Personal Attacks on Players

It's too bad that the team's success seems to have resulted in a rash of posts that personally attack our players and their ability.
Since when did morons sitting in front of computer terminals earn the right to personally attack players?

Are Cornell fans really jerks when it comes right down to it?
And is the fact that our team has not been at this level for a few years, the only reason that we haven't proven that conclusively to the world?
Is this is the year that we show ourselves for the jerks that we are?

As a long time fan, I know that Cornell fans are awesome and that Lynah is (beyond any doubt) the best place for College Hockey.

So why don't we stop this crap?

What crap?

Do I have to list the ways I love Cornell hockey before I can say something about it that disappoints me? Grow up. I love Cornell hockey, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm a human being, rather than a mindless drone incapable of forming opinions that aren't in agreement with the collective consciousness.

Go Big Red!
It sucks that Gleed took that penalty!

See how that works? Humans are capable of a wide range of opinions.

-Chris

Hey if we're placing blame. . .then Sam cost him the Dartmouth game. . .BUT we're not! Leave it alone and enjoy a great hockey team!

No undergrad will ever pass up a chance to demostrate his individuality, no matter how silly.

Favorite college moment: I was standing in a line at Noyes (of course) and three consecutive students were wearing buttons that read "Why Be Normal?"

The perfect student tableau.

Chris, we needle you because we were all there, and we were all just like you, even down to the same dumbass highblown rhetoric. Now loosen up and get laid, and enjoy the rest of the year.

-Chris

I figured it would come to this...

The last thing that I would want to see for this board is for what often happened on the old Clarkson Hockey Roundtable. People with legitimate criticisms and discussion of the team and coaches were yelled at with "how dare you say something negative about our team! They only deserve our highest respect and adoration! Our team is the most awesomest awesome team that ever lived, and you better start saying that every awesome day! AWESOME!!"

It's a fine line, but in this case, I think a lot of the backlash is coming from the older Faithful who have suffered through the lean years. We see newbies and undergrads who happen to be lucky enough to be in school with one of the best CU teams in 30 years complain about little things, and we think they're crazy. And perhaps a little spoiled . This is the year that some of us have waited decades for.

It's also a fine line between legitimate criticism, and unfounded trashing. I think the Iggulden thread is fine because an argument is made. The "no-name" shot at Gleed wasn't backed up at all. (My take: Dumb penalty? yes. Bad player? no.) Just saying "Ryan Vesce sucks" will get you some online pounding. However, a phrase such as "Paul Varteressian needs to pass the puck more" opens up a channel for intelligent hockey discussion.

I'm glad we don't have the superstar players that made '96-'97 UVM such a one-line team. I'm very proud on how our team was built, with four lines giving us Four Waves of Destruction. I'm a big believer that everyone on the ice has a role even if they don't dress every game, and right now, they're playing the system to a T. We aren't winning each game 14-0 with a PP of 68%...but we are dominating the competition that has been thrown at us recently, and I'm more than thrilled with that.

You stole my thunder Rich...

It is quite ironic that those who are so opposed to saying anything negative about the team are so vociferous in their bashing of a fellow fan. I agree that while you are in the rink it is stupid and wrong to bash your team. However, I fail to see the point in not allowing criticism of the team "off the ice" in a forum that they (most likely) do not read.

Rich,

I agree wholeheartedly. I don't think there's anything wrong with talking about what players have done wrong. The Iggulden thread is a source of reasonable discussion of opposing opinions. I know Chris didn't mean it, but I think the way he phrased it didn't give Gleed the respect he deserves, and was way overboard of a criticism - using harsh language and acting like it was a horrible sin. I mean, the shutout woulda been nice, but winning's what matters. I'd rather Gleed learn the lesson now than in the NCAAs with a close or tied game.

Anyway, yes, we have to watch the attempted censorship. Just because the team's doing well doesn't mean we can't discuss some flaws we noticed. But we should also try to do it in a respectful way, and try to avoid "the sky is falling!" implications.

First there was the Broad Street Bullies, and then the Legion of Doom, the Crash line and now presenting the Four Waves of Destruction.

All fear the Four Waves

Saying "Ryan Vesce (or any other player) sucks" is OK?
Calling a thread "Iggulden = Useless" creates a forum for reasonable discussion?
And the only problem with the Gleed thread was that his name wasn't used?

The minute someone points out that guys are starting to get obnoxious the cries of Censorship, Politically Correct etc. etc. come pouring out.

I have no problem with criticism of a players performance but you've got to be completely tone deaf not to realize that a certain edge has crept into the comments these past few days.

Anyway on a lighter note, the team is now #3.

Actually, I disagree about the Iggulden thread, at least in its inception. Declaring him useless in the subject line seems overly mean-spirited to me. I suppose part of what annoys me about the criticism of Gleed and Iggy is that they're role-players. It's not like there's some huge buzz about them that needs to be deflated (as Age thinks is the case with Murray--which reminds me, time to Stuff for Hobey). Everyone knows Iggy's not the best player on the team, so what good does it do to lead with "he's useless"? If you think his spot could be more usefully taken by Chris Abbott, why not lead with that angle.

I agree that we want to avoid the "OUR KNIGHTS ARE AWESOME!!!" syndrome, but let's try to keep the criticism productive.DeltaOne81 '03 wrote:

The best way to respond to "Iggulden = useless" type posts is to simply state the rational argument against (or for) this (he's been hurt, is a role player, etc.) and drop it. The chorus of complaints about personal attacks, censorship, etc. is pointless.

Weird that you mention that! Some friends of mine and I were wondering at the Vermont game...if someone yelled out "Vesce!" Would the rest of the fans in section D, E, and F yell out "Sucks!"?

Last year we got Sections A and B to chant "Daryl" over and over. Everyone around us had no idea why we were chanting it but they still followed along.

I think they would yell "Sucks!" once and then realize what they did.

Oh good lord, it's not censorship to ask someone to refrain from being an ass online. (And a good thing too, since we all manage from time to time.)

Nobody's going to rescind your posting privileges. Nobody cares that much. Remember Steinbeck: "Nobody wants advice, just corroboration."

The point is that in a fan forum the idea is to be supportive. Quite honestly, none of the "flaws" a casual fan notices from the 8th row mean dick next to the coach's choice of who is out there. Accept it: your opinions in this context are literally meaningless.

Hockey fandom means nothing; please do not try to turn it into a civil liberties test case. Better arguers than you try every year, trust me -- I was one 10 years ago.

Like that insurance ad says: call someone who cares.

BTW, lest anyone think we are playing rough in our own sandbox, check out the bloodletting on [www.uscho.com]

Not that I want to rehash this, but I was in the first row against the glass, and Gleed was about 3 feet away from me when he basically picked up and pile-drived the Vermont player. From that perspective, it was a lot easier for me to see it as a personal, individual mistake rather than Gleed being part of an excellent team.

My immediate reaction was to look at the score, look at the time remaining, and to slap my forehead (literally). My next reaction was to think: God damn, I hope this doesn't blow the shut-out for LeNeveu. And then sure enough just a few seconds later that's what happens. So I was a little pissed, yes. And I saw Lenny shaking his head and all I could think at that point is how disappointed he must've felt right then.

The reason for me being pissed was not that I felt Gleed is a hopeless idiot, but rather I didn't want it to be rattling around somewhere in the back of LeNeveu's head the next time he takes the ice, the pressure that he's running out of games and therefore it's even more important that he not screw up and let one past in this game, or that he took the Vermont goal personally as his own fault.

In short, I'm rooting for LeNeveu to the point that I'm hesitant to even cheer for him when he makes a save, in the same way that when somebody gets close to beating a major record, teamates will stop looking at the player out of fear of jinxing it (I've played collegiate athletics,not hockey though, and despite what people might say, you get good enough and you risk becoming an unwilling slave to superstition, pre-game and post-game rituals, or if you need a visible example of this, take a look at Lenny's intricate crouch/head-duck/chest-thrust thing he does every time there's a face-off, or the stick/goal-post tapping rituals of basically every goalie in the league).

So in short, I came down hard on Gleed based on my very close proximity to the foul, thus making it easier for me to take it personally, combined with my own hopes that Lenny pulls it off. If I had posted my message the night of the game, it would've been even harsher, and if I posted it tomorrow, it would've been more delicate. That's just how it goes, ie, that's just what happened to have been going through my head.

-Chris

I don't know where to put this, but since the discussion of loss of the shutouts came up as it relates to Gleed....

I'm not supertitious, but the "Zero Offense!" cheers with 15-30 minutes of hockey left to play have irked me the last 3 games.

"Hey, Vermont! It's Saturday night, and you can't--D'OH!!"

[Q]I didn't want it to be rattling around somewhere in the back of LeNeveu's head the next time he takes the ice, the pressure that he's running out of games and therefore it's even more important that he not screw up and let one past in this game[/Q]


I highly doubt that Lenny is losing much sleep over breaking Dryden's record. This is not Roger Maris chasing the Babe. It would obviously be nice for Lenny to do it, but I can't imagine that he feels like he is under tremendous pressure to do so.

He has mentioned it a couple times when interviewed, however.

It is not, AFAIK, the NCAA record. Didn't either Miller or that hotshot Lake State goalie a few years have an insane number of shut outs in one year (on the order of, say, 10)?

Chris, please don't feel personally attacked. We have all said something at one time or another that we feel we might have said better or differently. The problem with an internet forum is that it gets put in stone and no one can really see how you are feeling by looking at your facial expression. A picture really does tell alot.

The people who respond with such vigor also have to realize that their statements may be too harsh for the situation and they should always let the person have a way to restate their point in a less inflammatory way.

I agree with you in principle that Gleed's penalty was dumb. In fact I said so on another thread when I was discussing Hornby's fight.[Q]Agree, it was dumb, unless the UVM player had done something very obnoxious that we don't know about.

Gleed's penalty at the end was also dumb. He had the UVM player completely dismantled and just kept going till he had him down on the ice. No need for that at that stage of the game. Considering it led to their only goal, I don't think it will happen again. A learning experience, but Hornby, I don't know. Maybe he has an explanation[/Q]We probably all agree that Gleed will learn from this and be a better player for it. I personally suspect that Coach didn't say anything about it after the game. I doubt he had to. The only player who feels worse about what happenned than LeNevue has to be Gleed.

I'll just back Jim up in thanking you for the words of explanation and saying that I as well understand where you were coming from. If it seemed like we overreacted, I apologize, we just wanted to show you that the way you phrased things was probably too harsh.

That said I think we've all come to an understanding now so we can be a happy community again .

And I really don't think you have to worry about Lenny. Some things he said early in the year show that he's incredibly good and shaking things off. And he's definitely a team player. It'll probably eat at us more than him.

Greg wrote:

It is not, AFAIK, the NCAA record. Didn't either Miller or that hotshot Lake State goalie a few years have an insane number of shut outs in one year (on the order of, say, 10)?

Yup. In 2000-01, the year he won the Hobey, Ryan Miller was 31-5-4 with a 1.32 GAA, 0.950 SV%, and, yes, 10 shutouts.

R. Miller, MSU 2001 31-5-4 .825 1.32 .950 (1 shutout per 4.0 starts)
LeNeveu, CU 2003 17-2-0 .895 1.16 .940 (1 shutout per 3.8 starts)

Yeah, but he plays in the EZAC in front of a great team defense, so he sucks....

Just in case you were missing the USCHO boards, there....