At the risk of sounding like Tricky Dick who proclaimed, "I am not a crook!"
let me just say, "I am not a woofer!"  There's been more than enough traffic
recently complaining about the UMass-Lowell woofers and whiners.  There are
two frequent posters from UMass-Lowell: Steve Twombly and myself.  To an
increasing degree people are putting the two of us in the same pigeonhole.
Steve and I are different personalities.  I'm Dr. Jekyll and he's Mr. Hyde. :-)
:-) :-)
 
In my opinion Steve HAS come on too strong at times.  I was particularly
uncomfortable with his BU post and can understand how BU fans were unhappy
with it.  In Steve's defense, as a member of the UML staff, he is so close
to the emotion that it is understandibly difficult not to come off like a
woofer.  However, while I can appreciate Steve's passion, I can also recognize
it as being occasionally counter-productive.
 
So, Steve is responsible for his posts, and I'm responsible for mine.  Now a
couple of my posts have unintentionally caused some controversy with RPI and
BU fans.  I'd like to clear those up.  I like both of those teams.  I work
with a ton of RPI grads and if my son ever is good enough when he reaches
college age to play for a school the caliber of RPI I will count my lucky
stars and get ready to spend a lot of weekends in Troy.  And as for BU, not
only are they one of my favorite teams, I'm an alum and I teach there one
night a week.  The fact that I let class out a little early last night had
nothing to do with the Beanpot.  :-) :-)
 
Here are my posts in question.
 
[While discussing the strength of schedule issue and UML's two damaging post-
break losses to RPI and BU, I wrote:]
> Were those losses the result of the Christmas break, or did the Chiefs not
> belong on the ice with those two teams?  I think the Christmas break DID have
> a lot to do with the Chief's showings.  I will grant you that BU is a better
> team than UML, but certainly not 9-1 better.  I don't believe that RPI is a
> better team and certainly not 11-3 better.  Play that game today and I think
> you'll get a very good game.  ANd I'll put my money on UML.  Against BU I'll
> want some odds.  :-)
 
This riled up some RPI fan, I've forgotten exactly which one.  That was
unintended.  I was simply observing from current play that a UML-RPI matchup
now would be a very close contest.  Recent scores and rankings would seem to
support this.  I'd expect that whoever had home ice would be a slight favorite.
 
BTW, my respect for BU hockey should be obvious from the above comments.
 
[My post giving a game description of the UML win over BU had only one line
that wasn't pure objective reporting.  It was the last line of this paragraph.]
> I went straight from the hospital to Tully Forum (general anesthesia at 2, in
> the stands at 7) and though my throat was a bit hoarse from the tube that
> had been down my throat, the UMass-Lowell Chiefs made it worthwhile with a
> convincing 4-2 win over the #2 ranked team in the country.  The strength of
> schedule boogeyman can now kindly go back in the closet where it belongs.
 
If the comment about the strength of schedule boogeyman is construed as woofing
then I'll plead guilty, but so will the posters from a LOT of other teams.  IMO
this was a pretty innocuous comment and should have offended no one.
 
David Carroll wrote:
> ... I was rather upset with the post the made it appear Lowell had
> beaten them 2 games (our Albany Times Useless saw no reason to bother
> with a Friday result of a #2 team in their Sunday edition so I hadn't
> gotten a score yet.)
 
Here was my Beanpot post that caused the problem:
> My personal prediction is for a BIG BU win over Harvard, sparked in part by
> BU's frustration at losing not one but TWO games to UMass-Lowell, which
> leapfrogs them to #2 in the country.  (Tongue in the general cheek area.)
 
This was posted before the second UML-BU game and I thought it was clearly
intended in good humor.  I HAVE been accused of having a warped sense of
humor (anyone want to hear the answer to what Jeffrey Dahlmer said to Lorena
Bobbit?), but this seemed rather vanilla to me.  I would have expected that
even digest users would have recognized this as a humorous contribution and
not a factual one, but in any case I'm sorry for any problems it caused.
 
So to put this tired subject to bed, I have posted game reports and have
contributed to the rankings discussion, but I've always felt that I've done so
in a non-woofing manner.  I'm on this list to get info, have fun, and make a
friend or two.  Ticking people off is not on my agenda.
 
Dave "I Am Not A Woofer" Hendrickson
I Like BU.  I like RPI.
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