October 6th: Women's Field Hockey vs. Yale

What: Women's Field Hockey vs. Yale

When: Wednesday October 6th, 7:00 PM

Result: Win 7-1

Note: I was only present for the first 10 minutes or so of the first half and all of the second half except the first 5 minutes or so. The rest was spent watching the conclusion of Roy Halladay's no-hitter.

Summary: I got to Sherman about 15 minutes before game time and it was deserted. Then a few Yale fans came in. I thought it would get better. 10 minutes in I got a text update from ESPN saying Roy Halladay had thrown a no-hitter through 7 innings. I ran over to the Student Union to try to catch it. I did. Then I headed over back to Sherman for the second half (I got there about 3 minutes in) and it was still almost deserted except for about 20 girls who had come from Hilltop and were hanging with eachother and paying no attention to the game. That being said it was my first Field Hockey game of any kind, and it took me until there were about 15 minutes left to realize that penalty corners are like corner kicks in soccer, not like penalty kicks. But then I learned that they sometimes are given for penalties. So who knew? Anyway, we dominated Yale much to the chagrin of the 5 or so Yale fans in the bleachers. And say what you want about our Goalie Sarah Mansfield but she's so good they named the town after her.

Ratings:

Atmosphere:

Fan Friendliness: Since pretty much everyone there was either Yale fans or Hilltoppers who came down or were on their way up and stopped in, this is hard to classify. But there really are no complaints except a Yale fan yelling "come on ref" when a few bad calls went against them (or he said they were bad; I really wouldn't know.) Rating: 8/10

Fan Enthusiasm: I am going to make an executive decision here and say that visiting fans don't count. And neither do I. So the only people who would count were the Hilltop girls who just chatted with eachother and payed no attention to the game. They probably just wanted some benches to sit on and the bleachers worked for them. So therefore, if I could give this a negative score I would. Unfortunately by executive decision (me again) that is not allowed. Rating: 0/15

Event Atmosphere: There was a Goal of the Game contest, which nobody won. Probably because I think I was the only one who entered, and I picked someone who wasn't even starting. But I'll win eventually. And they had a trivia question. I missed the question (Halladay) but heard the answer. And that was it. Other than the music that played after each goal. Rating: 2/15

Overall Atmosphere total: 10/40

On-field:

Quality of play: From what I heard, both teams played well. But of course that was the Yale fans praising their players while trying to not piss off any UConn fans (what? did they think I would beat them up? Let's think - there's 1 UConn Fan, and there's 5 event staff and a cop. I couldn't try if I wanted to.) So those fans may be biased, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt (if only to boost the score.) Rating: 15/20

Excitement: It's field hockey. It's empty. All I need is an ipod with audio of William Henry Harrison's inaugural address and it'll be the best sleep I got in weeks. Just kidding. I slept well last night. Almost too well. I slept an hour after my alarm went off and got to class 1 minute late. Fortunately the instructor did too. But anyway.... Not too much excitement. Especially since we won by 6 goals. Which is a lot.... I think. Rating: 3/10

Quality of UConn play: Pretty good, I assume. We dominated them, and since we're believing Yale guy when he says they played well, we must have played really well. Rating: 7/10

Result: Win 10/10

Overall on-field: 35/50

Other:

Clarity of fan Communication: PA announcer was good. Even though his voice echoed eerily. Oh well. That's the acoustics people fault. Half a point off for having to ask how to pronounce some Yale player's names. Rating: 4.5/5

Magnitude of Event: In-state "rival" (so they claim, presumably to get fans. What do we get when it isn't a rivalry?) But a regular season game against a mediocre team. Rating: 5/15

Size of Crowd: Once again, if I could give this negative I would. I was the only UConn fan paying attention to the game (unless you count Event Staff when they weren't chatting with eachother.) And there were the 5-10 Yale fans. Bad. Rating: 0/10

Other: 9.5/35

Overall: 54.5/35

Blog Note: Men's Soccer vs. Seton Hall from Saturday should be up tonight or tomorrow. I'm off to the Union for dinner and a Young Americans for Liberty meeting. Catcha later!