We feel it is important to respond to certain inaccuracies and ambiguities in the article. Below is a copy of our email to Mr. Hunt:
Dear Mr. Hunt,
My name is Dan, and I am one of the creators/contributors to the stutommies.com website, which you addressed in your column of Friday, January 23rd "Anonymous Vultures are circling for Eagles". I do want to sincerely thank you for the publicity, however I also need to respond to clarify a few points you made in the article. This letter is also being posted on stutommies.com.
The most spurious claim of your article is that stutommies.com - "the bloggers" - want head coach Mike Eagles' "head on a platter", due to the difficulties of this year's mens' hockey squad. Nothing could be further from the truth. As you mentioned in your opening paragraph, the website is a place for Tommies fans to congregate. And yes, sometimes to cry. We humbly attempt to provide a service for Tommies fans by providing a central "clearinghouse" of information. We post links to Tommies related newspaper articles (positive and negative). We post links to other websites of interest to Tommies fans (including the Daily Gleaner). And we do allow our faithful readers to comment on the articles and game recaps that they find on our site. It is a selection of these readers, or commenters, that have expressed their opinions on the future of the Tommies and the leadership of the mens' program. These comments can come from anyone, be they Tommie fans, $quirrels, the media... anyone at all. It should go without saying that the opinions of our site visitors do not necessarily reflect those of stutommies.com. We do not edit our comments, except for profanity, vulgarity or personal attacks - which, it should be noted, are few, thanks to the civility of our guests.
We, stutommies.com, support the hockey programs - mens and womens - of St. Thomas University unequivocally. Win or lose, no matter the players, coaches, leadership in place, we support our teams.
To the subject of anonymity, we agree. We are anonymous. Why? Because the site is not about us. It's about STU. We do not seek attention. And being anonymous, we do not pretend to be journalists. We do not "break stories". We do not engage in rumour-mongering. We simply provide a central source of information, and some occasional cheerleading, for the Tommies.
One final point of clarification. We at stutommies.com are completely independent. Your capitalization of the "F" in "Friends" may have been an editorial error, or intentional. It's not for us to say. But we are not affiliated in any way with the Friends of STU Hockey. We do provide a link to the CKTP radio broadcasts, and play-by-play announcer Randy Corey provides live updates from the road. Neither he nor the station are affiliated with the website in any way. Tommies player and Journalism student Jason Cassidy has agreed to repost his Aquinian articles on stutommies.com. However, neither he nor the Aquinian are affiliated with our website.
We appreciate your coverage of local sports, university hockey and the Tommies. However, we respectfully ask that you take the next available opportunity to clarify and correct the inaccuracies and ambiguities in this particular column.
Respectfully,
Dan
stutommies.com
I have e-mailed a response to Dan, the gist of which is, I feel I stated the mission and intentions of stutommies.com accurately, but I have a distaste for anonymous bloggers who can come on here and hurl accusations and not be accountable for them.
ReplyDeleteWe are blessed with a lesson in journalism by UNB's pet Gleaner writer, thanks Mr. Hunt, we will try to live up to your high standards
ReplyDeleteIn order to put this topic to rest, we have read Mr. Hunt's response, where he respectfully stands behind his article. We expect no less. Our major point of contention is that the article makes it sound that we - the operators of stutommies.com - are espousing the opinion of our commenters. In fact, the opinions of our site visitors are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of stutommies.com
ReplyDeleteThank you Beaverbrook. Somehow, I doubt that's your real name -- which underscores my point.
ReplyDeleteMr Hunt, remember we aren't sending letter to the editor here,nor to the university or even Mike Eagles, we are expressing our opinions in a closed environment and if you don't like it you don't have to come in and read.
ReplyDeleteSo rather than your patronizing advice why not just stay away from this sight? But I suspect you saw a chance to insert yourself into a debate your collegues have already covered probably while you were busy shoveling Kevin Dickies driveway, and this was your way into the discussion. Have you been checking this sight all day to see if people reacted to your column? I bet you have.
Only since I got the original e-mail from Dan, actually, Beaverbrook.
ReplyDeleteI come to the site regularly because it's a good site, bottom line and it gives me an accurate read of the mood of "Tommie nation" if you will.
I don't happen to like it when a good man gets carved up anonymously, that's all. But I'm not going to lapse into name calling and finger pointing. The column today also carries the discussion a little further, and proposes an idea that might help rebuild the Tommies: hiring Tom Coolen in some role.
That's my contribution to the debate and furthering the discussion.
There -- I won't say another word, except to, as I promised Dan, differentiate between a blogger and a commentator in next week's Friday column.
Have at it.
In my opinion, Mr. Hunt was simply expressing his opinion in today's addition of the Daily Gleaner... just as each of you do here at STUTOMMIES.COM. Why should he be criticized any more than any of you should. He chooses to express his opinion through his column and each of you choose to express your opinions here. At least he's puts his name on it... the same can't be said for so many of you.
ReplyDeleteBlake Hayes
ticket to the game $12
ReplyDeletehotdog $3
popcorn $2
parking ticket $10
UNB 8 STU 0 priceless
I would not only say the vultures are circling, I would guess that it looks like a scene from the movie "The Birds". If UNB had the Tommies as one of their teams, they would turn it into a club team and give the money to vollyball.
Mike Power wants Eagles to have his choice of either AD or coach??? Man, I hope that's the way I would get fired! Someone come up to me and say "okay you're fired....er by the way what job would you like in our company. I am not aware of anything he has done great since taking over from Jennifer....At least she got a ton of money for the ladies hockey. I even think she bought a new basketball for their basketball team!
ReplyDeletesorry,
ReplyDeleteI said Mike Power in my response, I meant Bill Hunt.
I am not one of the STU fans/alummni that thinks Mike Eagles is the problem. I am a firm believer that The coach is there to coach and the players are there to play.These 22or so players are old enough to know what to do and how they chose to do it is up to them.
ReplyDeleteI am not surprized to hear that some think Eagles should go ,because I have heard it,albiet I do not agree.
Bill Hunt is a UNB fan and he waiting for Kevin Dickies job to open up.
Oilslick
I don't think anybody in this city wants Kevin Dickies job. He is taking the fall for what Clint Hamilton started; the deconstruction of female hockey. He alone has to take the blame for opening that can of worms. For the mens side of it you can't blame tier two players for not being able to compete against UNB. I have not seen too many smart moves from the coach/AD sinse he took over, other than wanting to fund hockey to the limit and expense of the student body.
ReplyDeleteIt is Daily Gleaner night at game tonight maybe they will put Bill Hunt at center ice and they chuck pucks at him.Ha Ha
ReplyDeleteOilslick