My 30th Season Supporting the SUNY Oswego Men’s Hockey Team
The 1992 Winter Olympics was the beginning of my love for hockey. The only sport that can hold my undivided attention for a whole game! (Baseball is now a close second thanks to Kevin.) I couldn’t get enough of hockey, started watching the Pittsburgh Penguins because my favorite Olympic players were Pens (and then I was converted to a Rangers fan again thanks to Kevin.) In 1992 I also started watching my high school team, the Fulton Red Raiders, for the last two years of my time there (the War Memorial rink used to be the coldest rink I have ever sat in!) I would proudly like to add that Fulton was one of the best teams with some of the top scorers in our division!
Allyson Mooney
Then came college, and the Oswego State Lakers men’s hockey team - this is my 30th year rooting for the gold and green! My first favorite player was the team captain at the time, Matthew Juneau, who wore number 22. There would be many favorite players over the years, but the love of the game led me to the love of my life…the “play by play guy” and Oswegonian reporter for the men’s hockey team, Kevin Mooney! We met my senior year, which was Kevin’s sophomore year; while he did play-by-play, I would sing the both the Canadian and American national anthems before the home games and also play in the pep band.
I also made numerous road trips over the years, including the years after graduation when they made the NCAA finals in Vermont and also in Lake Placid, but the one game that I am proud to have witnessed in person was when Oswego shut out Plattsburgh for the first time IN Plattsburgh. It was a road trip from hell, but well worth the bragging rights! (Let’s just say, greasy Friendly’s food, cops, car trouble, and getting home at 7am was not how I would have planned the night!) Speaking of car trouble, I needed to borrow my Dad's Jeep to make it up to a Potsdam/Plattsburgh weekend a couple years later; it had a manual transmission, so I had to quickly learn how to drive that in order to make it to the north country!
SUNY Oswego men’s ice hockey pep band
I even tried to start a women’s club hockey team. Have you ever seen “The Mighty Ducks"? Yeah, they would have skated circles around us, especially since our coach didn’t even have skates himself! One of the players fell and broke her wrist and I earned the name “Zam," short for Zamboni, because I got laughing so hard on the ice one day I almost peed my pants! One of the men’s team’s players, Chris Meehan, helped us practice, and this is when I learned I am actually left handed when it comes to hockey which then made a huge difference, as you can imagine, with my stick handling. We had fun, but it never got any further than that, so I was very excited when Oswego brought back the women’s hockey program!
One thing I miss about the ol’ Romney barn is chuck-a-puck, where fans would throw actual pucks onto the ice, and whoever came closest to the red dot at the center of the ice would win the jackpot. I was the queen of chuck-a-puck, winning it at least 11 times (I lost track). I could throw it from any place and hit the center. I think my secret was I threw it like a dart and the fact that they were REAL pucks, heavier than the foam pucks that were more recently used, PLUS we won the WHOLE amount, it wasn’t just half the jackpot like it is now. (With some of my winnings, I bought a microwave for our first apartment. We still use the “chuck-a-puck microwave” to this day.) The atmosphere in Romney will never be repeated, but I do like the warmth of the “new” barn!
The Golden Romney Fieldhouse
Kevin and I have been season ticket holders since the new arena’s inception in 2006. The last decade or so, my Dad has accompanied me to the games as Kevin’s work schedule prevented him from being able to head up to Oswego for the games. My Dad has also been a heavy hockey influence in my life, playing and coaching the game himself. He has made some road trips himself and we have had fun in Lake Placid a few times!
I have to admit, the older I get, the harder the trek from Cortland to Oswego is getting, especially in the winter, at night, in the snow, staying up past my bedtime, but when I am in attendance, there’s no place like home! Oswego State really feels like coming home - the smell of the ice, the blur of the green and gold rushing down the rink - it brings me back to a simpler time. It’s funny to think today’s players could be my kids out on the ice, but Kevin and I didn’t have kids, just cats, and of course one was named Romney!
Over the years, not only have we have collected programs (remember the booklets we used to get in Romney? I have every single one during my years there,) autographed sticks, pucks, and jerseys, we have collected many special memories and I envision Kevin and I sitting in our seats in section 63 until death do us part - or until we depart for warmer weather!