Tuesday

Fairly recently Jon over at Jon Versus Sports Blog recently posted about venom and the internet. He’s spot on. As he said “The worst offenders are ESPN and You Tube. I dare you find a single comment section on You Tube that does not include a F bomb, an ad hominem attack, or a misspelled word.”. As I’ve said before, when I’m feeling good about the world I just have to simply go to YouTube (or pretty much any other website), read comments, and I’m back to feeling like the world is going down the tubes (pun intended) again.

It was talk radio before, now it’s talk radio and the internet. They’re places where people “tell the truth”, otherwise known as verbal attacks. It’s not enough to disagree with something, you have to add insulting language. It’s not enough to dislike something, you have to hate it.

In sports circles the venom falls the most on the officials. It’s rare where people say that they think the wrong call was made and stop there. It almost always next goes to insulting the official (say’s he/she is the “worst ever”, is an idiot, etc). Of course that’s not enough, it goes to even saying the official should be fired.

This is why my rule is generally I don’t talk about officiating. I’m fully capable of talking about officiating without crossing the line (not insulting them), but there’s enough people out talking about it as it is. When I’m at the game I may say to the person next to me that I thought “they made the wrong call”, but that’s the farthest I will go. Once the game is over officiating doesn’t cross my mind much. Instead it’s more along the lines of “if UMD’s power-play was better they could have won the game”.

The officials may get the most of the bile, but quite obviously they don’t get all of it. Probably the next group to get it is the team that the individual “dislikes” the most. Sometimes it’s a rival of their favorite team. Sometimes it’s not just the team that gets the bile. It’s their fans as well. Again, it’s not enough to dislike the team, but they must be hated. Again, insults are thrown at the team and their fans.

Anyone know knows me knows that the team that I always cheer against is the University of Minnesota Gophers. I cheer against them, but I try and refrain from crossing the line. I won’t attack anyone for going to a particular school or liking a particular team. There are times myself where I’ve probably crossed the line and insulted a team or fans and I’m sorry that I did so, so I clearly can’t criticize people who slip up and cross the line, but clearly those people are in the minority.

It’d be nice if people would stop the bile. It’s just a game after all.

Wow

There was a sending-off/ejection/etc at my cousin’s soccer game. Who? A male spectator. He was a ways away from me so I don’t know for sure, but someone was saying he was yelling at the ref. All I heard of it was the ref tell him “keep walking until you hit the parking lot”. I never understand that, I really don’t understand people’s impulse to yell at officials. It’s a game people:

 

Down in splitville

UMD took the first one, DU took the second. That means a split. Last night the good guys won in overtime. It took the offense almost the entire game to find the net, but fortunately they did before the end of regulation. They scored early into the extra session for the win.

Last night I was not in attendance, but I was tonight. Tonight the Dogs played pretty decent, but DU come away from the DECC with points, which they can be happy with. The first ten minutes of the game were pretty uneventful, no good chances either way. It was looking like a boring period, but both sides picked up the play. DU got a 2-0 lead, but UMD did a good job coming back. Niskanen had a hand in both of the goals, both came on the power-play. Niskanen was my top Dog of the game, he seemed solid all around tonight. The first one there was a scramble and the puck came back to the point. I’m guessing 90% of the people in the building were screaming “shoot” and also were expecting him to shoot. Instead he did the very heady play of passing the puck to Josh Meyers for an easier goal. Due to the number of bodies in front of the net a shot from the point probably wouldn’t have made it on net anyhow.

The second goal, this one coming off of Niskanen’s stick was a very nice one. Niskanen fired a bullet that rose just off the ice to beat Mannino. My first impression (okay second impression, my first impression of him was him playing for South St. Paul at the Minnesota High School Hockey Tournament) of him is a good one. He didn’t make any major freshman mistake, which apparently he did in prior series. Did a very good job moving the puck, dumping it short when the long pass wasn’t there.

People all around me were yelling at referee Bob Mason for most of the third period. I myself don’t understand it. I thought Mason did a great job. I thought the penalties he called were the right calls and I didn’t see any major ones that he missed. UMD in the end lost because they took dumb penalties down the stretch. Michael Gergen took a dumb penalty, which DU capitalized on. UMD played decent, we will see what this means when gopher weekend happens next weekend, especially since the gophers throttled CC tonight. As I’ve said before, I don’t have much expectations for this season for the Bulldogs, considering they are mostly freshmen and sophomores and they had to replace the great Isaac Reichmuth. We’ll see how the Dogs respond next weekend. They do have to stop taking bad penalties.