What, or who, is he smokin?

http://www.insidecollegehockey.com/7Archives/Columns/mike_check/0607/mc_0525.htm

Hey Sparky thanks for sending me the Mike Eidelbes column form Inside College Hockey.com You gotta like the column (at the link above). This is a good column, with some funny stuff, but with some interesting observations, twists and turns.

The first part about the Bimidji program is great. The writer makes some interesting points and places the blame for the possible demise of the Bemidji State Hockey program where it belongs, with the school’s president. Writer Mike Eidelbes travels into Spin City in the second part. Could he be any farther up North Dakota Coach Dave Hakstol’s ass? I know that I’m in the minority here, but I don’t necessarily think that a couple of underage college athletes drinking in public and encountering the long arm of the law is all that unusual. We all make mistakes, especially at that age. Maybe bouncing kids off the team, like Coach Mike Kemp did at Nebraska-Omaha is a little harsh, but they knew the coach’s rules and at least he stuck by his guns and did what he thought was right.

Coach Hakstol has the right, and maybe the obligation, to keep the exact punishment, if there was any, of his players private if he can. However, for Eidelbes to say that the Omaha players got off easy because they got booted off the team and will not have to face the unfriendly taunts of opposing fans, while the North Dakota players will bravely take the ice in Denver and face the vicious taunts and bad language of a bunch of pimply 18-year old geeks as drunk as they were when they got arrested is just nuts. I have to take his word for it when he says that he is sure that the coach took appropriate disciplinary action, but don’t try to equate missing the last 3-5 weeks of the season with having to face bad language in opposing rinks. You think they never get that? Wow!

The Beanpot letter he ran was really entertaining, unless you’re Hockey East Commissioner Joe Bertagna or BU Head Coach Jackie Parker. The disclaimer at the start is funny as hell, however. Gay has no relation to sexual orientation and retarded doesn’t refer to mental capacity? Did Eidelbes read the letter? As they say in Boston, this guy Eidelbes is wicked retahded; not to be confused with Ricky Ricardo.

Stu