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| Kenny Brooks and Army's Thane Heller will once again cross sticks on Friday |
After a wild eight days, we're right back where we started from: Army will open the varsity rink at Pegula Ice Arena against the Nittany Lion men on Friday in spite of the ongoing federal government shutdown.
College Hockey News, citing two sources, reported on Tuesday that the stuck-in-limbo game had finally received the green light from West Point. Army followed up CHN's initial report on Wednesday with official confirmation.
This mess of what, fortunately, appears to be a non-story first entered the spotlight a week ago when, citing a Department of Defense directive resulting from the shutdown that began October 1st, the Naval Academy announced the cancellation of sporting events.
From there, chaos followed. Army immediately wiped out a couple of soccer contests, then seemed to reverse course last Thursday by announcing that athletic contests would go on as planned. One day later, College Hockey News' Mike McMahon reported that the declaration of victory was premature, as clearance was only given for games last week, with anything after that receiving review later. Penn State, McMahon later reported, began working on Plan B opponents in case Army couldn't show, with Canisius considered a prime target due to the program's shared connection with Terry Pegula.
Regardless, all's well that ends well, as they say, and this one looks to be on its way.
Next weekend, Penn State is scheduled to travel to Colorado Springs, CO to take on the Air Force Academy. Those games continue to be on the schedule, although whether they'll remain there is still a bit murky. There was a bit of good news on that front as well on Wednesday, as the Falcons confirmed that they will travel to Alaska to participate in a tournament this weekend, thanks to Alaska-Anchorage helping with travel costs.
"THE DAILY COLLEGIAN"
ReplyDeleteOctober 8, 12:00 AM EST
"Penn State Still Eyeing Army As Opponent" ... "Penn State would not confirm it is playing Army on Friday" ---- feeble, or what?
Who ran with a "non-story"?
ReplyDeleteFeeble, or what?
"Feeble" is your repeated failure to understand that I DON'T RUN WITH STORIES. Others do, and I pass them along through this blog.
DeleteAnd those others were very much justified in doing so. While the END RESULT made it a non-story in the final analysis, there were very legitimate concerns that Army would not be able to make the trip due to the shutdown, and it WAS a developing story for most of the past nine days. If I'm wrong..
1. Why have all three DI-playing service academies announce cancellations of sporting events due to the shutdown at various points?
2. Why did Penn State and Army both feel the need to announce that the game would go on as scheduled last Thursday despite those concerns?
3. Why did Penn State and Army feel the need to do that again today?
4. Why were 1-3 all widely reported by major media outlets - I'm not one, by the way, again, all I've done on this story is pass along what they say - in addition to the fact that PSU was actively seeking replacements in case Army couldn't show?
"Feeble," thy name is Rolf.
I'm done defending what I've done because, quite simply, it doesn't need to be defended.
Going to be in State College for the weekend. Do you know of any establishments who have been advertising that they will have it on?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I don't know of any specifically (being out of town doesn't really help with things like that)...almost positive you won't have an issue anywhere with TVs though, given that it's on BTN and the significance of the occasion.
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