See the little thing sticking out above the tree line?
No? Here, let me zoom in.
See it? That building off in the distance? Thats Fox Hall. It’s a dormitory for the University of Massachusetts Lowell. I graduated from UML in 2004. 20 years ago.
That building was important to me because I had a show on the campus radio station and our transmitter was on the roof. The station itself was in another building in my day, but today the station is in Fox Hall somewhere.
Fascinating, eh?
Tomorrow afternoon my step son and I are going to a hockey game. It’s my first hockey game in person since… 2016? 2018? I can’t remember. It’s my first NCAA hockey game since 2004.
I graduated from UMass Lowell. My step son currently attends the University of Vermont. Both teams are in the Hockey East conference and… well… both teams kinda suck. UVM is in 8th place (out of 11 teams) with a 3-3-1 record in conference and a 4-5-1 record overall. UML is in 10th place with a 2-6-1 record in conference and a 5-9-1 record overall.
I expect the game is going to be evenly-ish matched but also kinda crappy. I don’t care. I’m looking forward to spending an afternoon with Harry, probably trash talking each other into oblivion. I tried to get myself a UML hockey t-shirt to wear but I failed. Oh well. The Vermont fans in the building will know that they have a foreigner in their rink by me being obnoxious. I used to be a pretty obnoxious fan back in my minor league season ticket days.
It’s going to be fun.
From 2000 to 2004 I had my second stint as a student at UMass Lowell. During that time I had a show on the school’s radio station. We tried to run a talk show and for a while there it worked pretty well. We had segments with the head coaches of the men’s hockey and basketball teams. The hockey spots in particular were a lot of fun. A few times we had the director of athletics on as well.
It ended when the director of athletics sold out the station to the local newspaper. When the bullshit went down I vowed that as long as that director worked for the university to not have anything to do with the athletics department or the paper again. I think it’s been 18 years and I’ve stuck to that vow.
I almost broke it two years ago. Maybe bent more than broke. We were going to go to a UML at Vermont game with Bellana. I don’t remember why, but we didn’t get to the game.
When I found out Harry was in the Vermont pep band I thought about trying again. Obviously Covid will keep us away, but I still googled the UML athletics department staff. None of the people involved with fucking my radio station were there. I googled the director’s name and found that he retired in 2018.
I am free to follow my alma mater’s hockey team again.
I’m still never reading that shit rag of a newspaper though.
Inside the Red Head's Head 