<p>"Everyone loves the comforts of home. And while in years past we have referred to New Haven as degenerate and a putrid cesspool, times, they are a-changin. New Haven, indeed, is in the midst of a renaissance; this is something we can no longer deny. With your fancy restaurants, flashy nightclubs, and newly paved roads, we understand even why it might be difficult for you to want to leave your resurgent town. Yet, let the words of Nancy Reagan resound: I have been very happy with my homes, but homes really are no more than the people who live in them. Sweet Elis, there is no escaping the fact that New Haven will continue to suck as long as you are there. "</p>
<p>The Crimson is afraid, and rightly so, that Yalies will snub the game this year. The students are not coming due to the draconian policies of a harvard administration hell bent on sapping the very life and fun out of this weekend. This is the second column imploring Yalies to come this weekend, lest Yale's apathy dent Harvard's self-aggrandizement and egotism.</p>
<p>"Better to stay in New Haven mourning the recent Princeton debacle."</p>
<p>You're right. That way Harvard will actually win the title. Oh wait, no... that requires Princeton to lose to Dartmouth since you guys lost to both Penn AND Princeton.</p>
<p>"In two and a half weeks Harvard will once again beat Yale. We should, however, make sure it’s a fair fight. Trying to gain some sort of advantage by giving Yalies no space at the tailgate so that their fans don’t show up—which is what the tailgate organizers’ most recent gaffe must appear like from New Haven—is an exceedingly dumb idea.</p>
<p>In case you haven’t heard, tailgate organizers gave Yalies a pathetic 18 spots for student groups—down from 60 two years ago—to Harvard’s 34. Feeling charitable, they gave the Yalies another two spots. Both numbers are low—Harvard had 90 spots two years ago—and they are even lower when you consider that each Harvard House and Yale College is guaranteed a spot. That leaves a measly eight spots for Yale student groups and only 22 for Harvard student groups. The Yalies are rightlfully disgruntled."</p>
<h2>AND this is the comment to that blog:</h2>
<p>RE: Even Yalies Deserve To Tailgate
I can't believe that some upperclass houses are forbidding private parties on Friday night, in a mean-spirited attempt to boost attendance at their offical dining hall sweat-fests. </p>
<p>Did it ever occur to the people in charge that some people don't like dancing to the HoCo's choice of music in a huge dark room with several hundred people, and would prefer a smaller setting where they can spend time with their extended circle of friends from Harvard and Yale? </p>
<p>Yalies found a clever way to get around all these stupid rules: they made the Yale-Princeton game their big party weekend. It would be a shame if the Game became a non-event due to misguided administrative and HoCo meddling.</p>
<p>Yale can win the ivy title with a win at Harvard. Harvard has practically no shot. Princeton can win with a win against Dartmouth.</p>
<p>An excerpt:
[quote]
For Master Krauss [Master of Silliman College and Chairman of the Council of Masters], the real problem lies with spirit. “Students are going to have to start looking at why they go to The Game in the first place,” she said. “Is it going to be about the game or about the drinking?” To Krauss, Yale students who genuinely want to pay homage to the spirit of the game won’t mind the higher transportation cost. Lowered attendance at Harvard, according to her, only means that students don’t care about the football or the tradition, but about the booze. “We have to get back to finding the spirit of the game,” Krauss said. </p>
<p>Despite Krauss’s hopes, the spirit and the booze might be inseparable.
[/quote]
And unfortunately for both Harvard and Yale, it looks like Princeton is the new Ivy League champion.</p>
<p>Not so fast... if Princeton loses to Dartmouth (ha!) and Yale beats Harvard, Yale is undisputed champion. If Princeton loses to Dartmouth and Harvard beats Yale, it's a 3 way tie. If Princeton wins against Dartmouth and Yale beats Harvard, Princeton and Yale share.</p>
<p>If Princeton finishes in a tie with Yale (or with both Harvard and Yale), in my book Princeton takes the title, having beaten both Harvard and Yale head to head. The only way Princeton doesn't take the title is if they lose to Dartmouth (ha, indeed!) and Yale beats Harvard.</p>
<p>I initially planned to lambaste Harvard and its asinine tailgate restrictions in this pre-Game column. What an opportunity to stick it to those miserable Cantabs! I, too, wanted to jump on the bandwagon of anti-Game fervor. But this weekend, wandering around the biggest Yale-Princeton tailgate in years, I realized that something anti-Yale is in the air: People are serious about not going to Cambridge this weekend. </p>
<p>You could read about it in campus publications all last week, could feel the buzz in the dining halls. The Yale-Princeton game was dubbed the "new" Game. Campus organizations sold T-shirts saying, "Princeton sucks, Harvard doesn't matter" as a tacit demotion of the Yale-Harvard game's status. More importantly, the Council of Masters wiped their hands clean by announcing that they would not subsidize transportation to Cambridge, forcing Yalies to cough up $60 for a round-trip ASA-sponsored bus ticket. In this vein, at least three residential colleges announced they would not hold tailgates at Harvard. This newspaper even reported that the Yale College Council had to extend its student tailgate deadline for want of applications. </p>
<p>This malaise is contrary to the spirit of The Game and is as lame as the new tailgate rules. If your justification for not going to The Game is financial - indeed, the $75 you would have to pay for a round-trip bus ticket and Game entrance is 50 percent more than the Student Activities Fund contribution - then that is completely understandable. But if you are not planning on going to The Game to protest the event, think again. What follows is a top-10 list of why, restrictions or otherwise, The Game is superior...</p>
<p>We've all heard about Harvard's stringent tailgating and alcohol policies for the upcoming Yale-Harvard football game on Saturday. On Nov. 7, the Yale Daily News ran a piece reporting that no student groups had applied to host a tailgate by the application deadline. It would seem that some Yale students are opting out of The Game's festivities in protest against Harvard's new restrictions. </p>
<p>For some students, however, abstaining from these festivities may not be a choice. The News reported on Oct. 31 that the Council of Masters is no longer subsidizing buses to and from Boston, leaving students to pick up the $60 tab on their own. Students who make the trip to Payne Whitney Gymnasium to purchase tickets for The Game may be surprised to find that the cost of a student ticket is $15, three times as much as Yalies paid last year to go to The Game here in New Haven. Add to that the price of food in an expensive city and the cost of drinks (now that our tailgates can't provide them for free), and a Yalie should expect to spend a minimum of $100 on this tradition shared by generations of Yale students since 1875.</p>