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Nads-to-the-Wall
They're about more than a giant foam penis
. . . by Martin Mulkeen
[photo courtesy of Andrew Fladeboe and Aimee Butterfield]

Everyone loves a zamboni driver, but flashing him as he makes his last U-turn? Any sports fan can enjoy some good tunes, but the Labrinyth soundtrack? It’s great when a mascot can stimulate and arouse a fan base, but come on, a giant cock and balls?

The RISD Nads hockey team has it all. Potty mouthed cheerleaders; a wild, dedicated and often lewd core of fans; an announcer with a precious sense of humor; a giant penis for a mascot; and, most importantly, a spirit and intensity fueled directly from the balls.

Sporting a delightful phallic reference on their jerseys with the help of a hockey stick and the ingenious placement of two pucks, the entirely student-run and student-coached squad capped a perfect 0-16 season with a 4-3 loss to Clark University on Sunday night. While losing is no foreign concept to the Nads, giving up isn’t even in their vocabulary.

The Nads play rough. “We are serious hockey players,” explained team captain Brian Chesky R’04. “We play hard. We get in lots of fights. It’s fun for the whole family.” Number twenty-one, Paul Osimo R’03 affectionately referred to as ‘Furious’ by his teammates, embodies this ballsy intensity. Even the man who would surely be “banned from the league if there was a league,” according to his teammates, is surprised by his on-ice persona at times. “I can’t believe how angry I am,” said Osimo. He added, “Well, I sort of can.”

The Nads’ run-and-gun style of hockey is most aptly characterized by the artist-players themselves as “Post-impressionist. We are like abstract artists. Maybe post-modernist. We’re definitely transcending the sport.” The Nads’ name is certainly indicative of their breed of hockey – full of unbridled, unmediated testosterone. “We usually get tons of penalties,” said Nad Daniel Hertzberg R’03. “It’s not that we’re goons, we just play rough.”

Founded in 1963, the Nads have been around longer than any other RISD sport and participation continues to grow, though team performance may be at a standstill. Announcer Paolo Rivera R’03 explained that “they really haven’t gotten any better. They stay the same. In that sense, they’re a classic.”

The unique brand of Nads-to-the-wall hockey fosters an unusual sporting atmosphere. “It’s all about the experience,” said Chesky. The Nads experience transcends the realm of mere sporting contest and arrives at the world of extravagant ice entertainment more deserving of a title such as “Nads on Ice.” With a strong fan base and an unusual, yet strangely arousing supporting cast, a Nads game is nothing short of a circus.

Blowing the figurative wad
The Nads’ cheerleaders, (known as “The Jockstraps” because they literally support the Nads on myriad levels), add an important element to the action. Unfortunately, the Jockstraps have been largely absent from the games this season. The dysfunctional, on again, off again relationship between the Nads and their female counterparts seems reminiscent of a classic torrid trailer park love affair or perhaps the turbulent, self-destructive passions that plagued Cathy and Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights fame. Any woman who could love a Nad understands that he can’t be tied down, that he can’t deal with a constrictive relationship. He’s a wanderer, baby, try to understand that. He’s got to feel the wind in his hair; his soul belongs to the game.

The Nads’ mascot, Scrotie—a giant penis outfitted with his own pair of enormous nads and a red cape—runs onto the ice during warm-ups to get the crowd going. Recently featured on espn.com, Scrotie leads the charge in the obscene vociferous bombast department, rallying the crowd against the other team. Scrotie has even been known to engage in the occasional off-ice fisticuffs himself. Reportedly, Scrotie started a fight with the uniformed fans of Massachusetts Maritime because one of them was talking trash earlier this season, during a game that was described collectively by the Nads as “brutal” and perhaps comparable to “medieval warfare.” The giant cock, crafted from pantyhose and foam, gathered as many RISD fans as possible and confronted the disrespectful band of sailors. Sources say Scrotie took a hard kick to the testicles, and a total of twelve Brown police officers arrived on the scene to quell the disturbance.

Nads announcer Rivera adds another hilarious element to the Nads experience. Tasteful musical selections—including more than one track from the Labrinyth soundtrack—combine with quick, biting commentary to narrate the savage comedy that is a Nads hockey game. Three-and-a-half minutes into the first period, a seemingly omniscient voice reverberates throughout the arena: “Nothing has really happened yet, but it looks pretty vicious out there.” Every time a RISD player takes a spill one can expect the laconic delivery of a simple, matter of fact, “ouch.” A solid check into the wall of an opponent always elicits an emphatic “nice.” The announcer can also be counted on to provide in-depth analysis of what’s happening on the ice for those with little or no understanding of hockey with gems such as “it looks like the other team is using teamwork against us to score goals” and “for those of you taking math at Brown, we need three times our score to equal their score.”

Bringing students together
Just as the Nads offer a refreshing and unique interpretation of the game of hockey, their extraordinary fans support their beloved Nads with the creative vigor characteristic of RISD students, and an unusual variety of passionate displays. At Sunday night’s loss to Clark some of the more delightfully clever, though straightforward, signs in the RISD section included the encouraging “Head for Goals” and the rather distracting “#30 I want to have sex with you.” The crowd sputters obscenities with a passionate but casual zeal, as though they were trying to get a hot dog vendor’s attention. “Our fans are very supportive, but at the same time rude, grotesque, childish, and down-right evil…to the other team of course,” said Hertzberg. Witty one-liners and brainless fucking-fits alike rain down on anonymously evil visiting players imprisoned in the penalty box. There appears to be a certain liberating sensation involved with heckling, according to the Nads fans. One boy told me that “making fun of the other team is great because you can’t even see them with their masks and they can’t see you.” Braver fans revel in the freedom afforded to exhibitionists, flashing unsuspecting zamboni drivers.

Most importantly, the Nads help produce that always-elusive sense of community at a sometimes painfully individualized school such as the Rhode Island School of Design. Without most of the typical group activities available at most colleges and universities, the Nads are a source of pride for an individually- focused student body. “The Nads are all about getting school and team involvement,” said Hertzberg. “RISD doesn’t have homecoming. There aren’t any fraternities. I think the Nads bring the student community together to some degree. This is a very individual school because people are focused on their own art. The Nads were created to bring people together.” Katherine Brummett R’05, game music selectioneer, reports that “even though they suck they are a major source of pride for us at RISD.”

The greatest paradox surrounding the Nads hockey team is evident in the inconsistency present in their extreme focus on winning and their perpetual failure. The Nads fight and scrape for victory in a testosterone-fueled scramble for glory. That, I guess, is the true definition of thinking with one’s testicles: coming back for more when you’ve been beaten so many times already, leaving it all on the ice for the last game of a winless season. It’s raw, relentless, and torturous courage, unfiltered by reason. Case in point: just last Saturday night half the team reportedly showed up at the wrong hockey rink for a game. One can’t help but fall in love with these guys because they play hockey like sperm racing for the egg. It’s all instinct. It’s all blind courage. Go-Nads!

Martin Mulkeen B’05 knows that the only thing more fun than a giant foam penis with a cape is a cunning linguist with a top hat and monacle.

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