Category: Other/Non-Sports
I’d Like To Thank God Almighty For Giving Everyone So Much, and Me So Little
There’s alot of hate in my heart. The contempt I feel for my peers is unhealthy, and the hate I feel for rivals can be likened to Glenn Beck’s hate of black people.
So, as I sat, still fuming from the weekend (Basketball team, I am disappoint) and annoyed by the prospect of the prostate massage given to the 3 very average teams in tonight’s overhyped Beanpot (zomg, meaningless games) I tried to decide what Hockey East team I hate the most. The three teams to choose from are obvious. BU, BC and our ugly sisters at Lowell. There is no clear winner or loser in this group, as there is a plethora of reasons to hate every one of these teams. So, in the interest of fairness, lets do a pros and cons list.
Boston University
Every times I see Jack Parker I want to slap him. In fact, when discussing the possibility of a BU/Umass Hockey East playoff game at the Bill, I seriously considered throwing an overpriced drink at him. My hate is that deep.
Their students overwhelmingly have authentic jerseys that retail for about $100. Really? Why not just wear polos and sweater vests? Yes, it can be argued that maybe that just means they have good fans but I just say they have wealthy fair weather fans, and Player Hatin’ my friends comes down to despising the wealthy. Remember to send daddy the receipt.
Fuck Jack Parker
They have one sport, and not in the adorable Lowell sense, but more in a “you suck at everything else and won’t admit it” way. I got in a argument with some BU bitch and her response to this was “we don’t need other sports, we are good at hockey”. No, shitty argument, you are bad and should feel bad.
So smug in their “we are awesome at Hockey” that they charge $26 to get in to their “family friendly” arena. When you are charging nearly $30 to watch college hockey, then you really need a slap in the face. I guess they are recouping the losses for all the other sports they both suck at and no one watches.
They brag about Beanpot titles, like they mean anything.
Did I mention how much I hate Jack Parker?
Boston College
Not a Hockey reason, but I despise how everyone sees BC as the college that represents Boston. Ummmm, Its a CATHOLIC PRIVATE SCHOOL! It doesn’t speak for the average Massachusetts kid as the local media shoves down our throat. This is why Umass needs a D1 football team, we can’t let BC speak for the great state of Massachusetts. In North Carolina the locals root for UNC, not Duke. guess what, BC IS DUKE! Privileged Private school kids, not the average, blue collar, Massachusetts kid. I know no one who goes to BC, and I’m from Medford with three kids in my graduating class that got into Harvard. Not one went or talked about going to BC
I think those “Super Fan” shirts are dumb (yes I’m a hypocrite, welcome all “Minutefans” uggg)
I’m not going to get overly political, but I am against any religious education. Schools founded on the premise of a religious education (grade school and up) make me sick. I despise Notre Dame for this and I will not spare BC. To be honest, BC was my 3rd most hated school until I factored this in. I can’t not hate them for this.
I would hate them for hockey reasons, but It seems like their fans can’t argue because they don’t exist in large numbers.
Umass (Lol, not happening) Lowell
Our natural rivals, being state rivals, but the fact is they suck at doing this because they are not a worthy rival. I respect the hockey rivalry because it is passionate, intense and by the end of my first year of Lowell games, I have alot of mutual respect for their fans. We are in the same boat, being in an under-covered state school surrounded by pompous asses. That being said, this can’t ever be a true rivalry because, out of the gate, it is no contest. Umass is The University Of Massachusetts, the flagship campus, the only UMass that doesn’t need a city tagged on the end. Lowell is Lowell, they are a smaller sister school who has one D1 sport (and only because there is no more D2 hockey) If we did a tale of the tape between the two schools, it wouldn’t be a contest. Size, Academics, Alumni, Location all go our way. If Lowell was larger, independent and called “Massachusetts State” or something of the sort then maybe it would be a rivalry. Untill then, you are the ugly sister and you will like it.
No fight song. Hahahaha, maybe they can play Heroin by the Velvet Underground.
Worst. Scoreboard. Ever.
Who Do We Hate Most?
I don’t have an answer for this. I hate them all for different reasons, and devoid of an obvious rival I guess we will just have to sing during “sweet Caroline” BC Sucks” then add “Lowell sucks, Lowell sucks!” after spilling a jar of piss on Jack Parker.
Now If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go home and put some water in Jack Parker’s momma’s dish
-Matt
This Week In Vast Overreaction: Ballad Of A Thin Man
“and if your pissed off ’cause you think that I dissed you I rape your moms and we can make this a personal issue”
I’ll admit it, if I wrote this post yesterday, when I first heard about our sister school’s hockey blog post attacking the founder of Fight Mass, I would have been far more knee jerk and, frankly, profane. When I read their extremely wordy half attack half rebuttal post, I first off wanted to tell them to go fuck themselves (sorry for the dirty language RHHB, sad a blog that can shit talk everyone can’t deal with a dirty word) and secondly I wanted to call them out on half-assed swipe at our fine school (I’m fairly sure we are far ahead ULowell academically, for someone who wishes to reference Debate 101 obviously didn’t take logic. Obviously a school with double the student population would be funded more. Anything different would be socialist, and I would hate to label such a “pork barrel spending” hater like you as socialist).
However, the more I thought about it, the sadder and more indicative it is of their psyche. An insecure, bitter old guy who writes about sports involving underage youth takes a lighthearted swipe by a college writer on a week old blog as an attack on him. Typical reaction from a blogger who is out of touch from the fan base he supposedly represents. The UmassLowell fans I know (and I do know alot, given I’m from Medford) are able to take a joke, give a joke back and not revert to entirely condescending tones. As Max said in a previous post, RHHB is not the embodiment of true ULowell fans, he is only a voice for the post-graduate fans who take everything a bit too seriously. When Max and I graduate, which won’t be long away, he is a senior, we will continue to be fans. However, with a step into maturity, there would be a step back from grade school tactics on a hockey blog (thankfully I have 2 years to do this).
I’m not saying Max’s opinions were about retort. However RHHB’s response exceeded far a reasonable response, quickly turning into an attack post. While I will say that a good amount of space was given to the rebuttal of hockey related issues (issues that I feel Max or Derek or far more qualified to respond to) much of the post was a full on attack of Max’s unimaginative name for the blog (this coming from the uniquely generic “Ice is Life” blog, hey assholes at least our name refers to the team) Bands he likes (sadly Pitchfork ain’t hiring guys) and even name.
By the end of his post, he comes to the conclusion that Max’s comments on Lowell hockey were some veiled attempt at getting their blog to mention him (this coming from someone who called Max’s name pompous). The evidence? The fact that Max gave props to them as an influence for the blog. Yup, that was the evidence. He then proceeds to refer to Max as Baby Max (of course, a 22 year old is a baby when college life is only a distant memory) At the end he refuses to link or further discuss our blog (which didn’t stop him from trolling and leaving an asshole comment on our banner announcement)
The saddest part of this is that RHHB is so self interested and delusional that he couldn’t see the mutual aspects of both blogs. Rather than respecting the fact that Max obviously enjoys the writing of his site and rebut the point in a cool way, he became “blow things out of proportion guy” and decided to launch a personal attack on Max. At the end of the day, both Max and old man RHHB both are die hard fans of the niche sport of college hockey. School pride is what makes the sport great and its sad that one bad apple had to start lobbing grenades. At the end of the day, both Max and RHHB are writing for free on non revenue gathering sites, neither matters in the long run, its all for fun.
PS, RHBB’s mother is a cunt
Love,
-Matthew John Crispin Civello
(full disclosure, i’ve been talking shit to him on my twitter page)
(lastly, I know “Ice is Life” is a Keruoac reference, its still fucking dumb. Fight Mass is obvious and clear, Ice is Life sounds like something you would put on a generic sweatshirt for a 6 year old. Also, kinda funny you claim the guy who wrote on the road, its like having Born to Run be your anthem. Congrats, you are the New Jersey of Massachusetts.
*facepalm*
It’s come to my attention that a certain Lowell blog recently wasted several hours writing a dissertation about, well, me. I’m not personally going to respond to its direct claims at the moment cause, quite honestly, I haven’t read it yet. I’m going to try and not read it until the 14th, where it’ll serve as amusing pre-game material for Lowell vs. UMass (Matt suggested “drink for every contrived argument” but added “wait, I don’t want to die”). I’ll probably respond to it then, in my writeup of the game.
It’s certainly adorable to see full-grown adults writing personal attack pieces, and I’m amused that my little rant got such a wild overreaction, but I’ve done some thinking lately and realized that I don’t have as much against Lowell as a whole as I thought. The people I know personally who go to the school are, for the most part, quality people. Furthermore, let’s be honest here, it’s a few (admittedly rather vocal) apples on a blog and some message boards who are skewing my perception of Lowell’s fan base. The ones I know personally (who actually attended the school recently or currently) have a more humble opinion of their program. After all, they have one freakin’ D1 program in the whole school, who am I to deprive them of their fun? Hell, I would have outright rooted for Lowell last year had they been playing anyone other than BU.
Based on Matt’s reaction to the attack thesis (his thoughts are forthcoming), I have a feeling that, in a few weeks when I do read it, I’m gonna be a lot less amicable about the subject. But for now, I’ll just say thanks for the extra site traffic (likely an extra 4-5 visitors!) and good luck to your team the rest of the way. And now, back to your regularly scheduled hockey blog.
-Max
Oh please.
Oh, would you look at that, Lowell made NCAA tournaments in ’88, ’94, AND ’96! They’ve actually won a grand total of ONE more tournament game than we have. My fucking bad, I had no idea they had such a rich and prestigious history. Why, they’re practically the Notre Dame of ice hockey!
My point remains valid, kids.
-Max
Ladies and gentlemen…
…welcome to Fight Mass. A UMass hockey blog by and for UMass students and alumni.
My inspiration for this blog comes from a few of the established ones I’ve been reading throughout the ‘o9-’10 season, namely Fear the Triangle and Tri-Corner Blog, as well as The Ice is Life, which is admittedly a very witty and well-written Lowell blog LOL JK it’s a bunch of monkeys with typewriters trying to recreate a Curious George book and failing. And while those are all excellent in their own right, I hope we can blaze our own path with this one, focusing more on the student fan perspective to go along with analysis as this exciting season progresses.
We’re at about the halfway point of the year now, with the boys getting set to take on Union at the end of the month in the UConn holiday tournament. This break means that there won’t be much new to discuss, so I intend to use this time to recap the season’s happening thus far and to look at the big picture in Hockey East. I’ll be attending the UMass basketball game against Memphis in Boston on Saturday and I’ll be sure to write about that as well – this blog’s not just for hockey, although that is the main focus.
Right now it’s just me, but I hope to get others involved ASAP. Let me know if you’re interested in contributing to the blog. In the meantime, I’ve written up a long About section and I hope you check it out; it’s a lot of my personal background and what got me into UMass hockey, as well as other stuff about this blog and the team.
–Max
the fight mass dot com blog 