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From the Ice to the Gridiron

Is football the new hockey?

by Published: Sep 9, 2011

It was great to be at a foot­ball game and not be wish­ing for hockey season.

Junior run­ning back Skyler Stoker’s go-ahead touch­down in the fourth quar­ter was as thrilling as any third period goal I’ve ever seen. Sorry, Zach Redmond. The hard hits of junior line­back­ers Tayo Moss and Alex Brajak rivaled those wit­nessed at Ewigleben Ice Arena. The only thing miss­ing was the glass to slam their oppo­nents into.

Friday night, a hockey school was a foot­ball school. Friday night, our very own Skyler Stoker out­ran and out­played a pre­sea­son All-American, Joe Glendening. Friday night, the Bulldogs over­came over­whelm­ing odds and defeated the nation­ally ranked Hillsdale Chargers.

Unfortunately, the major­ity of the stu­dent body missed it.

The “Community Day” crowd of 3,453 fans was made up of just that: the com­mu­nity. Big Rapids came out to show their sup­port, but as far as FSU stu­dents, there were few to be seen.

Well, there was that small group who started off the sec­ond half with chants of “we want more beer.” Your school spirit was as taste­ful as a case of PBR (so, not at all.)

Go ahead and use Labor Day Weekend as an excuse. I’ll let it slide this time. But the jokes on you if you skip the next home game.

Come out September 17 and watch these guys take on Ohio Dominican (Hey, if the Bulldogs beat Saginaw Valley next Saturday and Ohio Dominican the fol­low­ing week­end, that’s a hat trick!) Like all student-athletes, they’ve worked their asses off to rep­re­sent this school. To rep­re­sent you.

Hockey sea­son doesn’t start for another month. Honestly, what do you have to lose?

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  • SarahRichards1992

    You are prob­a­bly one of the dumb­est stu­dents at Ferris State. This is why girls should not write about sports.. Division I does not com­pare to Division II Alex. Don’t ever com­pare the two sports again here at Ferris State.

  • DawgBoy4

    Who is our foot­ball team play­ing? Ohio Dominican? Tiffin? Lake Erie? Ashland? Northwood?
    Our hockey team — Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Minnesota, Wisconsin…
    Hey — What a sports edi­tor, real knowl­edge­able about the dif­fer­ence in skill level and ath­leti­cism that goes on here at FSU.

    • Football #1

      Uh, and hockey plays teams like Norther Michigan, Michigan Tech, St. Lawrence, RPI, Lake Superior State, Vermont, and Colgate too. Way to be selec­tive on those exam­ples. Good one.

      If foot­ball is doing well, why not com­pare them. By the way, even though atten­dance seems “low” for foot­ball — most games still draw more than hockey.

      Fact is this is still foot­ball rules in this coun­try. I thought the col­umn made some good points.

      • DawgBoy4

        Talk to me when foot­ball actu­ally gets a game on tele­vi­sion, or national tele­vi­sion for that mat­ter. Or arti­cles in the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News. They’re doing good? They beat Ohio Dominican and a PRESEASON nation­ally ranked team. The team doesn’t even have a stu­dent sec­tion here…the Dawg Pound sells out every game for hockey and our stu­dent news­pa­per sports edi­tor is try­ing to com­pare the two? Realize your audience.

  • MikeT34

    The col­umn did make some good points how­ever some of the teams you named such as Vermont, and Northern Michigan have won national cham­pi­onships in the past can’t say that about the foot­ball teams oppo­nents other than say Grand Valley.  I like how good the foot­ball team is doing and it’s good for Big Rapids as a whole, how­ever Ferris will always be a hockey school.

    • Football #1

      I wouldn’t argue Ferris is a big foot­ball school or that the Bulldog foot­ball team deserves more atten­tion that hockey. But to dis­miss it alto­gether is silly. There is just no doubt that a good foot­ball team draws a uni­ver­sity together in a dif­fer­ent way. Look at last year’s hockey team, which was a good one for Ferris. I see atten­dance for some home games REPORTED at 1,490; 1,250; 2,097, 1,394; 1,389; 1,678; 453; 1,513; 1,484; 1,244; 1,539, 1,909 and there are more. Some of THOSE are vs. teams like Michigan, ND and MSU. 

      That’s a LOT of home games with­out real great atten­dance — where are the sell­outs. I would like to see bet­ter atten­dance at those games — and at foot​ball​.By the way, foot­ball last year with an aver­age team and not much pre­sea­son hype, drew: 3,201, 2,657, 3,533, 3,256 and 2,216. Those are much higher than almost all the home hockey games. And against lesser qual­ity oppo­nents — so it wasn’t the oppo­nent that attracted the crowd.

      How do you decide which is more impor­tant? The sport peo­ple go to watch?