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Arman Sanentz (CAS ‘17) is a Boston University alumnus and former BU Pep Band Manager and student section leader in the Dog Pound. He has been a BU Men’s Hockey Season Ticket Holder for seven years.
The banners hanging in the rafters of Agganis Arena tell a more than 100-year-old story filled with tournament titles, star-studded players and five national champion teams. There’s no doubt about the Boston University men’s hockey team’s reputation as a college hockey blue blood and powerhouse.
After two back-to-back trips to the Frozen Four, a Hobey Baker Award winner in Macklin Celebrini and a consistent ranking of second in the country for a large stretch of the season, men’s hockey continues to meet and exceed expectations.
However, the support the team receives from the student body and BU community does not meet the expectations one would expect from such a high-caliber program.
For the last 10 years, I have watched Agganis fill up on game days, with the exception of half of the student section seats. Long gone are the days of call-and-response chants between Sections 118 and 108.
Attendance from those who do attend, however, has increased in volume, passion and creativity in making game days more memorable — they have done a fantastic job given what they have to work with.
The BU faithful — alums, season ticket holders — continue to fill the loge seats for events at TD Garden, while the student sections up in the balcony continue to get more and more dwarfed by those from rival institutions.
At the Frozen Four semifinal in St. Paul earlier this month, BU’s allotted section of seats had a noticeable hole in spectators. This has often sparked conversation among my friends and members of the BU community.
Improving student attendance and sentiments of school spirit are not new challenges.
When I was a student from 2013 to 2017, I held several constructive sessions with representatives across BU to attempt to address these gaps, covering BU Athletics, Agganis Arena, ResLife, Dean of Students and Orientation. I met with great people in nearly all spaces who were passionate about getting this right.
What was clear to me, though, is that these departments were not communicating with one another.
Jersey giveaways and ticket discounts only do so much if they are not uniformly advertised across university mediums.
New students won’t feel compelled to attend games when none of their admissions ambassadors or resident assistants have ever been to a game and can talk about them.
Big-game watch parties only work if venues don’t close and kick students out before the game ends.
BU has moved away from making hockey games one of “the things to do.”
It feels like a vicious chicken-and-egg cycle. The university has lessened marketing and advertising of the hockey game day experience, resulting in less attendance from students. Because there is less student attendance, the university sees less reason to market it.
I ask representatives from the aforementioned departments to ask themselves as if they were students: Once you arrive on campus, if people you know aren’t attending hockey games and the university isn’t calling them part of your BU experience, why would you end up going? Why would you continue to go for four years and for years to come once you become an alumnus?
What happens 20 years from now when the expectation for season-ticket holders and alumni to fill seats are placed on former students who never went to games?
A similarly selective university like BU is Duke University, which has supported the Cameron Crazies — the university’s basketball student section — for over 40 years. Why? The Blue Devils have a historic reputation with trophies and banners to back it.
The student section has been an ongoing tradition that student participants love. The university has made it an integral part of the Duke experience through marketing, advertising and continued support. I believe a variant of this approach has the potential to succeed at BU, but all three boxes need to be checked for this to work properly.
Supporting and nurturing a hockey fanbase is one mechanism the university can use to improve general school spirit sentiments and give students another way to connect to their university community — to put the “proud” in “#ProudToBU.” But this cannot be done piecemeal.
I implore current students as well as representatives from notable BU departments to come together this offseason and declare a multi-year joint vision for improving school spirit at BU. This should start with the men’s hockey team, which has a storied tradition, talent and excitement that more students should experience.
This partnered effort should include Athletics, Agganis Arena, ResLife, Dean of Students, University Marketing, Admissions, Orientation, Development and Alumni Relations.
All parties need to understand the value that their contribution could bring — giving students an experience that will be memorable to their time at BU, an opportunity to showcase and attract fans to the university that will show up in the student section, and an opportunity for students-turned-alums to consider donating to their alma mater or coming back for a game or two to support the team.
As a former band kid turned hockey fanatic, I do not expect everyone to have the same experience I had at BU — hockey games gave me lifelong memories and friendships that took me, my friends and the pep band all over the country. I will always support the team, and all BU teams for that matter.
At a bare minimum, my hope is that the university creates more BU fans — if not for the student experience, then for the team itself. For a top-ranked team to struggle to fill its student allotments at Agganis Arena and TD Garden says a lot about the community that the team represents.
Let’s give our Terriers a reason to be proud to play in scarlet and white. Go BU.