After having its buses taken away last semester, the club hockey team is petitioning to bring them back.
Marquette’s Department of Recreational Sports ended the contract with Lamer’s Bus Services Inc., the company originally providing transportation, and prohibited the team from signing with another company after students were found consuming illicit drugs in the back of one of the buses Oct. 25. However, buses continued until the next week with Lamer’s providing services to the home games the following weekend.
Hundreds of fans used to attend the team’s home games at The Ponds of Brookfield Ice Arena, about 13 miles away by car, but freshman goalie Alejandro Anderson said since the bus ban, the stands now lack a student presence.
“Everyone loves coming and the team loves that the fans are there,” Anderson said. “It’s just a great environment and now it’s like 20 people and mostly parents.”
Last Wednesday and Friday, the team set up a table in the Alumni Memorial Union to encourage students to sign a petition to reinstate transportation services. So far, the team has more than 350 signatures. It hopes to get at least 500 and present it to the Department of Recreational Sports in hopes of reversing the ban.
“There has not been any word from Rec Sports or MUSG regarding the future of the buses,” Ryan Zanon, club hockey president and captain, said in an email. “My plan is to hand in the original copy (of the petition) to MUSG so that they can send it to Rec Sports, seeing as that they speak on behalf of the student body here at MU. I feel strongly that the support and backing of MUSG will really open up the eyes of Rec Sports.”
The team originally charged $5 for admission to games, but after being told by Marquette University that charging for attendance was not allowed because it would make the team a profitable organization. The team was allowed to charge for the buses because they organized it themselves.
Zach Bowman, MUSG executive vice president, said he believes the decision by the Department Recreational Sports was an administrative decision made without student input.
“(Club sports) presidents usually meet once a month, but this decision was probably came down from whoever is in charge of recreational sports in general,” Bowman said.
MUSG cannot necessarily pick a side in the matter, according to Bowman, but it can help assure that future decisions affecting the team are fair.
“The team has a lot of work to do on their end and we’ll be there for them if they need us,” he said.
With only four home games remaining on the schedule, it will be difficult to have buses back this season; however, the team still plans on pushing for the return of buses after the season ends in hopes of having them reinstated next year.
“It is a bit time pressing fancying the idea of buses again for this year, however it is my goal as president of the team to get the buses back for my teammates and Marquette students,” Zanon said in an email.
