Hockey Traditions Will Continue as Cowbell, Gong Are Bequeathed to the next Generation

The air is quiet now at Bright Center. Gone are the sounds of blades skimming the ice, pucks careening off the boards, fans shouting "sieve." and, of course, the gong and the cowbell.

Along with eight graduating icemen, the hockey program must find replacements for Mark M. Colman '83 and Daniel A. Frashm '83, who have become permanent fixtures on the Harvard sidelines as ringers of the gong and cowbell.

Frahm does not have anyone specific in mind as his successor. "It's not as easy as it looks," he said yesterday of the bell, which is rung in a set pattern with a common dining, half knife. Although he would "definitely like to see someone play next year," he added that he would like only one successor, who appreciates the timing needed to produce an effective crowd response.

"You gotta play maybe twice a period, maybe three for four times if You get ball Despite," he said.

Colman, on the other hand, intends to hand-pick his replacement. He named as co-candidates Timothy H. Forster '84 and Andrew A. Bernstein '84 Both are qualified by prior experience, having assisted Colman with the large brass instrument. Neither was available for comment yesterday.

Although Colman introduced the going to Harvard. Fresh is not the first cowbell ringer Its originator is Adam Beren '83, who started playing his sophomore year "I saw someone from another school playing one, and I though it was a great idea," he said Beren played in "almost every game last year it was really big when the team won the Bean pot" in 1981.

When schoolwork usurped much of his bell-ringing time this year, the cowbell took a hiatus. But Frahm revived it midway through the season.

"It was a road trip, we were heading down to Yale, and we needed all the help we could get. So I ran and got the bell," he explained.

Although the Crimson lost the game. Frahm was booked on the bell He played it in every subsequent game this season, except one at Northeastern. He even look it to the Boston Garden for the Beanpot and out to North Dakota during the playoffs.

The gong, Frahm said, is "more of a factor at away games," because of its volume. But "the cowbell is bigger at home--everyone just loves it."

Colman agrees with this, saying one of the purposes of the gone was "to drown out the other fans." Colman first used the gong in last year's home game against Cornell, in response to the "rowdy fans [who were] drowning us out."

He was inspired, in part, by Frahm's cowbell. "It was great to see the fans get motivated by just a little noisemaker."

Asked whether he though the hand might have felt upstaged by the gong. Colman replied. "No, I tried not to play when they did I started to feel an affinity with them." "The gong, he added" almost became a luck thing I felt obliged to play at least at every home game.

"People would ask who's your date for the game "and I'd say the gong."

Beren commented that he tends to think the team will win whether or not the cowhell is present Colman agreed that the bell and gong "don't make the team shate any faster, but anything that gets up the fans, gets up the team."

Both Frahm and Colman hope to see their traditions continued "I wouldn't mind coming back in five years and seeing some new face playing in the same old tune," said Frahm Colman said of the gone. "It would be nice to return and hear that thing, but from the other side of the rink."