By Ryan Cloutier, News Staff

When fans fill an Arena, their cheers, chants, gasps and roars motivate our sports teams to go beyond their natural abilities to achieve greatness.

Northeastern has deeply loyal fans. Despite the fact we are not really a “sports school,” we can pack Matthews arena to the brim when the need arises and the DogHouse is undoubtedly one of the greatest student sections in college hockey.

However, the student who channeled and guided the energy of the section and the widely recognized “leader” of the DogHouse, Tim Fouche, has departed for the greener pastures of grown-up land. No longer is he entitled to lewd and degenerate screaming on Friday or Saturday nights during the hockey season.

Now, society will expect him to be, dare I say it, civilized (sadly, I doubt most venues allow regular chants of Bukkake).

As his legacy, he leaves a section that was capable of great loyalty. Students packed the house against BC and stuck by the hockey team during their early season slumps, and despite lagging ticket sales, they were the loudest fans at the garden during the Beanpot.

Their greatest show of fealty to the team was during head coach Greg Cronin’s suspension when a sign appeared reading “Free Cronin” and found itself next to the DogHouse banner.

Nevertheless, Fouche leaves behind a student section seemingly fractured into multiple components, and without adequate leadership, I fear that the fragmentation will only continue.

There are now no less than three student sections – “The DogHouse,” “The Reverse DogHouse” and my personal favorite, “The DongHouse,” all with their own banners and dedicated seating areas.

While Fouche did have lieutenants, I fear the departing pharmacy major was the last true “leader” of the DogHouse. None of his remaining apprentices seem to have the dedication or the charisma to lead what the section is becoming, and I am increasingly interested to see who will bring the banner next fall.

The two most likely candidates to take over are senior criminal justice major Darren Costa and senior political science and economics dual major Sean Maloney, a prospect I am becoming more apprehensive about as it becomes more likely. Neither one is a wholly attractive prospect as a leader, with Maloney mounting a campaign for Student Government Association president where he was thoroughly shellacked and Costa being the founder and captain of the N-Zone, I’d rather they keep their attention on those endeavors.

Costa is also representative of a growing trend that irks me. That is the increasing role of the student section as a division of the Athletics Department, as he is a student assistant in the sports information division of the Athletics Department. It is nice because people get all kinds of perks and free t-shirts and stuff, but that just breeds fair-weather fans and I’d rather Assistant Director for Marketing and Sponsorships Chris Marshall stick to his office rather than the DogHouse for his super-cool sports marketing schemes.

Then there is always the prospect of someone from one of the other two imaginary student sections coming in to lead the DogHouse. That is also an unattractive idea, as I do not fancy the idea of following people who did not want to wait their turn for front row seats. The positive aspect of this is, these kids have their own chants and ideas for the growth of the section and it contributes to the whole idea of student section unity.

Then there are the two kids who put the Northeastern jersey on the Bobby Orr statue outside of the TD Garden, third-year applied physics major Tom Cardinal and junior journalism major Sean Hathaway. At least they are true fans. However, they are perhaps overzealous (full disclosure: they are both friends of mine) and that might be off-putting to some of the more casual hockey going fans.

Regardless of who does take over, I am sure fans will follow and support them; if they will be good at the job is an entirely different story and one that only the coming of fall will answer.

One thing is certain, the section has grown from ten guys screaming in the front row, to the best student section in Hockey East, and that is something we can all be proud of.