1984-1985
"We're Number One!"
Sometime during hockey season (after the shipment arrived), the Pep Band starting wearing red and white-striped rugby shirts with an "America's Pep Band" logo on the upper left chest, each band member purchasing their own shirt.
At the home ECAC quarterfinal playoff games against Princeton University, where RPI won both games, the Pep Band was given RPI engineer hats by the RPI Alumni Association.
For the semifinals and finals of the NCAA Division I Hockey Championships, the Pep Band traveled to Detroit for two nights of playoff games and stayed overnight outside of Detroit. RPI beat University of Minnesota-Duluth and Providence to win the National Championship. In the semifinals, RPI scored with less than two minutes left in regulation to tie the game, which then went into three overtime periods before RPI scored to win. At the end of the game, the band played "Hallelujah Chorus" at the suggestion of Beth Wilkinson (last name now Flanagan), Class of '86.
April 8, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated states, "On Friday, RPI faced Minnesota-Duluth in the other semi, and both clubs must have taken their game plan from the Engineer band, which played "Rock Around the Clock" more times than Bill Haley and the Comets ever did."