DURHAM, N.H. (AP) – University of New Hampshire officials searched for answers Monday after all their efforts failed to keep the peace following New Hampshire’s defeat in the NCAA hockey championships.
About 4,000 people spilled onto the main street in Durham after UNH lost the championship game to Minnesota on Saturday night in Buffalo, N.Y.
Some threw bottles and set off firecrackers, the mass of people blocked traffic and some tried to tip over cars, leading police to put on riot gear. It was almost two hours before the crowd began to disperse after police began spraying pepper gas in the street.
Officials said 87 people were arrested by Durham police and some face charges as severe as assault. The students among them face possible suspension.
“The behavior was shameful. We’ll hold every student arrested accountable,” university spokeswoman Kim Billings said after university officials, campus police and student leaders met to discuss the disturbance. She said university officials would meet with town police Tuesday and view video tapes of the disturbance before deciding on school punishment.
One police officer suffered a sprained back and some students were treated for pepper spray, but there were no serious injuries, said Gregg Sanborn, executive assistant to the university president.
Anne Lawing, senior assistant vice president for student affairs, said the university had warned students before the hockey team went to Buffalo last Thursday. The university put two half-page ads in the student newspaper and talked to students about safety, making smart decisions and the consequences of bad behavior, she said.
“It’s frustrating,” she said. “We’re sad. We’re really searching for answers.”
She said her office has looked at places such as Ohio State and Michigan State to see how they handle such crowds.
“There’s a student culture; they think of it as a rite of passage,” she said.
One student in the crowd Saturday complained that the university should have set off an area for students to gather, but Sanborn and Lawing did not think it would work.
“Students tell us if we sponsored a place it becomes a planned event and they wouldn’t attend,” Sanborn said. “It’s the spontaneity of it.”
He said it also would be difficult to close off the main street in town.
Lawing said the university sponsored a spring weekend last spring in an attempt to diffuse any disturbance. There was entertainment and a circus-like atmosphere, but “no one showed up,” she said.
Jared, a junior who declined to give his last name, said if students were told they had to go to a specific place “they would rebel.”
He and Jennie Alex, a junior, said most students came to see if anything was going to happen.
“It’s more fun to watch things that are wrong than if they are OK,” Jared said. “A lot of students came to watch intoxicated kids act like fools.”
Alex said the warnings about extra police presence led students to come out to see if something was going to happen.
“Don’t tell them about police,” she advised.
William Lohn, a senior, agreed.
“Lay off the police presence,” he said. “It’s just going to make everyone more angry.
“All everyone wants to do is come outside and make noise for a couple of hours.”
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