Falcons Get Back into Swing, Ready for Eagles
The Bentley Falcons ice hockey team returns to the ice on Friday when they host Atlantic Hockey Association rival Niagara. The team last played two weeks ago on the weekend of November 18-19 with a two-game tilt on the road at Mercyhurst. Following a tie and a loss, the Falcons will look to bounce back in a key early season matchup.
With the turn of the calendar to December, Bentley closed out a huge month in surprisingly disappointing fashion. Tied for second with the Lakers heading into the road trip, the teams skated to a 0-0 tie on Friday before the hosts took a 2-1 decision on Saturday. The weekend dropped Bentley from a second place tie to fifth place in the AHA standings, now nine points and a 4-2-1 record. Overall, Bentley is 4-7-2.
In the first game on November 18, the Falcon offense mustered 48 shots but couldn’t penetrate Max Strang. On Saturday, freshman defender Steve Weinstein notched the first goal to give Bentley a 1-0 lead, but they couldn’t hold on by surrendering two power play goals.
Coach Ryan Soderquist and the Bentley Falcons are back after 13 days off!
Highlighting the weekend was sophomore goalie Brandon Komm, who stopped 61 of 63 shots faced to solidify his position as AHA Goaltender of the Month. Komm, who previously registered a shutout over Canisius, finished November with a 1.16 goals against average, lowering his season average to just over 2.20, good enough for 27th in the nation.
Komm will almost assuredly be in net when the Purple Eagles come to town. Niagara enters with a 3-5-2, overcoming an 0-3-2 through an 11-game road trip. The Eagles dipped this year in offensive production, but they rank fifth in AHA defensively, splitting a timeshare in goal between sophomore Cody Campbell and freshman Colby Drost.
Full coverage of the Falcons weekend is available via the Bentley Falcons homepage at BentleyFalcons.com.
Media coverage will be available through Bentley’s athletics website in coordination with America One Networks. Video and audio will be available through America One, with audio available after the game here at Excalbur Sports Page. Rory Duyon and Dan Rubin will have the call of both games.
Niagara University will also be broadcasting the event from the John A. Ryan Skating Arena on Friday and Saturday. Niagara will be carrying audio through Sidearm Showcase.
Welcome Back, NBA
Nobody’s ever accused the National Basketball Association of ever being “intelligent.” In the wake of their labor disagreement and lockout, that rings never more true than it does now. So we decided to get you caught up on some of the headlines in a post-lockout world, one where the Collective Bargaining Agreement is actually harder to understand than it was beforehand.
(Audible Sighing)
It’s good to have it back. Post-lockout NBA — Where Amazing Happens.
O’Dwyer Paces Saints Past Brandeis, 55-43
The Emmanuel College Saints women’s basketball team used both timely shooting and stingy defense to open up a 22-3 run, then held off a late-game rally to defeat the Brandeis Judges, 55-43, at the Jean Yawkey Center in Boston on Tuesday night.
Junior Fiona O’Dwyer, the reigning Great Northeast Athletic Conference’s Player of the Week, led the way for the Saints with 26 points on 11-21 shooting, adding 13 rebounds for EC as the squad improved to 3-1 on the season. Lena Negri added nine points and 13 rebounds off the bench in the effort.
Despite a helter-skelter pace in the early goings, Brandeis failed to net a single point through the first seven and a half minutes, scoring only after Kelly Ethier potted a free throw. But it failed to ignite the Judges offense, and with five minutes to go in the half, the Saints led, 22-3.
Paced by Diana Cincotta, Brandeis was able to slice the lead to ten by the half, 25-15, as Emmanuel went cold from the floor. Still, they shot decidedly better than their opponent. After opening up 0-17, Brandeis finished the first half 5-33 shooting from the floor, including 2-8 on three-pointers. Meanwhile, Emmanuel shot over 30% at 10-26, including three pointers from Bria Tiro and Laura Benvenuto.
But the Saints fell asleep on the Judges to open up the second half, and Brandeis creeped back into the game to slice the lead to as low as six, but O’Dwyer took over, recording her double-double at the halfway point of the second frame and going for over 15 second half points.
Brandeis also dealt with foul trouble down the stretch, as Cincotta and freshman point guard Hannah Cain played the last few minutes with four fouls. That opened up Shannon Hassan, who scored a team-high 14. But Hassan was quieted in the closing minutes by Victoria Johnson, who spent much of the first half on the bench with her own foul trouble. Johnson finished three blocks in 17 minutes, including a big one late in the game as Hassan drove the baseline to cut the lead to a one possession game.
The big stories defensively came on the glass, as Emmanuel outrebounded Brandeis by a 59-44 count. Negri was a force on the glass, collecting seven offensive rebounds and 13 total to tie for the game high. Johnson added seven boards total on her own, and Megan Kirwan collected four.
Defensively, the Saints forced 11 second half turnovers for a game total of 21, limiting their own turnovers to just three in the second half after 17 in the first frame. They held Cincotta and Cain, the two leading scorers for Brandeis entering the game, to a combined eight points. They also largely stayed out of foul trouble, committing just 19 team fouls, with only Johnson and Negri having more than two (four apiece).
With the win, the Saints improve to 3-1 on the season, and they now have a three-game winning streak after dropping their first game to Heidelberg University at home. They’ll look to make it four on Thursday when they host Rhode Island College as part of a hoops doubleheader in Boston at 7:30 PM. The Saints men’s team will play Thursday at 5:30 against Wesleyan.
For Brandeis, the Judges return home to Waltham and the Auerbach Arena on Saturday, when they host Daniel Webster College at 1 PM.
BCShambles Leading Into Championship Weekend
We are all about the water cooler discussions. We love it when things are dramatic and mindbending because it gets people talking about them. And we love the idea that we might be able to facilitate some of those discussions.
So the Bowl Championship Series is right in our wheelhouse. When the site launched back in the summer, we originally committed to just college sports. But, due to overwhelming inbox questions about our opinions on professional topics, we had to switch our format and become ingrained in the professional ranks as well. Despite that, the water cooler discussions we’ve received emails about are more or less about the same topics you hear about on sports talk radio.
Our inbox was completely flooded last night and this morning about the Bowl Championship Series. It seems everyone has an opinion about how this whole thing has been completely and utterly screwed up. One email outright asked us if we thought the poll voters were doing this on purpose solely for the chance to make the national championship picture in college football relevant because its date is so late, it borders on irrelevance, especially if the matchup isn’t glamorous. We were also asked if the Southeastern Conference (SEC) is in this situation because they marketed themselves better than everyone else. Well, we figured we’d take it step-by-step and break things down. One reader noted that we did our NBA Lockout program outlining the players and issues, and that was resolved within a week or two (we can’t remember). So, at John C’s suggestion, we’ll do the same thing heading out of Rivalry Weekend and into Championship Weeekend:
Converting to the Church of Tebow
–Dan Rubin–
Tim Tebow is the biggest jerk I’ve ever seen play football.
I hate him for several reasons. I hate him because he has the most limited skill set of any quarterback starting in the National Football League. I hate him because he’s nothing more than a glorified option quarterback with a good run blocking offensive line. I hate him because the offensive scheme is now being geared towards his only skill (running the option), and he’s slippery enough to make teams miss. I hate him because he’s not the prototypical quarterback, and he’s winning despite every scouting report, every fiber of being telling me he stinks.
But I hate him for other reasons too. I want my quarterback to be flawed, a dirt dog of sorts. I want my football heroes to embody what I am, not what I’m not, a guy who goes out and plays hard with emotion. Tebow is that guy, but he does it a little bit too much; it’s like he’s ramming my opinion of what I want back in my face. And I hate Tim Tebow because he’s being that guy while maintaining an image that’s not a bearded, hog-tie worker, a guy who could easily be punching his timecard and heading to the office.
I hate him for the same reason I hate Jeff Gordon; he’s not flawed, he’s Captain Good Looking, Charming, and Boyish. He’s clean-cut, devout to his faith, and he always has that one thing to do in front of a camera that makes you look at him and just want to puke.
But I hate Tim Tebow because every time he gets out on the field, I’m expecting to do what I don’t him to. I’m expecting him to win, to beat me at my own game, to one up me as a fan. I hate Tim Tebow because I want every reason to hate him, and I don’t have one. I hate Tim Tebow because, in short, I actually kind of like him.
Why Tuukka Time Shouldn’t Run Out
–Dan Rubin–
For the Boston Bruins, the entire month of November has been a complete renaissance. Going 10-0-0 into today’s game with the Detroit Red Wings, the Black and Gold went from the doormat of the Northeast Division to the toast of the league, first place, and formidable defending Stanley Cup champions.
But the month of November has also produced chatter about who the Bruins should the move in a potential trade move. Boston has a number of trade chips to dangle in at other teams with the intention of readying the roster for another run to the league championship. In late October, Peter Chiarelli, the team’s general manager, all but announced that nobody was safe from making a deal, that they were realistic about making the team better, and that they’d make a deal if they felt they could make the team better both for the immediate and for the distant future.
Almost immediately, fellow talking heads brought up one name for trade talk – backup goaltender Tuukka Rask. With the reemergence of Tim Thomas as the league’s (and possibly the world’s) best netminder, Rask has, to some, become expendable and, with blue chip prospect status, become the focal point of trade talk that could potentially bring in an elite player that some believe would put the Bruins over the top as a Stanley Cup competitor.
But, as the saying, goes “sometimes the best moves you make are the ones you don’t make.”
The Thanksgiving Tradition
–Dan Rubin–
Pacing through Facebook, Twitter, and the blogosphere the last couple of days, there were a number of articles about Thanksgiving rivalries, their rich histories, and what they mean to their respective communities. There were articles about the father/son connections, the link that schools have with their alumni, and the feeling of going to a game building to a city or town in a full froth as kickoff nears.
I’m not doubting any of those stories, but I feel like there are some traditions that get lost in the shuffle. Across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a number of schools lack the same rich history as Malden vs. Medford, Eastie vs. Southie, or St. John’s Prep vs. Xaverian. There’s a number of schools lacking the same power in comparison to anywhere Everett goes, and there’s a number of schools that can’t get their towns into a lather the way Walpole, Needham, or Foxboro can.
As a graduate from the Xaverian Brothers Sponsored School of Malden Catholic, we lacked the lather of a Thursday morning game, the appeal of an SJP-Xaverian match, and the widespread appeal public schools have in their hometowns. Down on Cape Cod, Dennis-Yarmouth will draw a tailgate, alumni, a rabid student section, and casual residents. Malden Catholic lacks all of that, and yet still is able to preserve a tradition based solely on what Thanksgiving football means.
College Hockey Feast, Thanks, and Turkeys
We love Thanksgiving. There’s not a single writer on staff who doesn’t love the idea of eating massive amounts of food, settling onto the couch to watch football, falling asleep for a solid 45 minutes, waking up, eating more food, then watching more football and going to sleep. It’s a man’s dream come true. You really can’t even come up with anything to toss in to make it any better, unless the turkey cooked itself and came with a 1967 396 Chevelle SS.
And even then, depending on where you are…the first part might actually happen. We’re still working on that Chevelle, though.
In honor of Thanksgiving, we’d like to unveil some feasting around the college hockey universe. Since we love Thanksgiving so much, it’d be only fitting that we slotted some Turkey Day-style reviews for who’s feasting this year, who’s giving thanks, and who are our biggest turkeys.
Conference Championship Bids On Line In Trap Game Weekend
As Virginia Tech was barely holding off North Carolina last night on national television, we couldn’t help but think about the fact that this game had been circled as a potential trap game. You know those games – a big-name team with championship aspirations hosts or travels to a supposedly-inferior opponent. The opponent, usually an in-conference game or at least a huge rival, comes into the game completely geared up, while the large opponent tends to circle this one as a win and look to move forward. There’s six or seven plays that allow the bigger opponent to jump out to a sizeable lead, but ultimately the smaller opponent hangs around to keep it in the game. Then, at some point, the lower team starts bringing the heat, getting wind in their sails, and either put themselves in a position to win, blow by the “better” team on the scoreboard, and either end up hanging 49 on them or winning in the last seconds.
All signs on Thursday night pointed to a trap game for Virginia Tech. Hosting the Tar Heels at Lane Stadium, where they almost always win on Thursday night, the Tar Heels opened up the game with a 7-0 lead. Effectively and efficiently moving the ball on the Hokie defense, North Carolina hung tough against a supposedly-superior team, giving up 10 points in the second half to trail 10-7. Halftime prognosticators saw this as a tougher game than it looked on paper, and even though Virginia Tech led 24-7 to start the fourth, North Carolina’s mad dash comeback made this came close (even though it was close but no cigar).
This weekend’s slate of college football games will feature more games like the Thursday night special, with potential trap games lurking around any corner in any conference. We take a look at which ones will have profound effects on the race for conference championship games, bowl games, and the BCS:
Anatomy of Good Hits vs. Bad Hits
–Dan Rubin–
The term “contact to the head” used to be a bad hockey penalty, one that sent players to the box for stupid hits and checks, hamstrung their teams for extended periods of time, and labeled players as physical enforcers capable of playing dirty when the situation called for it (or maybe didn’t call for it). “Contact to the head” was one of the worse penalties, ranking with boarding and slashing as ways to genuinely hurt players.
In the past three or four years, in the wake of concussion studies and scrutiny, contact to the head penalties aren’t so much bad penalties as they are sacrilegious to the fundamentals of the game. Where they used to just be inexcusable trips to the box, these penalties instead transformed into lightning rod, water cooler conversations about severity, long-term injury, and if enforcers still had a true place in the game of hockey.
NCAA Hockey Bracketology: Round 1
It’s never too early to start thinking about the postseason, so here’s our first prediction for the NCAA’s road to the Frozen Four.
Sixteen teams will qualify for the NCAA’s Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Tournament. In a formula similar to college football’s Bowl Championship Series, hockey uses a ratings system known as the PairWise Rankings to determine its grid of teams. Each of the nation’s five conference champions receive automatic byes, with the remainder of the teams filled in using the PWR. We use the rankings and the host school system to determine who will play where and who their opponents might be. Bear in mind that host schools, if qualified for the tournament, are contractually bound to play in that region. They also cannot play an in-conference opponent in the first round, which affects who places where. Locations and geographic placement are then usually slotted based upon rankings, so the higher (or lower-numbered) ranked teams get the first crack at where they want to go.
Let’s have a look and explain how it stacks up early in the season:
Stinko Ocho Is a Complete Lunatic
–Dan Rubin–
I’m speechless.
You won’t hear me say those words very often. In fact, I rarely, if ever, actually admit it. But for the first time in what feels like years – I’m speechless. I have nothing to say. And I’m kind of smirking and chuckling to myself at the reasons why.
As Rory Duyon eloquently said earlier this week, the Boston Red Sox don’t NEED Jonathan Papelbon. Sure, it’d be nice to have the guy who’s the all-time leader in saves in Red Sox history, a guy who paved the way for the Olde Towne Team to win the World Series in 2007, a folk hero, a media darling (at times), and a guy who danced and jigged his way into the hearts of many when he drunkenly took off his pants after winning the American League pennant. The team just didn’t need him, especially since they were essentially grooming Daniel Bard for this role with this type of scenario right in mind.
Programs Here, Programs! Can’t Tell Your Players Without A Program!
The clock is ticking...
The National Basketball Players Association rejected a final offer from the National Basketball Association and its franchise owners on Monday, effectively putting an end to negotiations in favor of a court battle. The move also puts the 2011-2012 season in serious jeopardy, with the threat of a cancelled year starting to come directly under a spotlight as a very real possibility. As the NBPA union gets set to decertify and begin a court battle reminiscent of the National Football League’s battle, here’s a look at the key issues, players, and arguments unfolding in the sports world:
Bentley Falcons Report Card: Week 6
Bentley University hockey fans waited through the first five weeks of the season with baited breath for the great breakthrough. It would be that moment when Bentley announced itself as a legitimate contender in the Atlantic Hockey Association, a team to be reckoned with when all the pistons fired through their cylinders.
For their fans, that moment came last weekend when the Falcons recorded their first four-point weekend of the year, sweeping American International and the United States Military Academy at West Point by identical 4-1 margins. The two wins improved Bentley to 4-1 in conference play, good enough for eight points and a tie for second place with Mercyhurst. The wins propelled the Falcons to to lofty company, sitting just one point behind Air Force for first place, tied with the aforementioned Lakers, and just ahead of two teams expected to contend for conference supremacy – Holy Cross and Air Force. As Bentley prepares for a weekend road trip to Erie to take on that Mercyhurst roster, they stand on the cusp of becoming an elite AHA team, one that could contend for the league crown by the end of the year.
To say the upcoming weekend is huge is an understatement.
On with the Week 6 grades and a preview of what the team will need to do in Week 7 against Mercyhurst:
Doyle-Ing My Way Through Sunday Night Football
Brady's pass....juuuuust a bit outside.
–Dan Rubin–
One of my favorite movies is Major League. Its idioms, sayings, and overall general over-the-top insanity makes it one of my personal favorites in terms of sports flicks, and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone in baseball and sports in general who doesn’t quote it on a regular basis.
One of the things I quote the most is Bob Uecker‘s character, Harry Doyle. Doyle, the broadcaster of the Cleveland Indians, is everything you’d hope for in a baseball sportscaster – witty, unbelievable, and, at times, drunk. He’s a guy who makes quips about whatever’s happening in front of him, almost taking a sick pleasure in the fact that the team can’t win, has no business even fielding a full roster, and is probably the worst team ever assembled.
It’s Official – Excalibur Sports Radio Network!
Excalibur Sports Page is proud, pleased, and thrilled to announce our latest movement – the Excalibur Sports Radio Network! Through the power of UStream, we have launched our own channel on the web that will be dedicated to the best live broadcasting audio of all sports events!
Stay tuned to the Excalibur Sports Page and our Facebook and Twitter sites for broadcast information!
Papelbon’s Gone? No Big Deal.
–Rory Duyon–
We saw this before with Johnny Damon and Pedro Martinez. Eccentric and dominant Red Sox players reaching free agency and walking. Friday it happened for the third time in the post-curse era when Jonathan Papelbon reached a four year deal today with the Phillies worth $50 million.
It’s funny how quickly the weather in Boston changes. This can obviously be taken literally or figuratively. In October of 2010 Red Sox fans were anxious to turn the keys of the bus over to Daniel Bard. Papelbon had made it clear that he wanted to get to free agency and he was coming off the worst season of his career with an ERA just a hair south of four and eight blown saves.
In 2011 people quickly changed their tune when September rolled around and Papelbon was the only player on the team that wasn’t an Orioles rally waiting to happen. Suddenly, the closer we couldn’t wait to get rid of was the top player of the off season to-do list.
Bentley-AIC Audio NOW AVAILABLE
Here’s some tidbits from Bentley University’s 4-1 victory over the AIC Yellow Jackets on Friday night at the John A. Ryan Skating Arena. Due to technical difficulties, we were unable to gain the third period’s audio, but please feel free to browse some highlights and the full call of the first and second periods. On the call for the Falcons are Rory Duyon and Dan Rubin:
Bentley Goes On the Power Play For the First Time On the Night
No Denying JoePa’s Impact…No Matter How Hard They Try
–Dan Rubin–
Earlier this week, I posted an article on this site where I discussed the sadness I felt regarding college football. I failed to discuss the details of the current sex abuse scandal rocking Penn State University, the Nittany Lions football program, its head or assistant coaches, administration, or anyone else associated. I was reluctant to write or publish anything about it because, quite honestly, I didn’t want to get caught up in the same jingoistic journalism we’ve been subjected to over the past couple of weeks.
Unofficially, I hold certain opinions about the firing of Joe Paterno, and, in the interest of this column and the integrity of this website, I will not publish my personal opinions on the matter. I would rather argue the points amongst friends, where I know people on both sides of the fire or not fire argument. I would like to protect the integrity of this blog where other reporters instead would run a man’s name through the mud, deservedly or otherwise.
There is no denying the horror of the scandal and the deep scarring it leaves on us all. We are all affected, whether or not we have children, whether or not we’re fans of PSU, whether or not we’re just random people who have no interest in sports. This is a story superseding a sex abuse allegation against a Republican Presidential nominee, superseding a story about the doctor convicted of manslaughter of Michael Jackson, and it’s pushed the Occupy Wall Street protests well off the front page of our personal news radars. In instances like this, there is no way to not hold an opinion, no matter how hard we try.
And maybe the writing aspect of this blog will be influenced by personal opinions. But, truth be told, I’ll try my best to stay out of that argument because the last thing I want to do is pile on top of an already-miles high pile of anti-Paterno propaganda, and I don’t want to antagonize that group by writing a pro-Paterno piece.
But there’s one thing we absolutely cannot do, and that’s deny Joe Paterno’s place in sports history. There is absolutely no way that Penn State would be where it is today as an athletics program or as a university without the Paterno legacy, and we wouldn’t be doing our jobs as journalists if we didn’t at least acknowledge all he accomplished in his 46 years at the helm of the Nittany Lions.
Bentley Falcons Report Card: Week 5
It was the first full weekend conference set of games for the Bentley Falcons, who traveled to Buffalo to take on one of their Atlantic Hockey archrivals, the Canisius Golden Griffins. Bentley University, coming off a loss and tie to Clarkson, entered the weekend with a paltry 1-4-1 record, but at the same time, they won their conference opening game against Sacred Heart. This was a pivotal matchup for the team, who really had either played an opponent with a far superior talent level or one with a far inferior level. For Bentley, this was a huge litmus test to really prove what kind of team they had the potential to become.
On Saturday, Bentley held Canisius at bay for their first shutout of the season and first since January 30, 2009, when they defeated Army, 6-0, at Tate Rink in West Point, in a season where they won 19 games, went 15-11-2 in conference play, and qualified for the conference championship weekend in Rochester. During that game, Brandon Komm solidified his slot as the number one goaltender on this talented roster, posting 24 saves. Brett Hartung led the way with the game winning goal in the second period and the empty net tally in the third that brought him to five on the season, nearly half of the team’s leading scorer a year ago.
On Sunday, the Falcons fell behind, 1-0, on a power play goal by Preston Shupe in the first period. They kept it at 1-0 into the third, whn Mitch McCrank made the score 2-0 at the 4:25 mark of the frame. Just over a minute later, the Griffins went up, 3-0, on Taylor Law‘s first of the season. But Brett Gensler scored at the halfway point to cut the lead to 3-1. Still, Bentley got no further and left Buffalo with a weekend sweep.
For the whole, it’s a good sign when Bentley can go to a western division rival and split a weekend. It’s especially telling that they held Canisius to just three goals over the whole weekend and garnered a shutout in the process. But this is a team that will need to pot more goals in future games and cannot rely on defense and goaltending with American International coming into town on Friday and a road trip to Army on Saturday. There’s still reason to be very optimistic, and in the record that matters most, the Falcons are now 2-1 in conference play, in a multi-team logjam for fourth place. That’s hardly an indicator this early in the season, but they also have the best record of the four-point teams since AIC, UConn, and Holy Cross are all 2-2, and RIT is struggling at a 1-2-2 record.
On with the grades:
No Anger, Just Sadness
I’m not even remotely close to a Penn State fan. I don’t wear white, I’ve never been to Happy Valley, and I don’t watch them on television. I’m not a Big 10 guy, not in the littlest bit. I’m a fan of Boston College and Texas, a northeast and southern football guy, and I’ve never really looked at many midwest places, least of all the Nittany Lions, and thought about them over that I knew their uniforms and seen a couple of their games on the television.
But today, I can’t help but hold an opinion. Like so many others who’ve written this article before me and the thousands more who’ll write the story after me, I was shocked and dismayed at the allegations coming out of the Pennsylvania State University in College Park, Pennsylvania. The allegations, which I’m sure you’ve heard, are sordid, disturbing, and so profoundly inhumane that even to mention them will make anyone with a soul nauseous.
LEGACY: 20 Years After “The Announcement”
20 years after he told the world about his death sentence, Magic's still alive, still smiling, and we still love him.
November 7, 1991.
It’s the day the basketball world stopped. It’s the day the sports world stopped. It’s the day, quite honestly, the world stopped for a few, brief moments. It was the end, the moment we all dreaded without ever knowing it might happen, the breaking point of a decade of fun and relevance. It was the day the ups and downs of being a journalist died for many, and it’s one day where the code of not showing emotion was gone.
When Earvin “Magic” Johnson stood at the podium lecturn at the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, California, his world as we knew it was over. For a decade, we were captivated by smiles, championships, Hollywood flash, and Showtime. We were brought to our knees wondering about Magic’s ability to go head-to-head with his biggest rivals, his ability to run Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, and others off the floor. Magic had been in the league over 10 years, defined a decade, and established himself as one of the all-time greats. He was untouchable, and in ten minutes time, all of it was gone.
On November 7, 1991, Magic Johnson stood at a podium and announced to the world he “attained” HIV. At the time, it was the end. In 1991, HIV was unknown, nothing more than a disease that killed people, killed homosexual people, killed sinners. It was the bubble pop of a decade where decadence was king, larger than life egos and personalities ruled the roost, and flash and lights were the rage. It was the end of a socially and sexually promiscuous age, one where people associated with money.
It was as if the 10-year party, one that had been going on for years, with the music turning up louder, the dancing more intense, the decadence boiling and boiling…it was as if someone shut off the switch and did it almost immediately.
In 1991, HIV was a homosexual disease that led to AIDS that led to a person dying within six months. Medicine didn’t know what to do about contracted people, and nobody really knew about it. People were so frightened by it and its unknown that they literally shunned those with it, tried to ignore it and eradicate it from society, as if it never happened. Because of its unknown, HIV and AIDS were legends, mystical diseases that were something out of a science fiction story, the super virus unleashed on the world with the intent on killing us all.
In 1991, people figured if they avoided it, it wouldn’t exist. They ignored its ability to infiltrate “normal, everyday life” by associating it with people who had “fringe” lifestyles. Homosexuality was still a touchy subject, not nearly in the mainstream as it is today, and since HIV and AIDS were found, at that time, in the homosexual society, it was considered a “gay” disease. The only people who got that disease, people said, were those who were homosexual or drug dealers or people who were completely decadent. When it made its arrival, the people who watched as others rode the smoke into the night finally had a lightning rod to throw their bolts at, and it led to a 180-degree turn in public opinion.
Then, on November 7, 1991, all of that changed.
NCAA Hockey Weekend Review
Let’s dive right into it, shall we?
-Oh dear, BU. Oh dear. BU had one game this week after an emotional 1-0-1 weekend against UMass when they went up to Lowell and took on the UML River Hawks up at Tsongas Arena. We have no idea what happened to the Terriers, who scored 16 seconds with Corey Trivino putting one past Doug Carr before most fans found their seats. UML dropped a 7-spot on them, including four second period goals, chasing Kieran Millan from the game in the process. Before the two-minute mark of the second period, it was a 4-1 game (after 2-1 following the first), and the Terriers dropped to 3-3-1 and #16 in the overall national polls. They’re lucky they only dropped that far, and the pressure is on heading into this weekend’s slate against Merrimack and Boston College.
Let’s Get Ready to Rise and Fire
–Rory Duyon–
Everything is ruined. David Stern announced the cancellation of all NBA games through the end of November and we have nothing to get us through a cold New England autumn…unless of course you hate the NBA and live for the college brand of hoop…like me!!!
The college kids tip it off tonight in what promises to be another thrilling season. Last year history was made when two mid majors made the Final Four. Butler went all the way to the finals out of the Horizon League for the second year in a row, beating VCU out of the CAA in the semis. In 2008 Davidson went to the Elite Eight out of the Southern Conference. In 2006 it was George Mason in the Final Four from the CAA. The UConns, Carolinas and Dukes still reign supreme in college hoops, but the mid majors are more of a force to be reckoned with than ever before.
