Prep zone: Barrington’s hockey fans are in own league

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Arrive fashionably late for 7:20 p.m. game.

Check.

But not so late that you can’t join in on the countdown to 4:20 for the first period.

Check.

Scream obscene chants at the opposing goalie every time your team scores.

Check.

Yell and bang on the glass when a player from your team hits an opponent and leaves him laying on the ice injured, even if it draws a penalty.

Check.

Every now and then, just to liven things up, chuck a smoke bomb into the stands.

Check.

There you have it: The checklist for being in the Barrington student cheering section for hockey games at the Barrington Ice Arena.

The Broncos’ hockey fans long have been some of the worst anywhere and they lived down to their reputation Wednesday night when Barrington defeated Crystal Lake South, 7-3, in their Metro Central game.

Well, kind of defeated. There is the matter of finishing the final 3:27 of the game, which was suspended after the smoke bomb was tossed into the stands. In any IHSA event, that would have resulted in a deserved forfeit for the offending team, but since hockey is a club sport, there were no such rules in place. Phone messages left with a Barrington Bronco Hockey Club board member Thursday were not returned..

Gators coach Rich Perillo said a forfeit was not discussed and didn’t seem to have a problem with that. On the ice, Barrington deserved a victory. But off it, Barrington deserved to forfeit.

“If this would happen anywhere, it would be here,” Perillo said, with a chuckle.

He’s absolutely correct.

McHenry County area fans used to regard the Jacobs boys basketball cheering section as the rowdiest group in the area. The Golden Eagles’ fans earned a reputation as a group that constantly walked along the line between fervency and good taste, occasionally stepping over it.

Barrington’s fans make the old Jacobs’ crew look like Boy Scouts. They leap right over that line and keep running.

The problem seems to be there are no authority figures to answer to. At IHSA events, schools have administrators attending to keep an eye on the fans. If someone steps out of line, there are consequences to face.

Since club sports don’t have that, Barrington’s student section doesn’t step out of line – it is never in line.

The chants range from extremely offensive (what they yell at opposing goalies) to childish (”Gators are gay!”) to clever (the countdowns to 4:20 each period as a shout-out to smoking marijuana). Clever, that is, to those who do the chants.

They roared approval when Gators forward Shane Gustafson took a hard hit, went down, and was barely able to skate to the bench in the second period.

A few minutes later, Gators defenseman Connor Hudak was sent into the boards headfirst. Hudak was still on the ice while several Barrington fans banged on the glass and cheered Bronco Griffin Mason was escorted to the penalty box for a hit from behind. Mason also received a 10-minute misconduct.

The sight after the hit was frightening and nothing to be lauded. Gustafson and Hudak both returned to the game.

The coup de grace came in the third period when the smoke bomb was lit and tossed, setting off fire alarms and bringing in about 20 emergency personnel from Barrington police to Lake County sheriff’s deputies to paramedics.

The smoke bomb itself wasn’t dangerous, although two South players who are asthmatics didn’t appreciate their ambulance ride to the hospital after choking and vomiting on the smoke. Worse, what if there had been a real emergency somewhere else where those people were needed?

South’s fans were there before the game started Wednesday, occupying about two-thirds of the stands. They were boisterous in their support of the Gators, but they were not even in Barrington’s fans’ league.

And that’s a good thing.

• Joe Stevenson is a senior sports writer for the Northwest Herald. He can be reached by email at joestevenson@shawmedia.com. You also can follow him on twitter@nwh_JoePrepZone.