Barely tolerated Toronto Star columnist Damien Cox highlighted the chasm between print media and newer forms of media in pretty unique ways on two consecutive days. On Monday, he penned a column saying Jose Bautista's surge in home runs this year should lead to questions about whether or not he's using steroids. The question is innocuous enough, if not for the fact that a Philadelphia Phillies blogger spent the better part of a week last year being a mainstream media whipping boy for daring to make the same suggestion about Raul Ibanez. There's perhaps a lesson to be learned from that, even beyond that nobody really cares what you write if you do it in America Jr.
Anyway, the next day, Cox penned this article about Paul Kelly and the Canadian Hockey Summit that is going on this week in Toronto. On first glance, it's about as shallow of a look into the NCAA/CHL debate that you can take. But then again, that's not so much an indictment of Cox, as it is of his medium. His column clocks in at just a smidge over 700 words, and I doubt he had that much more space to work with, compared to the 2000 words I spent on it last week--not counting linked reference material that adds a lot of depth--and I could have written more if I had wanted. Both forms have an audience they serve.
The article also mentions Indiana University potentially starting a hockey team. Commence the latest round of Big Ten Hockey Conference panic.
Next on my list of dubious sources, Tim Staudt took a break from his federal courthouse vigil for Jeff Smoker and wrote a Hartman-esque treasure hunt for a few valuable hints of information amidst a bunch of stuff that makes no sense. The stuff you may not have already known: 2014 is mentioned as a possible start date for Penn State, and the vote to keep shootouts just barely passed.
It also actually raises an interesting scenario with Notre Dame. If the Rapture came and all of the Big Ten schools ascended to heaven, would Notre Dame want to stick around in the CCHA? There'd potentially be openings in the WCHA, but is the WCHA still that much more attractive without Minnesota and Wisconsin? North Dakota and four Minnesota schools still gives you the opportunity for a fairly profitable league tournament. But if the issue is name brand opponents, people have at least heard of Miami of Ohio and the other Division I MAC schools in the CCHA. There wouldn't be a team left in the WCHA that your average potential Notre Dame hockey ticket buyer has heard of.
This ends up further down the page than it should have been, but former St. Cloud State assistant coach Eric Rud is the new head coach of the Green Bay Gamblers in the USHL, replacing Jon Cooper, who continued his meteoric rise up the coaching ranks by taking an AHL head coaching job. Rud was a pretty highly respected assistant coach, and had been in the running for some head jobs. As seems to be the trend, taking over a USHL team should give him some of the executive experience college teams seem to look for when hiring a head coach.