Re: All Things DU XXV - Murray Up and Get The Chevy Out of The Repair Shop
Interesting confluence of personalities and board styles. Since I know most of them personally, here's my take:
Old Pio - I've known him personally since the mid 1980s and he's smart, articulate, entertaining and aggressive when he believes he is right, which is most of the time. Can outwrite and outthink most posters with his depth of knowledge which extends well beyond hockey. Mess with him at your peril, intellectually speaking. Sensitivity may not be his strongest suit, but this is a message board, not a support group. He's one of the very best posters around, and I'm really glad to see him on the boards with more frequency.
Duper - Also smart and well-read. Has a huge heart and a deep personal need to reach out to help the oppressed and to correct injustice whenever he sees it, as reflected in his life choice to relocate to the one of the most remote parts of Alaska to teach and help kids with the odds stacked against them. His hockey knowledge may not as deep as some around here, but his heart more than makes up for it. He is never afraid to call out his DU posting teammates when something doesn't see right to him, and usually, we are better for it in the long run.
Chris - Chris knows his hockey, and has been privy to a lot of inside stuff over many years due to his connections to people in the WCHA. This inside information informs his postings, and his personality is such that he will scrap online when he thinks people are misinformed, or being arrogant. His many years of battles with Randy May were classics around here. I know he enjoys a good online scrap, and that's just part of his persona.
Suze - I don't know her personally, but when she's not cheering on her hometown UAA Seawolves, she's been a huge supporter of DU over the years. She's also been very kind to host DU posters like dubbie31 and Co14ers when they went up to Alaska a few years ago. She's obviously a good person who deserves our respect, even when her arguments may have some flaws.
On this issue, Suze has seen what she believes to be video evidence that a UAA player was wrongly penalized for what she believes to be a clean hip check. We all look at video evidence through the filter of the team we follow - looking for evidence to back the assertion that our team is on the right side of the law and that the other side is wrong. Because she is firm in her interpretation of the video evidence, her logic dicates that all subsequent Denver medical, journalistic and coaching interpretations of the same event are therefore fundamentally flawed, if not outright misleading or lies. Her logic may be clear to make such a claim - after all, it's all on the tape, right? Not always.
The reality is far murkier than a straight video interpretation. What her argument lacks is the respect for the insights of people who are even closer to the situation beyond the video - the Denver players, coaches, medical realities and the journalistic reporting of the event, all of whom may see the same situation differently and may interpret the tape, the motivation of the players involved and the outcome far differently.
Most players, coaches and journalists in this league don't set out to lie or deceive anyone. They are simply presenting the version that they believe to be true. Everyone needs to open their mind a little bit and understand that a most UAA fans are going to look at the tape see just a clean check, and a Denver person is going to see perhaps something other than a clean check - perhaps a low blow where a star player was hurt. If the situations were reversed, Denver fans would see the clean check and UAA fans might claim something else. That's fine and expected that we bring our team-colored glasses to view the event. Suze's argument is fine up to this point.
But after that is where it falls apart. What we can't do is assume that the other side is 100% wrong and and we are 100% right based on our interpretations of the same event. One should never assume that the other side is lying or deceiving intentionally about their interpretation of the same event. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle, and we need to respect the other side's assertions as having some legitimacy.
