

"We are also working through our Activities Department in terms of some things that we can do in the school-setting for the student-fan part of it. It is obviously not the kind of reflection that we want New Ulm to leave as a community or the school to leave. It needs to be cleaned up and it will be addressed."

One of the incidents that lead to school administrators to receive several e-mails following last Thursday's game -- a 2-1 double-overtime loss to top-ranked Lourdes -- was profane-laced chants by students in the New Ulm section. Also, following the game, objects were thrown on the ice from the direction of the New Ulm student section.

"We got three e-mails from out-of-town people," Remme said. "The gist of the e-mails were a little different each. One of them had some concerns about student behavior during the (Lourdes) game -- what they were yelling; inappropriate yells. One of them was concerned about disrespect towards a (Lourdes) player who was hurt and how the New Ulm kids reacted to that. The other was about the reflection of the tournament game and what the New Ulm kids were doing there."

Another e-mail was received from an out-of-town fan following a game at Vogel Arena. "Something was said to him as he was leaving Vogel Arena -- there was some disrespectful things said to him."

"This is definitely being addressed by the committee,' Remme said. "We like the positive student support that we receive. We want to see what we can do differently to promote good sportsmanship among students and secondly what actions we can take at contests to send the appropriate message that people who act this way will not be allowed to come back. Not for that game and perhaps not anymore."

Mark Woodbury, Activities Director at New Ulm High School and who was also in attendance at the New Ulm-Lourdes game, said that he is aware of misconduct of some students at that game and other home hockey games.

"We are evaluating the situation," he said. "We are evaluating the student behavior at hockey games. We do not approve of inappropriate or offensive behavior in the form of cheers, chants,etc that are demeaning., Plus, there were some objects that we thrown on the ice after the game."

Woodbury went to to say that "we will talk about the situation. We will check into it and find out that if the people who were doing the things are New Ulm High School students, we will have to deal with it accordingly. We want the fan behavior that will not diminish New Ulm and I think that some of the behavior recently has. We don't want that kind of behavior."

Woodbury said that at New Ulm High School home hockey games at Vogel Arena "there are two school administrators in attendance. And at the boys hockey game, we do have one New Ulm police officer there as well. I don't think that we need more than that."

"The answer is educating fans, people that support these activities, as to what is appropriate and what is not. That is the key," he said.'"We do not want chants that are inappropriate - foul language or harassing language to it - we don't want that."

Woodbury said that "we expect people who are attending these activities to have manners and use appropriate language and respect other people."

"This is no reflection on the hockey team itself," Remme said.

"The sportsmanship on the ice was tremendous," added Woodbury. "To have this type of stuff happen off the ice really cheapens the game and that is to bad."

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