-- [ From: Adam Wodon * EMC.Ver #2.10P ] --
 
I held off saying anything about this because I was clearly rooting for
Vermont with all my heart, and didn't want to seem bitter about it ...
but Mike M. has opened the door, as he so often does so well.
 
I agree with Mike 100 percent.  Everything he says is on the money.
 
   I watched the game at home, taped the game, and watched the ending
(painfully) a few times.  By Dedective Reasoning and the Laws of
Physics it is clear to me that no Vermont player touched the puck from
the time McNeil hit it with his hand and Remackel banged it in.
 
   I think the idea of the puck hitting Thomas on the leg after McNeil
hit it is indisputably false if you've seen the tape. Thomas hit it
after Remackel did.  The only question is whether Hallman tipped the
puck before Remackel did.  I think from Reasoning, angle and physics,
he most likely didn't.
 
   Of course, it doesn't matter now, but it is a shame it ended like
that.
 
   BTW, I think it was Jeff Anbinder who talked about Keith Olbermann
being interested in hockey from his Cornell days -- Well, I think
Olbermann is proof that not every Cornell student gives a crap about
hockey, or knows a damn thing about it.
      I HATE his pretentious attitude, but it's even worse when he's
dead wrong.
     Olbermann said about the Vermont goal ... "..as we know, play
should have stopped as soon as the player hit it with his hand."  He
then raised his eyebrow, as if to condescend.
    Well, as WE know, play doesn't automatically stop when the puck is
hand passed, unless a teammate touches it.
   So, while I BELIEVE it to have been a hand pass, Olbermann was, in
his way, putting down the whole thing because it was "so clear to him"
play should have been stopped immediately.  I hate him.
 
    Speaking of ESPN -- who was that awful studio host?  Where was John
Saunders, Steve Levy or Bill Pidto???  The guy knew nothing, couldn't
read or speak, and at one point I think I heard him say....
   "This is just the appetizer for tonight's main course, the Final
Four"  He was talking about basketball.  Did anyone else hear this?
How can you call the NCAA hockey Final an appetizer to the basketball
semifinals, to a hockey audience???
 
   Finally, I think Bob Norton did a tremendous job.  I've had this
image of him as a pure Boston guy (which he is), who only talks up
Boston players, and can't pronounce anyone else's name.
   I no longer believe this, having paid great attention to him for 3
games.  I think his play diagramming was very insightful, and his
constant playing up of where players are from, could get tiring, but
since you never hear about it with hockey players, it's actually pretty
refreshing.
    And how can you hate a guy who says, "I wouldn't know if a
basketball was blown up or stuffed."  That's the kind of thing people
usually say in reverse.
 
   As for Mees, yeah he's bad --> But as someone else said, for the
longest time he carried the torch at ESPN for hockey, all alone.  I
give him credit for that.
 
AW
 
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