Daily Sun

Interesting article:

[www.cornelldailysun.com]

Personally I don't know that it's really well written, but it's an interesting take on what happened last weekend.

It's The Sun. We should count ourselves lucky they didn't have an obvious typo in the headline.

(Why Cornell has the worst daily in the Ivy League has always eluded me. If you come to Ithaca for journalism you should, sadly, pick the other hill.)

To our friend Charles:

Two comments:

(1) If you were in Lake Placid last year, you'll know that signs beig ripped down was something that was instigated by the St. Lawrence fans, they took ours down and our fans merely did the same. I'm not defending these actions but at least get your story straight!!!

(2) Again, not defending the throwing of bottles on the ice after a win, but the bottles after the Brown game came from exactly as you stated, six year olds, only they were seated in section O.


Words to the wise: Don't make yourself look stupid b/c you didn't take the time to get all the facts!!!

Ok, normally it's not my place to talk on this forum, especially about this kind of issue. I usually allow you all to bash my articles, or the articles of other writers freely, without really taking up a side or trying to defend them or myself. However, when you claim that the Daily Sun is the worst daily in the Ivy League, you are simply wrong, Greg.
First, the Daily Sun has been voted, for several successive years, the best college daily newspaper in New York by the Associated Press, and yes, that includes Columbia and Syracuse.
Second, if you've ever seen the Yale Daily News, the Princetonian, the Dartmouth or the Brown Daily Herald, you will realize what shoddy papers they truly and how they cannot hold a torch to the Daily Sun. This is a simple fact.
Finally, the people in charge of creating this paper spend upwards of 10 hours a day working at the newspaper offices, on top of a normal schedule of classes and homework. They, like you, travel with the team, write constantly and generally put more effort into that publication than most of you put into any college activity, I almost guarentee. They work 40+ hours a week, every single week and don't get paid for it.
So, attack my writing if you will, or my lack of facts (i was refering to the ripping up of a 7-year-old girl's sign, btw... and frankly, I don't care who throws stuff, it's our job to stop them), but don't attack the newspaper as a whole with blanket generalizations that you have no basis of argument for.
Oh, and finally, for those of you in town, my sincere hope is that you like what we've done with the wraps for the last two weekends. It's just another instance where we're trying to provide more information for our readers. I hope its been helpful, but if not, we'll stop. Believe me, it will save me a ton of time and pain.

Charles Persons
Sun Senior Editor

Well...I'm gonna stick up for Charles and the Sun. I didn't think his article was poorly written...and it got a great point across. And since he reaches a lot more of the student body than any of us here do, I'm certainly happy about that. I'm also glad that an editor would care enough about the team to read and participate in this and the uscho forum.

Second, the Sun is pretty decent for a student run paper. No, it's not the New York Times, but think about how much they have to do as well as be students. I lived with 2 Sunnies my senior year, and the amount of dedication is quite impressive. My sister (a Cornell communications major) went to Penn (sucks) for grad school, and she told me that she really pined for the Daily Sun while she was there, because the Daily Pennsylvanian was pretty poor, in her opinion.

Charles, I think the wraps are a great idea! I noticed that you people started doing that for football games, and to start that for the home stretch of the hockey season is great. During my years at Cornell, the only hockey-related front-page wraps were for the 25th anniversary commemoration of the 1970 perfect season, when we beat Harvard in '95, and the return to the ECAC final four. I kept them all.

Charles,

Thanks for writing the article. I don't care how accurate it was - it needed to be written.

Please, no more garbage on the ice!

I have to agree with Charles here. Admittedly, my sample size is small but the Daily Sun is head and shoulders above the Yale Daily News and the Syracuse Daily Orange.

Regardless of the details of who ripped down who's sign first, the point remains that we need to ask ourselves if the fans at Lynah are transforming from a raucous, obnoxious, clever bunch armed with sarcasm and what passes for wit at a hockey game into a group of boring vulgar hooligans.

Several years ago, I brought a High School friend who went to IC to a hockey game. To this day, he talks about how clever the fans were. Yet, at last weekend's game, for the most part, all I heard was a lone fan yelling Har-vard or Brow-wn to the inevitable crowd response of Sucks. While I have no problem using the word sucks, it gets a little tiresome when it is the only cheer people use. I don't worry so much about being vulgar or profane, but rather, I'm afraid of being the crowd becoming witless and boring.

I know that the people around me, Ben and Age particularly, were getting sick of hearing Schoool sucks!, yet whenever I tried to start something else, it invariably died a quick death. Admittedly, a fan that hasn't seen a Brown game before is unlikely to join in for "Round the bowl, do the hole, if it's Brown flush it down" on the first try, but you'd think that after the 2nd or 3th try, people could follow along....

"What's the color of Poop? Brown" and "Brown is Poop, Poop is Brown" may not strain one's intellect but at least it gives us some variety from hearing Brown sucks over and over. While playing a school named Brown, the scatalogical potential is endless!

Charles-

Glad you read this forum, it'd be much easier than trying to hunt you down on USCHO. Anyway, no comments about the quality of the paper, I'm an engineer so I'm certainly not qualified to talk about the quality of anyone's writing.

Anyway, I read your article, and I think you're dead on about the throwing of extra fish, and of bottles on the ice after the game. The newspaper and the fish the one time are special cases (as are hats after a hat trick, as someone pointed out on USCHO), but other than that it's inexcusable. It takes balls to go on a public forum (the Sun being, realistically, a much more widely read platform than anything posted on this board) and say, flat out, that what a number of students did was wrong. I for one applaud you for doing so. Hopefully I'll get a chance to meet you and thank you for it in person.

OK, OK, put down the knife. I'm sure everybody at the Sun works very hard, and I hereby retract everything bad I've ever said about them.

Suffice that I think the paper is far better than it was when I was an undergrad.

Honestly, the only thing I expect from the school paper is good coverage of the hockey team, and in that category the Sun has always been a valuable asset. We need all the voices we can muster to get kids to stop causing trouble for the team and the large majority of good fans, so thank you very much Charles - I owe you a beer.

Thanks, Charles, for giving this issue the exposure that it deserves.

Thanks, Charles. Here's another vote for the wraps.

Bravo, Charles. I'm glad you entered the fray to defend yourself and the (unfairly) maligned Sun.

College papers, by and large, aren't very good. They are run by dedicated, hardworking kids. (Why many big city newspapers are such godawful trash is a different question.) College columnists, by and large, write as if they were 21 or younger. They have a moral and intellectual clarity that can only come from a lack of experience in the world. And they desperately need editing by someone who really knows how to write.

I do not believe that Charles' facts are wrong. Every report of the game said that Cornell students were throwing water bottles on the ice. You are the first person, Ben '03, to say otherwise.

The Sun is far better than other college papers I have read (not to mention the Denver Post, among other "real" newspapers), and while Charles' column was not itself spectacular, it was certainly better than what you will get in other college papers. I appreciated the Sun while I was at Cornell, and am surprised that others didn't feel the same.

Ed. note: By the time I finished writing this, I was happy to see that Charles and the Sun had picked up a half-dozen defenders. My post became overkill, but here it remains.

big red apple, I believe I said,

"(2) Again, not defending the throwing of bottles on the ice after a win, but the bottles after the Brown game came from exactly as you stated, six year olds, only they were seated in section O."


I never said students did not throw bottles at the Harvard game, the Brown game was another story, the first bottles after the win on Saturday came from section O, they were little kids, six or eight year old little kids. After that, students may have thrown more on the ice, I never claimed otherwise and that was not my point. I was just stating that the reference to six year olds was in fact true.

Disclosure -- I am a former Sun sportswriter ('81 through '85). That said, I can say with reasonable objectivity that the only Ivy paper comparable to the Daily Sun is the Daily Pennsylvanian.

Greg, I love your comments on this board, but on this topic I think you are off-base. But since you have already offered your mea culpa, you are foregiven.

I appreciate the kind words, everyone. I really don't normally go that ballistic, there are just some nerves you shouldn't hit.

Nonetheless, apology accepted, and in general we really do appreciate the feedback, positive and negative. It's the only way we know what you're thinking. We may not post, but all the sports editors read what goes on in here.

Thanks again,
Charles

I have to stretch Rich's statement to include '85 to '89 (my tenure on the job). It was an perennial showdown between the Sun and the Daily Pennsylvanian in many of newspaper publishing competitions. We had a particularly strong rivalry in the Sports departments, extending to the football field for our annual pre-Penn-Cornell classic.

The first time I read the Crimson, I was shockingly disappointed. Ditto for the BU Daily Free Press -- pretty skimpy coverage and less-than-stellar writing for a school with a whole separate journalism program (although by '92 it had improved -- along with the hockey team).

oh my God...a less than complimentary word about cornell...

Does Al D know about this?

Actually, you could do better at IC for quite a number of curricula!

Keep it in the sandbox please. . .

"You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

I read the sun every day for my last 2 years at cornell and in the 7 months since i have left i read it online each morning with a cup of OJ before getting ready for work. it is how i keep up to date with my alma matter and i too think that it's a great college publication. having at times searched our competitors papers (to see what is being said about the cornell team from their perspectives) i realize what a great thing we have. thanks for all the hard work and coverage. what was said by Charles really needed to be said. i only hope that the article is reprinted before the harvard game next year in an attempt to kill this horrible habit.

Charles,
Thank you for all the wrap-ups that have been written this year about the hockey games. I know that there are a bunch of Lynah Faithful who haven't the time or the resources to listen to the games or go. The paper gives them the opportunity to read about the games from someone who was there. I don't agree with the bad writing comments, and I should know somewhat since I was an English major (though you probably can't tell from this post ).
As for the fans, throw 'em if they throw crap. Throw 'em out if they attack other fans. Realize this everyone - for every person you kick of the hockey rink, there are about 3 frosh who would love to have that seat.
In closing, I think that Charles was not saying that he knew what happened in placid, just that he had heard it.
anyway,
LGR!

Please. . .enlighten me

Sorry... I thought the quotes would make you hear Inego Montoya. That's what I get for trying to be funny. : )

My name is Inego Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die

Re: the LP banner ripping. Here's the real deal:

Someone (I believe Ray DiLaureo;s (sp?) mother) had made a beautiful banner by cutting out colored construction paper letters and pasting them on brown butcher paper. Twice. Each letter was in white with a red shadow. The banner read (and I kid you not): "Ahh - Springtime in Lake Placid. The snow is melting, the birds are singing, and Ray DiLaureo and the Saints are back in town." It was huge, and must have taken hours to make. Unfortunately, the owner of said banner guessed wrong - all the Cornell fans ended up sitting under where she had chosen to hang it. There was much consternation amongst the Cornell fans. What to do? We didn't want to rip it down, for fear of appearing like hooligans. Instead, a few guys went off, got a sheet, and wrote on it with a magic marker, "SLU: if you can spell 'Safety School,' they let you in." Only if I remember correctly, it had some spelling/grammatical mistakes in it (besides ending the sentence with a preposition). Now where do you suppose this banner was hung? Right over the SLU corner. Within about 5 minutes, a bunch of SLU fans had ripped it down, and I can't really say that I blame them. Immediately, the SLU banner "was destroyed." (NB: intentional use of passive voice for dramatic effect.) So yes, technically, SLU started the banner trashing. However, the Cornell fans who hung the banner knew exactly what was going to happen - we (if I say "we" when referring to the team when we're winning, I feel obligated to say "we" in this situation as well) were just itching for an excuse to rip down the SLU banner, and the events played out exactly as calculated. So were Cornell fans hooligans, or were they merely responding in kind to the banner-ripping that had been wrongfully initiated by the SLU fans? Judge for yourself.

I don't know anything about the six-year-old's sign - that one was new to me.

The real deal, huh, (the sign was mine). . .I will say you correctly observed that the sign had misspellings and grammatical errors, those were intended to be blatantly obvious. . .it's called humor, you might want to try it sometime. We (being myself and my roommate) tried to hang the sign near our section and were told we could not b/c it would cover the advertisements. We then moved to hang it behind the goal in our end of the rink, again no dice. The rink staff then suggested that we hang it on the other end of the rink, the SLU end of the building (NOT our first choice). There was no ulterior motive or premeditated intent involved when hanging the sign as our friend Robb has stated (you're assuming something w/out firsthand knowledge ). Just b/c you were in the building doesn't mean you know all. So, Robb if you're going to stand in judgment of actions that were not your own. . .please, at least go to the source to get the facts straight (I believe that's how this all started).

LGR!!!

Hey Ben-

I'd back off just a touch. I know that you didn't mean to dis Robb but you could have pointed out the situation regarding the available space for signage without attacking him.

To be fair, Robb did end his post with a question w.r.t to intent of the Cornell sign makers. Although he did lean toward assuming the worst, he did in fact, leave that as an exercise for the reader. I think if you had stated your additional info in a different manner, it may have been received in a better light.

I know Robb to be a fair guy who calls it as he sees it. I also know that you are a good guy who knows a lot about the game of hockey and is a diehard fan. I suspect that Robb would have considered your side if you didn't immediately attack him.

Just my $.02.

-j

John, "calling it as he sees it" is exactly where we run into the problem. Seeing something doesn't equal the facts; I understand your point regarding my previous post and I respect your opinion, but I have to say the presumptions made regarding the actions of others were incorrect, resulting in a post that was admittedly a knee-jerk reaction.
So. . .Please, next time you are going to state "facts" don't assume too much.

Robb, my apologies

No problem. I think this is a case of the blind men and the elephant. I was standing with many fans who *were* explicitly saying, "Boy, I hope SLU rips that banner down so we can rip theirs down." I admit that I made a generalization when I said that all Cornell fans (including the banner hanger) were feeling this way. I don't even know if the people who ripped down the SLU banner were the same ones who put up the Safety School banner (note the passive voice in my previous post). I do know that no Cornell fan made a move toward the SLU banner until SLU ripped yours down, and that wasn't a coincidence. So, while you, the banner hanger, may not have intended anything of the sort, many Cornell fans did see the opportunity once your banner was hung and were openly hoping that SLU would rip it down. So from what I saw, I definitely perceived that Cornell fans were simply hoping for an excuse. You have made it clear that this was not *your* intent, and you obviously didn't see or hear the people that I did, so you have a completely different view of the same event. Sorry to have read intent into your actions; I definitely didn't know about the lack of alternate banner space.

Hey, all's well that ends well. Chalk this one up to a sizable misunderstanding.

LGR!!!!!

If we could all act like this, the world would be a better place.