Fans must now rely a little more on their love for Bucky to keep warm while sitting out for sports tickets after the induction of a new campus police initiative.
Aiming to halt students from \camping out"" at the Kohl Center, the UW-Madison Campus Police will now be reprimanding individuals possessing tents, sleeping bags, pillows and other paraphernalia related to camping out. Folding chairs and television sets are still allowed.
""We cannot differentiate between students and the homeless,"" Lieutenant Bill Larson of UW-Madison Campus Police said.
According to Larson, sleeping or camping out by any individual is against state ordinance. While this new initiative may be directed towards students, camping out has long been illegal.
""There's not really a change in policy,"" Larson added.
Nevertheless, students waiting for tickets see the move by police differently.
""It's like they view us being fans as a bad thing,"" UW-Madison senior Reed Stoney said.
Pete Schramm, another UW-Madison senior waiting for tickets, agreed the police's efforts to target Wisconsin fans were misplaced.
""If we have sleeping bags, we're probably asleep,"" Schramm said, describing how hockey fans camping out have no history of bad behavior.
UW-Madison senior Erin Ficken, whose group of hockey ticket holders had been sitting out since last Sunday and plan on doing so through next Friday, felt the new action was targeting those who support UW-Madison the most.
""If you go to Duke they actually encourage people to be fanatics,"" Ficken said in reference to Duke University's system of providing electricity and internet service for months to students awaiting basketball tickets.
Larson said while the UW-Madison Athletic Department is working to prevent students in line from holding more vouchers than permitted, this will not be the focus of the campus police.
However, junior Mike Ryczkowski saw more of a need for enforcement in this area.
""Groups sat in line for a week and didn't even get tickets in Section O,"" he said while describing how people jumped in line for last year's Ohio State game. ""You'd be second in line and then end up with a seat in row 40.""
Ryczkowski, who has sat out for football tickets multiple times this semester, felt the voucher exchange experience had changed.
""Last year you could have a camp-out and have fun. Now everyone's half-edgy, wondering whether if someone's going to kick you out of line.\
