• Introduction
• What a run! Football Season Recap
• Back to the Ice: Hockey Season in Full Swing
• Alumni Night: Recap
• Freakout!
• Life Updates
• RPI Updates
• From the Managers
• Final Notes

Back to the Ice - Hockey Season In Full Swing

With all the success of the football team, it's been easy to forget that the hockey teams are back in action. Ok, maybe not, as most of us would much rather watch hockey than football, but still. After a disappointing regular season last year, and a post-season spanking of Union followed by getting spanked by Cornell, RPI fans didn't know what to expect of this year's men's squad. Sure, they showed promise in a few games at the end of last year, but there were a large number of questions.

The first few games of the season didn't help to clear up. After going 0-2-1, the Engineers annihilated Army and put up three straight wins - including another 4-3 OT win against Clarkson. After loosing to SLU the next night, RPI put together a five game unbeaten streak, including two wins over nationally ranked St. Cloud State. While the team started their holiday vacation on a high note by knocking off Princeton 6-4, they then proceeded to drop the next three.

The RPI men are now 9-8-2 overall and 4-3-1 (9pts) in conference play. Though only 7th in the standings, they have several games in hand over the teams above them. Four of the 6 other teams above RPI in the standings have played three or more additional conference games.

From here on out, every game counts, as the team will play only one non-conference opponent. While every team makes the conference playoffs, there's still plenty to play for in terms of home ice advantage and a first round bye.

The Lady Engineers are off to another fantastic start, and are riding an eight game unbeaten streak going into the holiday vacation.RPI started off the season with a 4-4 tie against D1 Union College, and followed that with wins over D1 Sacred Heart and D3 Utica. Their only loss of the season came at the hands of D1 UVM. RPI came back from the loss to defeat MIT, tie D1 Clarkson, and then win their next 6 games.The women have a lot to play for in the second half, as their only non-conference game will be their last game of the regular season. With luck, the Engineers will follow that with yet another strong conference playoff, and maybe this year reach the NCAA D3 tournament.

Still sitting in the background for both teams is proposal 65 and 65-1. Proposal 65 is the portion of the Division Three Reform Package that would eliminate RPI's ability to offer scholarships for their D1 teams. 65-1 is the amendment offered by the affected schools, which would continue the exemption for those schools grandfathered in, and further define the exemption to be only those multi-division programs who offer scholarships in their D1 programs, while allowing additional teams to offer scholarships only in order to comply with Title IX. As it has long been rumored that the RPI Women's hockey team will be moving to D1 in the near future, this is especially important. January 12th is the day that the Division Three membership will meet to vote on the entire reform package. This meeting is part of the annual NCAA convention taking place that weekend in Nashville. As soon as there is news on the vote, we will be sure to let everyone know the results.

Alumni Night - Recap

Pep Band Alumni have started a new tradition with 2003's Pep Band Alumni Night! The event was well received by both the alums and the current band members, and plans are already in the works for next year's. Approximately twenty alums showed up for the event. Though the game was a tie, a good time was had by all. Here are a couple of photos from the game, courtesy of Jim Cronen.

These and other pictures from the event can be found here.

Freakout!

Only a month to go until the next Big Red Freakout! Have you bought your tickets yet? Better do that soon, as this game promises to be a sellout. This year's game is on Saturday, February 7th at 7:00pm. Not only is it Freakout!, but because it's against Clarkson it is also the annual satellite broadcast. If you're not going to be able to make it to the game, take a look at the list of cities and see if you can watch with other RPI alums.

There's a lot going on this year, and we're still working on all the events we'll be hosting. To start off, we'll be doing our second annual Pre-Freakout Breakfast at Latham 76 Diner at 9:00am that day. If you have not already done so, please RSVP by 1/31/04 at the latest. After that, we'll be heading down to West Hall 326 for Pep Band Rehearsal at 10:30am.

The afternoon is filled with a variety of events. At noon, the men's hockey team will be having their annual Hockey Alumni Game at the Fieldhouse. The Pep Band will be holding their annual Lasagna Dinner at 2:00pm in the Student Union Rm 3202. At 4:30pm, the Alumni House will be holding their Ice House event, which will run 'till game time. Registration forms can be found at the Alumni Offices web site, and at the files section of the Yahoo Group.

We're still working on some more events for that afternoon, including a campus tour, roller hockey game, and after-party. If you have any suggestions be sure to e-mail Chris and Terry ASAP with your ideas, and be sure to check the calendar for updated times and locations. For anyone who will be in town for the Friday night game against SLU, let us know as we might put together an informal outing for after the game.

Life Updates

This was a slow quarter in terms of major life events. Fortunately, there's some very recent good news.

Let's start with weddings. Only three this quarter. In November, Anthony Chuliver married Christina Berninger. As mentioned in the previous newsletter, ex-manager Jen Bernfeld was married to Gregory Miller. Most recently, Mike Ben (a.k.a. Freakboy) married Donica Galek on New Year's Day in Buffalo, NY.

New Year's was also an important time for Chris and Terry. Though some know about this already, Chris popped the question at approx 12:00am on 1/1/04, and the two of us are now officially engaged.

This last quarter saw the addition of a much smaller member to the pep band alumni family, as ex-manager Jason Shapiro and his wife Ann gave birth to a son, Brendan, in late October.

We're always looking for information about pep band alums who are celebrating weddings or other important events. Life Updates is the official section of our newsletter to congratulate and spread the word about weddings, engagements, births, new jobs, etc... We can only make this work if we hear from you. So please, if you know of any, or have a special announcement of your own, please let us know so we can include them in future newsletters.

RPI Updates

Last issue, we updated people on the wide variety of construction going on around campus. This past quarter, Troy got into the mix, installing new street lights and parking meters along 15th street. New lights were also installed on College Ave, which is actually driveable now that it has been paved. Also well on its way to completion is the new parking garage (or as some people like to call it, our brand new multi-game roller hockey rink). The garage is located on College Ave, next to the science center and behind the MRC.

Since pictures can say so much more, we figured we'd provide a few so people could get an idea as to the extent of the construction on campus. The first three are of the garage. The fourth shows one of the new street lights on campus, while the fifth shows more lights and the intersection of 15th and College.

From The Managers

Welcome to this edition of From the Managers. The band was quite busy since the last newsletter. Here is a recap of what we were up to:

• Played at all football games including home playoff games against Curry in the first round and the NCAA Quarterfinal between RPI and Ithaca in the snow bowl.
• Played at all home hockey games including the RPI Holiday Tournament where we were joined by some members of the Colgate Pep Band.
• Played at the RPI women's hockey team home games against Sacred Heart and Clarkson, both of which have D-1 programs
• Played at the NYSCTC Cross Country Championships hosted by RPI. On tap for next semester the band will be playing at all home men's hockey games as well as travel on the road to Union (Jan 10), Harvard (Feb. 13), Brown (Feb. 14) and Yale (Feb. 28). Any alumni also going to any of these games please feel free to drop by and say hello.

The band will also follow the team during the playoffs.

Freakout Announcement: As you all should know Freakout is Saturday February 7th against Clarkson. Everyone is welcome to come to rehearsal (in West Hall 326) that morning from 10:30-12:30 and the lasagna dinner/face painting at 2 pm in the student union rm 3202. A more definite schedule will be announced closer to Freakout.

That's all we have for this time. If anyone has any comments/suggestions for us or just wants to drop a hello please feel free to drop us an email at pepband@rpi.edu.

America's Pep Band Managers,
Yuri Koester and Ben Strauss

Final Notes

Wow, that's a lot of stuff. Some quick points and a recap:

• Congratulations to the football team on their amazing season.
• Proposal 65-1 vote 1/12/04. Results will be posted as soon as I have them.
• Men's hockey is back in action. Women's hockey resumes next weekend.
• RSVP for Freakout by 1/31/04. Get your tickets ASAP.
• Suggestions for things to do the day of freakout need to be sent to us ASAP.
• Share Your Photos! We're still looking for photos of our members. If you have a photo of yourself in pep band regalia, post it! All group pictures can be found in the Photos section.
• Welcome to this year's senior class: Tom Reale, Nick (Jeff Bob) DiLiberto, Jason Miller, Mark Goetz, and Desh Nandedkar.
• The Pep Band LiveJournal Community is growing. To join, e-mail Chris with your LiveJournal user name, and be sure to add it to your friends list. If you don't have a LiveJournal user name, but would like to read what's on there, go to http://www.livejournal.com/community/rpi_pep_band/. If you want a LiveJournal user name, membership is now free so go to www.livejournal.com and sign up. Be sure to look at the friends' page to see what other alums are up to.
• If you have not already done so, please add your information to the Member Information Database. Let us know who you are!
• Still looking for website suggestions. Please send any our way.

Next issue: Freakout recap, hockey playoffs, reunion weekend, and more!