That clears it up a little. I've never been to a finals retreat. But the fans on the BD forums are sore losers. Lots of the argueing has died down by now, it's all good. But before, they were in a riot!

Yeah don't accuse what was going on if you have never been in a retreat block lol. Cavaliers Drumline, when I was marching, would bring jolly ranchers out onto the field and toss them around.

And you know what, sure when someone looses there is going to be lots of arguing? Have you ever been to a DCI finals? On the way out of the 7 I have been too you always hear 20 different opinions on who should win and then you see the arguing on forums like these.

Its the same thing with sporting events. "This team should have won the World Series " etc.... and those are not even biased events. You have a clear cut winner and looser and people still argue.

So why not just let it happen instead of intervening what you say is the inevitable?

Cavies are notorious for screwing around at retreats (i.e. throwing candy at other corps, etc...)

As punishment for their irreverence with particular emphasis on the desecration of the Canadian national anthem, actual guilt not withstanding, I sentence them to having to travel from Indianapolis, IN to Concord, CA by bus, a most cruel penalty even for 20 year old knees.

Retreat at finals is generally a laid back, fun atmosphere as some others have discussed. It's the last night of a long and difficult summer so a lot of people let loose a little. Sure, some people cross the lines of decency but those are a limited number.

After scores are announced there is always the general dissention. Devs were probably a little miffed that they didn't win because a lot of people thought they should have. That probably brought out some anger in a select few. It would have been the same thing had Devs won and PR got second. Just like any competitive activity there will always be the Monday morning quarterbacks.

...and for the record, when I was in retreat we never threw candy at other corps. We usually went to retreat with a few bags of Jolly Ranchers and we would toss them back and forth between ranks but it was never a hateful thing. Of course there was this one time when a member of another (not to be named here) corps made a derogatory comment to one of our bass drummers. The basses then threw sticky Jolly Ranchers at him laughing as they stuck to his uniform. That was done solely to be mean spirited.

Oh I wasn't saying they were throwing them AT other Corps to be hateful lol. I do remember a couple times seeing the Cavs throw them at some of the girls in our Corps. I guess it is mans way to flirt, ha ha ha..

That story is golden, thanks for sharing.

There is one Open Class corps who took the Jolly Rancher idea without understanding it too terribly well and ended up denting some of Memphis Sound's horns a couple of years ago.

Blue Devils are well-known to be very relaxed during retreat. If they're with another group that's relaxed, it's a great time. If they're with another group that is a little more "traditional" . . . well, they generally tell whatever jokes they can (among other tactics) to get the other corps' members to break. Their sops are also well known for screaming during pretty much any rendition of America (in the past 6 years at least). Memphis had a retreat with them a couple of years ago (somehow :-p), and several of our staffers had stories to tell of BD's thirds screaming during the song higher than their own corps' leads. The BD marchers we had on staff generally found the stories to be amusing and true.

That being said, is it definitely BD doing that? Can't be 100% certain. Do leads from every corps do that? No, but most. Do the Devs have a history of that at regular shows without a full retreat? At least since 2005 that I've heard of specifically, and since the early 2000s vaguely. It's very likely, though I'd definitely say they weren't alone in their "play."

Edit: After actually watching the video a few more times, I'm gonna have to say it IS Blue Devils as the main culprits. I'm not basing it one the volume of the mistakes or supposed proximity to them of the camera, but rather the sound. You guys can pick out Crown's drumline from an audio recording, and probably Cavies, BD, etc. based on the drums' sound and the writing. While I don't have the writing to go on here, those are almost definitely Dynasty horns with the Blue Devils' technique making the vast majority of those noises. There aren't too terribly many other corps that use Dynasty horns in the Top 12 (Glassmen I think is it), and they weren't close enough to BD to be that confusing.

not trying to start some crap, but devs have always done stuff like this at retreats, i remember looking forward to their sops hanging over, but it was never this tasteless, well not in my day