Fighting Talker

“The chances of me keeping my job are about this big.”

Warning: This following post is extremely obscure, especially to my friends/family who have no connection with The Ohio State University or its Men’s Hockey Program.

In the wake of this weekend’s disgraceful CCHA Playoff First Round Defeat to lower-seeded Northern Michigan, I have finally reached wits end with one man, one excessively-tanned man.

That man is John Markell… The OSU hockey coach.

Much in the manner of our Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence… please allow me to list my grievances against Mr. Markell.

• We have had our last two seasons ended early in the CCHA Tournament by D-III schools that under almost any circumstance, OSU should beat at any time, in any sport.
• Our roster has been in flux with players leaving early (Montgomery) or struggling with grades (Keserich and Montgomery)
• He ended last season with a 1 win in ten games collapse
• He has languished, Norv-like, at this university for nearly 13 seasons, winning a grand total of one trophy and a .480 winning percentage
• A program that used to be considered on the cusp joining the CCHA royalty of UM and MSU is now an also ran again
• He has allowed us to fall to second in terms of Ohio hockey programs behind Miami
• When we did qualify for the NCAA Tournament three-years running, we a scored grand total of two goals, crashing out in the first round each time.
• Nearly five years out from the CCHA Tournament title, it’s clear that no long-term gain was made from that
• Markell always appears to have just taken a belt-sander as a suppository behind the bench, only occasionally showing some passion to whimper at a referee or weep after losing at home to another CHA or Atlantic Hockey minnow
• His staff has admitted reading the USCHO message boards about him and his team
• He has bitched-out reporters about their use of adjectives… John - you coach, we’ll write.
• He has the charisma of a dead halibut, not terribly helpful when the program is starving for attention
• He has in the past, matched his tie and shirt to his inexplicably bronzed complexion and hair

Other grievances emailed in include:

• He and his staff appear to believe that OSU are the victim of some vast refereeing conspiracy.

I am sorry John, your time has passed.

Gene Smith, if you want to show the College Hockey world that you have any kind of commitment to this program doing anything other than hemorrhaging your money - he must be fired.

Does it make me wrong that statements like these make me very nervous?

In addition to [Andrew] Roberts and myself the group included the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, neocon Norman Podhoretz and theologian Michael Novak.

The president divulged with convincing calm that when it comes to pressure, “I just don’t feel any”. Why? His constituency, he feels, is the divine presence, to whom he must answer. Don’t misunderstand: God didn’t tell him to put troops in harm’s way in Iraq; his belief only goes so far as to inform him that there is good and evil. It is the president who must figure out how to promote the former and destroy the latter. And he is confident that his policies are doing just that.

Why does this make me so nervous? Am I biased? Would I feel any better if it was a Jew saying that? Or am I what O’Reilly calls a “Secular-Progressive” and am, in fact, exactly what’s wrong with America?

I don’t know the answer to that.

My first match report for the Screaming Eagles is up. Take a look!