Last night was Boston College's Second Annual Ice Jam at Conte Forum. As we all remember last year's event was highlighted by Vanilla Ice, and showcased some great moments including a student winning a month's lease of the BC BMW car, Bob Costas, and Reggie Jackson dunking over Josh Southern's head. This year BC advertised Ice Jam with more of a Halloween flavor, and for the most part it actually worked.
At the turnstiles of Conte, you were met by volunteers handing out glow sticks and Ice Jam placards, while the dozen or so Donahue Disciples were busy trying to recruit more students to their very worthwhile cause. Attendance was solid last night, most of the sides were filled with students and families, and there were even people in corners and upper decks of Conte.BC claimed that they were giving out Ice Jam T-shirts for the first 1,500 people in the door, but I saw only a handful of people with them, which kind of stunk.
Ice Jam basically was broken down into a basic format. Steve Levy would recap last year's season, they'd do a skit modeled after the ESPN "This is Sportscenter" commercial, and Jon Meterparel would introduce the team. After all the players were on the ice or court, Boston College linebacker Will Thompson would talk to the players, and pump up the crowd. He actually was really good, pretty funny, and kept the crowd engaged. In the future BC should save the money they spend on Costas and Levy and just use a player, Thompson could have easily have done the job, and BC could have bought some solid entertainment to entice more students.
Each team did a little live skit thing that were all good for a few larfs. The men's basketball team started off by introducing this long haired guy from Boston as a player, then we come to realize that he is a dancer from America's Got Talent. I don't know his name because I don't watch bad television, but he was quite the dancer. Well, not quite as good as me, but honestly who is? The women's basketball team did a dance off with Uprising a BC dance group who obviously were better dancers. The women get some major points though for getting so into Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair". The women's ice hockey team did basically the same thing, but on skates. The men's hockey team was introduced, but a team full of kids skated on the ice in BC jerseys. After a little back and forth, there was some sort of scrimmage between the men's team and kids. Cute, but went on a little too long.
The skills competition portion came up next. The 3 point competition between Kristen Dohery and Kerri Shields of the women team and Matt Humphrey and Danny Rubin of the men team, and a fan. The women did well, but came up short to Danny Rubin who won the competition with 16 points. The hockey challenge was an accuracy target shoot between Barry Almeida and Pat Carey of the men's team and Alexandra Carpenter and another women's player who's name I can't recall. Almeida scorched them all nailing 4 targets in a little over 10 seconds.
The fan portion was kind of weak. There was only a handful of fans that dressed up, and the costume competition was kind of haphazard with a girl dressed as Megan from Bridesmaid voted by the audience as the winner. The toughest part was watching the kid who got the opportunity to win a year's scholarship if he hit a halfcourt shot (hockey), and missed literally by less than a foot.
Great times all around. It was great to actually see the basketball team, since other than their name I really didn't know any of them. This was an excellent way to start off the season, and get the fans vested in the teams.
For another view, check out Spideyguy0's take.