David writes:
>>   Speaking of Wisconsin, the Badgers' athletic board is poised to take
>> political correctness to new extremes.
>
>I'm sure the members of hockey-l don't want to debate this in this forum.
 
Well...1) It is somewhat relevant to college hockey, especially since
this follows a similar move by Minnesota last year; 2) is it fair to shut off
all discussion on this issue and not others?
 
However, I can see how it would quickly turn into a non-hockey discussion, so
I believe I'd pretty much agree with you.
 
>The policy would ban non-league games with teams with Indian mascots
>after current contracts expire. It would not affect WCHA games
>against North Dakota or NC$$ tournament games against any team.
 
One point that I think screams out to be made:
 
This simple fact exposes the blatant hypocrisy of the Wisconsin administration
with regards to this policy (ditto Minnesota).  If they were seriously
bothered by the fact that they're playing schools with these nicknames, they
would stand up for principle and refuse to play these schools EVER.  They'd
take the four losses against North Dakota as well as the loss of revenue by
canceling the games.  Wait!  Those two home games vs North Dakota generate a
lot of money for UW!  Ah, now we see where the real power lies - as usual,
the almighty buck.  There are no "extremes" here, no burning desire to right
the wrongs committed hundreds of years ago or to eradicate prejudices against
some members of society...just a hope that by throwing them a bone, they'll
go away and leave us alone.  It's PR disguised as PC.
 
I certainly think compromise is required in many situations...it's just very
important that we realize here that the goal was not to help the cause of the
Native Americans/Indians, rather, UW likely feared the situation would explode
at some point and decided to placate the NA/I.  Ask yourself whether Wisconsin
would have made such a move otherwise...I'm not close to the situation, but
I'm interpreting their actions to mean they wouldn't have.
 
And notice that I did not give my opinion on this issue anywhere in this
message.  In fact, I tried very hard to hide it.  I must be getting old, it
wasn't long ago when I'd jump into a topic like this wearing my heart on my
sleeve. :-)
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Mike Machnik           [log in to unmask]    [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                  *HMN* 11/13/93