Men's Ice Hockey vs UMass-Lowell

Say you are driving along College Avenue and somehow end up crashing into Alfond Arena. Chances are that you will hit a solid wall…by the name of Scottie Darling. Darling is a star on a team that, to many, has overachieved this season returning the Maine hockey program to relevance. On February 20^th, Maine will take the ice against UMass Lowell. Maine, having a wonderful season, is 11-8-2 and controls 3^rd place in the East Hockey standings. Lowell isn’t too far away at 8-10-2. This game is a real deal breaker with both teams hoping for a NCAA Tournament berth. Maine hasn’t made a Frozen Four since 2004, and you, as well as I, know that they want to make it back badly this year.

Maine Hockey has its fair share of stars and future NHLers in the locker room as we speak. In the 2008 entry draft, Nick Pryor was selected in the seventh round of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, 208th overall by the Anaheim Ducks. One can only assume his bright career will continue to flourish. Along with Nick, Gustav Nyquist, a star forward, was drafted in the fourth round, 121st overall, in 2008 by the Detroit Red Wings. And to wrap up our future NHL players, we have Scottie Darling. He was selected in the sixth round of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft, 153rd overall, by the Phoenix Coyotes. Darling, along with the many accolades he has received throughout his career, is the only Maine goalie to record a shutout in his very first start against Alaska back in October.

A team loaded with All Star talent, a coach with something to prove, and many questions unanswered going forward, Maine Hockey is just heating up. February 20^th should be a night to remember.

Mike Mayberry

Mike Mayberry was my R.A. my freshman year. He stands very tall at around six feet four inches, and has a menacing laugh. He commands authority with an iron fist, but, with soft words and kind gestures, he’ll help you right through a tough breakup, make your room mate act right, and even help you with your history homework. Mike is an amazing person. He really helped me through a few tough situations and does it all with grace and confidence.

It took eating a dunkin donuts flatbread sandwich for me to realize all this about Mike. One day I ate a bad sandwich with rotten eggs in them. I got back to my dorm and immediately started throwing up everywhere, passed out, hit my head in the bathroom, and I was a mess. My roommate went and got mike and he sprang into action. He called UVAC and got me to the hospital safe where they gave me pain killers and really made my experience much better.

Mike really made good decisions and really helped me when I was at my worst.

The Daily Show

I guess most would consider The Daily Show with Jon Stewart a comedy, and possibly even a sketch, show, but I would have to say that it is just a reliable source for news as CNN and FOX. The Daily Show came on in the beginning of the decade and took America by storm. It was funny, had a good and intelligent host, and was on cable. All of these things are the recipe for a perfect long running comedic news show. I watched the February 3, 2010 edition of the long running program and I, having seen and enjoyed the show before, was expecting to learn a little and laugh often. As the assignment entails, the verb tenses and different uses of language are the things we are supposed to be commenting on, but the writing staff of the Daily Show must have been reading this assignment as they wrote the show.

In the business of television writing, it’s not too often that we find a blend of comedy, news, and good grammatical structure. The Show used the past tense in their reporting because all of the events that they were reporting on had happened the day prior. Since it is not a 24 hour-a-day news source, the stories are updated by the day, not the hour. This provides for easy verb tense dissection and a low chance of making English teachers unhappy. Also, the show being a news show, it can’t take a side on political issues (FOX, CNN, NBC…etc) and it does this by poking fun at Barack Obama’s name and then doing a story about how republicans are messing up the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.

This even form of reporting is why people tune into him every night and will continue to until he moves on to bigger and better things. Who knows? Maybe we’ll see him on NBC. I could get used to hearing, “And now…..Jon Stewart….your host of….The Tonight Show!”