Eric,
        First of all, you didn't quote my entire message.  My original
message (in response to your calling the ECAC "pathetic" and unable to
measure up to the WCHA) went something like:
 
"Apparently, you have already made your mind up about how 'pathetic' the
ECAC is, even though I suspect your opinion is based largely upon the
records and power ratings of its teams [instead of actually having seen
them play].  But I'm not going to argue with you about this.  However, I
just want to remind everyone of the purpose of Hockey-L, which is
intelligent discussion, NOT voicing personal opinions on which players,
teams, schools, or leagues are 'pathetic' (refer to your 'Usage
Guidelines for Hockey-L' file).  If you have such opinions, fine.  But
keep them to yourself and keep them off Hockey-L because all it does it
antagonize people on the list....."
 
        Now, your are totally within your rights to think that the ECAC
is awful.  I'm not going to try to change your mind.  My opinion is that
the league may be a bit weaker (although it has  a winning overall record
against non-ECAC teams) but not nearly as weak as some people think.  The
ECAC has a number of teams which can give the other leagues a run for
their money (Clarkson, Brown, Vermont, Colgate, RPI...).  But this was
not the point of my original post.  My point was that there is a
difference between making an informed criticism/observation and just
plain calling a league (or a player, or a team, etc.) "pathetic."  Such
comments are, IMO, mean-spirited, and not what I (nor, I think, anyone
else) want to read on Hockey-L.  You are right, this is a free country.
But we are NOT free to say whatever we please on the list.  If we don't
follow certain rules of etiquette, we run the risk of letting friendly
discussion turn into needless name-calling, and I'm sure we can all agree
that's not what we want.
 
Faithfully,
Tony Garcia
 
 
On Wed, 1 Mar 1995, Eric J Burton wrote:
 
>
>
> On Tue, 28 Feb 1995, Antony Garcia wrote:
>
> >
> > Eric,
> >     Apparently, you have already made your mind up about how
> > opinions, fine.  But keep them to yourself and keep them off Hockey-L
> > because all it does is antagonize people on the list.  Can we please try
> > to get along?
>       I thought we lived in a free country. Iam sure I would get some
> people in the WCHA to admit that that the ECAC is a Weak Conference
> We will see....
>