To the editor:
While my family and I attended the Dec. 8 Houlton and Presque Isle hockey game I was utterly shocked at the rudeness of a portion of the student body that gathered to watch the game. In all of the four years that I have been going to these games this is the first time that I have had a problem with watching the game without having to stand up. My family and I sit in the same area game after game. My father-in-law asked the students to please sit down so we could watch. They then looked back at us and laughed, a few minutes later I walked over to where they were and politely asked them to sit so we could see the game at that end of the ice, and I heard the reply of “don’t bother listening to him, he is sitting with the old man.” While I know that these students love to come and support their teams, I would have thought that these young men and women would show more respect for others than they did.
I saw the athletic director walk by at the end of the first period and had a conversation with him about what I have said above in plain view of the students that were disrespectful. I told him that I realize they pay to come to the games as well that it would be respectful of them to either move to another area and or please sit down, i.e. the area behind the home team bench, to which he told me that they are like this all of the time, he then said maybe we should relocate to another area. For an administrator to think that this is the correct answer in my opinion is totally wrong.
At the start of the second period he did ask them to move down closer to the band, for which there was a lot of motioning toward the direction of where we were sitting and he stayed in that area the entire second period, to which I thank him for those actions. At the end of the second period a portion of those students walked from that area and either left or sat elsewhere but while walking from that area felt the need to stare at us as if we had done something wrong and cause them grief.
I see that there are two banners hanging in The Forum for sportsmanship. Sportsmanship to me is a fan showing not only the other team respect, but the others in attendance as well. While I have long since graduated from high school and it being the cross-town rival of Caribou, never do I remember in the years I attended Caribou High School nor after I graduated was there this kind of disrespect from either city’s student body toward each other or the other team’s fans.
While I realize that this isn’t the attitude of all the students the actions leave me wondering about who these students think they are by treating their elders and others with this kind of disrespect.
Caribou
