Steve Kapetanakis writes:
>The Boston Globe
>Monday, August 8, 1994
>by Will McDonough
...
[from the Globe article]
>Some who know college hockey well ...
 
Will is clearly not one of them.
 
>... say the Maine hockey program
>has been out of control in recent years.  In the last six
>months, the athletic director and compliance officer have left
>the program, and the feeling is they took the fall for what
>has been going on in the hockey program under Shawn Walsh.
 
Sure, Will.  It was *really* Walsh who made the compliance officer
tell Patrice Tardif that he only had to take 6 credits instead of 8.
As well as the four athletes in sports other than hockey.  Walsh runs
the whole athletic department.  In fact, it was *really* Walsh who
moonlighted in the admissions department to make that one credit
mistake regarding Cal Ingraham.
 
It is absolutely obvious to anyone who paid even a bit of attention to
the case that the AD and compliance officer are gone mainly because of
the grad credits situation.  If that had not happened, they would
likely still be around.  Walsh clearly had NO responsibility for what
happened there.  So, how could they have taken "the fall for what has
been going on in the hockey program under Shawn Walsh"?  Did Will
forget that the AD was mainly criticized for having known about the
situation - before the coaches did - and letting some of the athletes
compete anyway?
 
Will is also guilty of selective memory...when Walsh was responsible
for something that happened, namely the Tory situation, he admitted
responsibility and did not question the punishment handed down to him
by the school.  That does not sound like someone who is letting others
take the fall.
 
[Steve's comments]
>The one thing that bothers me about Will's article is that
>he doesn't quote one source by name.  The article is highly
>speculative.  But we've all heard these same rumblings about
>Maine's program, this is the first time I've seen them in print.
 
Probably because no one else has been as stupid as Will to print them.
It is one thing for people to banter around rumors...it is another to
print them without a single piece of evidence to back them up.  It is
certainly very easy to see why people in Maine think the Boston media
is out to get them.
 
I have heard rumors like this before about Maine, but my approach has
been the same as to the poster who recently charged that BU's Jack
Parker was lobbying against Maine...let us see evidence, or else keep
it out of a public place like HOCKEY-L or a newspaper.  This reference
to "some who know college hockey well" is about as bush league as a
journalist can get.  Anyone trying to break into the business who
wrote something like that would be laughed out of town.
 
If evidence is found and made public regarding violations that Walsh
or others in the program made, I will be as critical as I was of the
Tory situation, and Will should be too.  But I am also going to be
fair and not ruin people's reputations if they were not responsible
for something.  Apparently that is where he and I differ.
 
I will reiterate: Will is STUPID.  I have no respect for him as a
journalist, and I would say that to his face.  He should stick to
football and leave college hockey to people who pay attention to it
more than one or two times a year.  Better yet, he should retire from
sportswriting and broadcasting and save us all the aggravation of
having to read and listen to his garbage.
 
The sad thing is, Will is one of the more known writers in Boston and
when people read things he writes, they put a lot of stock in them.
That is why it is so distressing that he would write something like
this.  Someone in his position should know better than to write
something that is little more than "Hard Copy"-like material and pass
it off as responsible journalism.  And he has done it a number of
times.
 
I'm giving some thought to sending parts or all of this to the Globe.
I don't know if they answer their email, though.  I sent them a note
once and never heard back.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93
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