Noise is noise.

Thankfully, some in Ithaca have realized that.

The Cornell Daily Sun ran a story Tuesday about Nick Linder, a student who, along with two fraternity brothers, was ejected from Lynah for using profanity in the “SEE YA!” chant.

According to the story, Linder protested initially, but after meeting with associate athletic director Frank Araneo, he saw the administration’s perspective and later told the Daily Sun, “We have dignitaries coming to these games, Janet Reno comes to these games, Congressmen coming to these games, that sort of thing.”

Here’s hoping his schoolmates listen. Profanity has no place at Lynah, Yost or Harvard’s Bright Hockey Center, for that matter. And to be fair, most fans cheer in good taste.

The best chants rely on cleverness, not cursing. Cornell’s “Grade in-fla-tion!” jab at us Harvard folk is a classic, as was the “Hey Baby” remake in honor of their beloved Stephen Bâby. Even the stinky-fish-fling is a worthy tradition.

The Yost fans are great, too. My personal favorite has always been after an opposing goal, when students direct an “Ug-ly par-ents!” barb toward the applauding parent/girlfriend section. And then there’s the band director, who starts disco dancing in the middle of the game. Hilarious.

Note that none of these involved profanity. If they did, they might not be as funny.

In the end, though, this is less about wit than respect. If you’re a Michigan hockey fan and your coach, who has won more than 500 games and taken your team to 13 straight NCAA tournaments, asks you to do something as a favor to him, you do it. Period.

The same goes for Cornell. That university has promoted and supported its hockey program in a manner that the rest of the Ivy League does not, and it is hardly asking students to stand mute during the games. They just want them to change one word. That’s it.

So, even though Harvard fans are shamefully silent when compared with the faithful at Lynah or Yost—and that’s a subject for another day—perhaps foul-mouthed supporters at Cornell and Michigan can learn a lesson from Section 11 at Bright Hockey Center.

Around here, that same “SEE YA!” is followed by...nothing. That’s it. Just “SEE YA!”

And that’s where fans who care about their programs’ reputations should leave it.

Raves about Reese

Though Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni has always been reluctant to move freshmen onto special teams units early in the season, defenseman Dylan Reese was on the power play last weekend at Vermont and Dartmouth—just his second and third collegiate games.