Author: Kat (Page 38 of 89)

The USCHO Pay Wall: Why Putting Today’s Dave Starman Piece Behind It Is a Giant Mistake

15 December, 2010 / Kat

Update: Within minutes of my posting this, Todd from USCHO Tweeted at me, said he saw the point and made today’s Starman column free. He also responded in the comments. Class act! Thank you!

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I have had thoughts swimming around in my head over the past week regarding the Wall Street Journal article surrounding the growth of college hockey, as well as national hockey commentator and CBS College Sports on-air personality Dave Starman’s USCHO “rebuttal” (to an article that was overwhelmingly positive, I might add.) As my Twitter followers know, my month long battle with bronchitis came to a head as both articles were posted – I ended up in the hospital with a far worse infection – and thus, I wasn’t able to write a response in a timely manner. I was going to leave the issue be.

Then on Wednesday morning, USCHO posted a further Starman commentary where he responds to the many comments he received on his rebuttal. But I, and many other college hockey fans couldn’t read it. It is posted behind USCHO‘s pay wall, called “USCHO Extra”, which costs $14.99 a year.

Isn’t the fact that USCHO hid this rebuttal-of-a-rebuttal behind a pay wall essentially one of the things inhibiting the growth of college hockey? College hockey is a growing sport with a feverous fan base, with message board posters and lurkers galore, with hundreds of Twitter users wanting to be the next Starman or Jim Connolly or Adam Wodon or Bernie Corbett. How can you inhibit this fan base from reading your pieces? Isn’t hiding your content, especially content about an important conversation about the future of the game, behind a pay wall almost an oxymoron?

That a prominent online media source is making their readers pay to access an author’s response to comments, is both traditional and online journalisticly misguided. A good journalist should respond to his or her critics, as long as they are not personally attacking them, in the same forum in which he or she posted the original piece and/or an easily accessible, preferably free, forum. Starman’s original piece last week was free for all to read on USCHO.com. His response to the comments and emails is behind a pay wall, thereby reducing his readership on a popular topic, and shutting out most likely over half of his original readers. I am not saying he had to respond to every commenter or emailer, or even do so on USCHO itself. His feedback just needs to be accessible to the majority of his readers. Take Sports Illustrated’s Peter King or the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle’s Sal Marjorana – they are two polarizing football journalists who respond to their critics via Twitter, a free-of-charge social media tool. It may not be in the original comment section of their pieces, but you can easily find the two and challenge their controversial sentiments (even if their response may be snarky or not you wanted to hear.)

I am not blind to the costs of hosting and maintaining a large-scale website – frankly, it is becoming more than half of my full-time job in higher education and is what I do for various other sites on my home computer after dinner every evening. I understand that ad revenue alone rarely covers the payment of journalists, the hosting, the design, the forum moderation – all the tools that make USCHO one of the big three sites in college hockey. But is college hockey in a place within the American sports landscape that any site can justify having a pay wall?

Isn’t that, after all, the larger question that Starman – and the Wall Street Journal before him – asking with last week’s pieces? Is college hockey a sport that can sustain past the gimmicky nature of the annual outdoor game? And if both the WSJ and Starman are correct and the sport is still growing in popularity with a much higher future ahead of it, why cut off access to any information, discussion or features that may grow the fan base?

Where Are They Now? St. Nicholas Day Edition

6 December, 2010 / Kat

December 5th is the feast day of St. Nicholas (the basis for Santa Claus) in the Netherlands and other European nations. I remember this every year because 25 years ago, my preschool teacher at little St. James made us take off our shoes, line them up outside our classroom door, and twenty minutes later, they were filled with candy. To this day, I’m still confused at what happened and why, but that’s neither here or there. To celebrate this important Dutch holiday, let’s check in on some of our former Boston University Terriers playing hockey in the Netherlands.

Former BU Terrier Jason Lawrence playing in the Dutch Pro League.

Former Terrier Jason Lawrence during a October 23rd game for the Eindhoven Kemphanen. (Photo: Eindhoven Kemphanen Facebook page)

After spending the 2009-10 season in the ECHL with Charlotte and Gwinnett, former Terrier right winger Jason Lawrence took his talents to the Netherlands, and now plays for the Eindhoven Kemphanen in the Nederlandse Ijshockey Bond (the Dutch Pro League.) The league has seven teams in its Eredisvie (highest level), and they play in several tournament type rounds throughout the season. The season began in late September and ends in late February. Many of the players in the Dutch Pro League are from Europe, but each team has a handful of foreign (U.S. or Canadian born) players.

Lawrence is one of Eindhoven’s five non-European players, and the only American. The Canadian and American players tend to lead the league in points, and Lawrence is no exception. He may be 19th overall in points in the entire league with 29 (13 goals, 16 assists), but he’s been on a hot streak as of late. On November 23rd, Lawrence had two goals and an assist in a 5-4 loss to The Hague. In Eindhoven’s next game, November 27th against Turnhout, he had a goal and two assists. In the team’s eight games of the North Sea Cup thus far (this part of the season, which will stretches from the first week in November until February 20th), Lawrence has points in five of them.

Fellow former Terrier Dan McGoff plays for the Dutch Pro League’s team in Nijmegen (the Devils), and isn’t far behind Lawrence with 27 points, good for 25th overall in the league. McGoff is one of three Americans on the Devils’ roster, which includes former Colorado College forward Scott Thauwald.

Interested in following Lawrence and McGoff’s Dutch careers? Even if you have no Dutch language skills (I luck out because I spent time in The Hague during my senior year of high school, but even with that my Dutch isn’t that great), you can follow along on the following sites:

Ijshockey.com (a Dutch hockey news site)

Nederlandse IJshockey Bond (the league’s official site – it also covers youth and junior national teams, so remember that you’re focusing on the “Eredivisie”)

Eindhoven Kemphanen’s Facebook page (which posts mainly in English)

9pm Media (the league’s hockey photographers, worth a look even if you could care less about the league – the photography is just stunning, and you get a real sense of the spirit of the game overseas)

WSJPD? (What Should Jack Parker Do?)

3 December, 2010 / Kat

Tonight was hands down the weirdest hockey game I have ever experienced in my 28 years. Yes, Boston College defeated Boston University handily 9-5. Yes, Boston University has been over-ranked in the USCHO and USA Hockey polls for a few weeks. Yes, Boston College finally performed up to their talent level after a few weeks of off-play.

We had penalty shots, penalties that made no sense, goals scored mere seconds apart from each other, a change in goaltender for BU, BU players diving, BC players elbowing, shorthanded goals, power play goals – at one point, my husband said, “I think CBS College Sports ordered a smorgasbord of hockey activity for tonight’s game.”

And yes, BC’s Patch Alber has an old-timey physician’s name, BU needs to shoot the puck and realize that goals aren’t scored unless the puck physically enters the net, and BC’s goalie John Muse resembles a penguin attempting to launch off the ground when he’s making a save or counting off the last seconds of a penalty.

So if you’re BU, what do you do for Saturday night’s game at BC? What do you do for next week’s games against Northeastern and RPI? Who do you start at goaltender? Who is your first line? There is bound to be shake ups – and if there were not, fans would have the right to be livid – but how exactly does one reassemble this Terrier team?

Since I don’t even know where to begin, I leave it to you – if you were Jack Parker and Mike Bavis, what would you do?

Keeping The Faith: Why I Hold On To the Bills

3 December, 2010 / Kat

The glimmer of hope at the Bills-Pats game on September 26th. (Photo taken by Kat)

This is what being a Buffalo Bills fan in Boston is like.

It is going to work for sixteen Mondays every year and having your boss throw his hands in the air, sigh heavily and say, “Kat! Those Bills! So close!”

It’s your newest star wide receiver Tweeting his best Nancy Kerrigan impression (StarGames and Jerry Solomon, jump on that like a trampoline and sign him up.)

It’s your mother-in-law asking you for sixteen Sundays every year if your team lost again and asking you why you don’t root for that “Brady fella.” Continue reading

The Baldwins Are Taking Over Everything I Like

17 November, 2010 / Kat

The Baldwin family is taking over my life.

Tuesday afternoon, I received an email from Billy Baldwin, Binghamton class of 1985. Not exclusively to me, of course, but to me and thousands of my fellow Binghamton alums. Billy, who is the lesser known Baldwin by far (at Binghamton, when anyone would ask what he had been in, the stock answer always was, “the guy that dies in Backdraft“), has taken quite the shine to his alma mater as of late. His biggest contribution of note was when he led a successful campaign to save the wrestling program when America East stopped sponsoring the sport.

Now, Billy “Backdraft guy” Baldwin has emailed his fellow alums to lobby us to give to the Binghamton capital campaign. (Video wasn’t embeddable, so here is a linked screenshot.)

My first reaction: shouldn’t he be lobbying for himself? You really don’t see him in much anymore. Then I realized his more famous brother probably helps him out.

My second reaction: Paul Reiser wasn’t available? Tony Kornhesier? Heck, Progressive Insurance Flo? (Yes, all Bearcats.)

But that being said, it’s a good cause, given the dire straits outgoing NY governor Patterson has left the SUNY system in. Kudos to Backdraft Baldwin.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle Twitter account shared a blog post about the new Wegmans (the greatest grocery store in the history of mankind) commercials, starring…30 Rock’s Alec Baldwin.

According to the Democrat and Chronicle, the Baldwin-Wegmans collaboration came about when Baldwin mentioned to late night talk show host David Letterman that his mother refuses to live anywhere without a Wegmans close by, and then went on to pontificate about the wonders of the store.

This is a big get for the store so wonderful it was my baby brother’s first word. (You think I’m joking.) But the way this week is going, I half expect to get a video of Stephen Baldwin asking me to buy Buffalo Bills tickets next.