With a loud “Dink!” several hundred Boston University students clad in scarlet and white hockey jerseys jump all at once.
Even though the students have been transfixed for the better part of two hours by the BU men’s ice hockey team battling its hated rival, Boston College, on the ice of the TD Garden, the Terrier faithful turn their attention for at least a few seconds to the the man who’s now taken center stage.
Captain Cowbell has arrived.
The chant lasts just a few measures and is one of the simplest in the BU fan’s vertible arsenal of cheers. But more than anything, Captain Cowbell’s mere presence represents something larger than himself – the connection between the BU Band and the students it entertains at every Terrier sporting event.
School bands can sometimes go unappreciated at other schools where atheletics dominate campus life, but at BU the band has a special tie to Terrier fans, a tie not unlike the one the bandmates share amongst themselves.
“It was like instant family when I came to BU,” said Allison Leemann, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences and saxophone player, of how being in the band helped her acclimate to college life in Boston as a freshman.
Like Leemann, many members knew from the outset that they wanted to be a part of the BU Band. According to Zach deVries, director of atheltic bands, 45 to 50 freshman sign up every year to participate.
Those freshman come from diverse backgrounds. In the fact that he was a dedicated music major during his time as a student at BU before he became a graduate assitant of the band, and eventually director, deVreis is actually quite unique amongst the other members – according to him, very few hail from the College of Fine Arts.
More often than not, the BU band counts its members from the College of Engineering or other colleges known less for their creativity and more for their workloads.
That staggering amount of schoolwork doesn’t always make it easy on students in the band.
“I have 40 hours of homework due tomorrow, but [the Beanpot is over at] 11, so I’ll have the time to do it,” said ENG senior and trumpet player Michael Miller in the third floor hallway of the TD Garden, about an hour before the start of the BU-BC game.
Despite the work left undone, Miller said it was all worth it to go to the Beanpot and to play the music he likes for thousands of hockey fans.
“[Band] is my stress reliever in college,” he said.
A lot of Miller’s bandmates seem to share that sentiment, such as Dennis Yu, a School of Managment sophomore, who said that joining band early on provided stability and a way to learn how to budget his time.
Not that the lesson rubbed off on everyone in band – at least a few sat doing their homework in the crowded TD Garden hall before game time.
But the sacrifices in free time are well worth it, according to de Vries.
“Our members join because of the community, because of the energy of the band,” he said.
“And because of the sports,” he added.
Leemann also made sure to lay out the band’s central mission – to keep the crowd energized.
“It doesn’t matter if there’s 20, 200 or 20,000 people,” Leemann said, “the band is there to create an atmosphere.”
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