(click to enlarge)
St. Matthew’s House Times featured in Pinnacle Magazine’s highlight on FGCU Civic Engagement
Leave a Comment
Print Work
Feature story – Hockey Primetime
Bolts Bolster blue line by going young and cheap
Young and cheap.
That was Tampa Bay Lightning General Manager Steve Yzerman’s mantra at the NHL trade deadline.
“We’re looking for young guys, and for guys whose contracts are appropriate,” Yzerman said Monday. “But we’re obviously trying to find good players, and good players that don’t make a lot of money. And that’s not an easy thing to do.”
Yzerman was successful in his cost-effective quest as he added defensemen to bolster his team’s struggling and injury-ridden blue line in three separate deals for Toronto’s Keith Aulie, Detroit’s Mike Commodore and Ottawa’s Brian Lee.
“I came into today not expecting to do a whole lot, but we’re pleased with the outcome of the afternoon,” Yzerman said.
Coveted by the Lightning, the 22-year-old Aulie was acquired in exchange for 2009 first-round selection Carter Ashton. The 6-foot-6, 217-pounder had split the season between the Leafs and their American League affiliate the Toronto Marlies.
Aulie only registered two assists and a minus-2 rating in his 17 appearances with the Leafs this season, but he certainly knows how to throw around his brawny frame since he has totaled 41 hits and 28 blocked shots. He also is familar to coach Guy Boucher. Aulie was a member of Canada’s 2009 World Juniors Gold Medal-winning team and Boucher was an assistant coach.
NHL organizations crave size on defense. It is particularly vital in the Southeast Division, which boasts potent forwards in Eric Staal, Alex Ovechkin, Kris Versteeg, among others.
Aulie will be joined by Lee in neutralizing top-end opposing forwards.
To obtain the 24-year-old Lee, Matt Gilroy was sent to Ottawa. The 6’3, 206-pound Lee was a first-rounder in 2005, but struggled to remain in Ottawa. He split most of his career between the Senators and their AHL affiliate in Binghamton. Lee registered one goal and seven assists in 35 games as a Senator this season.
“Bryan Murray called me this afternoon and we had not had any previous discussions. He asked about Matt and we liked Brian Lee,” Yzerman said. “We think he’s still a prospect. He’s a young guy with some potential. I think the trade was a good fit for both clubs.”
The final backliner to be obtained came without much sacrifice by Yzerman as he landed Commodore from Detroit for a conditional seventh-round pick in June’s entry draft. If the 32-year-old Commodore plays more than 15 regular-season games and the Lightning make the playoffs, the Red Wings will acquire the draft pick.
The 11-year veteran brings Stanley Cup experience to Tampa Bay. Commodore was a member of the 2004 Flames squad that lost in the Cup Final to Tampa Bay, and was key to the 2006 Stanley Cup Champion Carolina Hurricanes’ defense corps.
The well-traveled Commodore has posted 23 goals, 83 assists and a minus-7 rating in his career. Commodore signed a one-year deal worth $1 million with Detroit last summer, but failed to land a regular job in the lineup. He registered two assists and a plus-3 rating in just 17 games as a Red Wing.
http://www.hockeyprimetime.com/news/features/bolts-bolster-blueline
Bye, Bye Barbie – Hello BlackBerry
As technology is filtering down to younger and younger generations (I have a friend who gave his three-year-old niece his iPhone when he upgraded to the 3G. No joke.) there is a rise in the concern of its effects on the developing brain.
Being born in the late-1980s, I’m the first generation to literally grow up in a digital world. Somewhere in the depths of a scrapbook, there’s baby picture of me poking away at an IBM computer the size of mini-fridge. When I was 10-years-old, my parents gave me my first desktop Gateway. I filmed and digitally edited my 13th birthday party, and the same year I got my first cell phone – a silver Motorola flip phone the size of a brick. I don’t have veins, I have wires.
Me with my mom, first taste of digital life
Question is: is the digital world helping the Internet generation utilize our brains, or are we just distracting it with multitasking overload?
There are times, I’ll admit, my digital savvy has been more distracting than productive. I’ve fiddled away hours clicking through Facebook statuses or played mindless hours of Guitar Hero until my thumb nearly cracks off.
Last week, my honors reading class at Florida Gulf Coast University discussed of Don Tapscott’s “Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World.” Our class of seven (plus one journalism professor to keep us on track) seemed to all agree that the baby boomers’ implications that NetGen-ers lack concentration, productivity and retain less information aren’t all true.
Tapscott wrote about interactive technology, and how regularly playing an action video game can change how the brain processes information.
John, an outspoken, bearded philosophy major can vouch for video games, using Halo as an example. “You notice your radar, how much ammo you have, where your teammates are, how much life you have left all while you’re having a conversation with your team on a headset,” he says. “We are able to instantly compartmentalize every aspect of the game.”
I guess it’s no surprise teenage boys lock themselves into their bedrooms for hours at a time, committing virtual massacres inside their TV screen: there’s a hell of a lot to process simultaneously.
Audrey, a soft spoken 21-year-old from Malaysia, takes multitasking to an entirely new realm. She says in order to concentrate, she listens to Chinese music (one of four languages she speaks) as she reads her textbooks that are written in English, writes her blog in English all while switching back and forth from Facebook.
She does admit the the United States’ reliance on technology has made her a little lazy since moving to the states to attend college. “I grew up in Malaysia, and we had to memorize a lot,” she says. “Here, we copy and paste. I think it has to do with culture.”
But why memorize when we carry around Google on our iPhones?
As much as my generation is reliant on our BlackBerrys to help us find the nearest coffee shop, I think it has to be more with efficiency than laziness. The world moves faster than ever, and there’s an increasing urgency for productivity. If Merriam-Webster says “google” is a legitimate verb, then Google I will.
— My guest post on www.kylealacy.com, author of Twitter Marketing for Dummies
Club hockey: FGCU’s Division III team loaded for bear
ESTERO — Earlier this season, Florida Gulf Coast University hockey player Nathan Altman was benched during the last 10 minutes of their game against Georgia Tech. The problem wasn’t that the 6-foot, 170-pound sophomore was under-performing. He wouldn’t stop scoring.
“It just seemed like every time Nathan touched the puck it was just going in,” head coach Evan Crawford said. “It didn’t matter if he tried to pass it initially, it just ended up back in his stick and he would score. I think he had had like four goals. It was enough.”
Altman’s Midas touch has carried on throughout the season, notching 42 goals and 16 assists for 58 total points in 27 games. The Tarpon Springs native’s consistent offense has ranked him third in total goals (42), seventh in total points (58), and second for game-winning goals (6) in division three of the American Collegiate Hockey Association.
Right behind Altman is 18-year-old freshman Kelly Johnson, who has recorded 20 goals and 17 assists in 23 games. The 6-foot-1 forward is one of eight freshmen who are helping lead the Eagles to their second straight year as contenders in the ACHA national tournament. Last season, the Eagles placed second, losing to Grand Valley State (Mich.).
As the ACHA National Championship, hosted by FGCU, looms in early March, 20-year-old Altman isn’t overwhelmed by the pressure to make constant tallies.
“All the lines have been able to score goals,” he said. “So if I’m not putting them in, someone else will.”
The Eagles have been steadily putting in goals with the help of the coaching staff — all former FGCU hockey players. Crawford and assistant coaches Alex Lymber and J.D. Davidson all wore FGCU sweaters in the 2008-2009 season.
For the 22-year-old Lymber, the chance to coach his former team to a first place title is a little taste of redemption.
“I wish we would’ve done it last year,” he said. “but this year I think we’ll win.”
Despite a fairly young team consisting of primarily freshmen, sophomores and only one senior, the Eagles are relying on a core team of veterans to lead the rookies through the national tournament. This season, Division III lost junior Jason Almcrantz and sophomore Steven Gutowitz, both All-American players, when they moved up to the Eagles’ Division II team.
Lymber foresees Altman, along with sophomore forward Mike Fowler, 19, and junior forward Scott Short, 20, as returning players who will fill the skates of Almcrantz and Gutowitz.
When the ACHA National Championship kicks off March 10 on the Eagles’ home ice, Germain Arena, the only opponent in the Southern Division FGCU is concerned with are the University of Central Florida Knights.
“We played them four times and we crushed them the first two, lost the third and won the last,” Lymber said. “In the South, we’re far superior from everyone else.”
Currently, FGCU is ranked number one, followed by UCF and Loyola University (Md.).
For Altman, he only has one wish for this year’s national title game.
“We want to play Grand Valley State again,” he said. “And this time, take them out.”
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2010/jan/31/club-hockey-fgcus-division-iii-team-loaded-bear/
Food or First Amendment rights: FGCU students face tough choices (WITH VIDEO)
ESTERO — College students are known for their appetites.
Some Florida Gulf Coast University students were hungry enough to trade away their First Amendment rights for a free meal.
When the American Democracy Project came to FGCU to educate students on the importance of First Amendment rights, more than 200 lined up in the student union for the event that advertised, “Live free or eat free: You can’t do both!”
“Certainly free food reaches college students, so we’re drawing them in that way,” said Lyn Millner, an assistant professor of journalism at FGCU. “Once they’re here, they’re in for some surprises and they’re in for an education.”
The lessons weren’t given through professors and textbooks, they were taught by a staff of actors, or goons, that delivered the message through performances and a healthy dose of comedy.
“I think they’re expecting to get a free meal, have some fun and learn a little bit,” said Millner. “But I don’t think they are prepared for the power of the event.”
The actors, a mix of students, professors and American Democracy Project organizers, staged performances to “arrest” those accused of exercising their temporarily revoked rights: freedom of speech, assembly, religion, grievance, and press.
Student organizers set the stage and transformed the student union cafeteria to represent an oppressive society, complete with an entrance gate lined with guards, a jail and a dictator’s lounge.
Silent protestors walked through the line of students with duct-taped mouths, carrying signs telling the true stories of oppressed people in other countries.
Sophomore Melissa Bell, 19, found the event very powerful.
“We’re so spoiled to the freedoms that we have obtained (in the United States),” Bell said, “that we don’t realize in different countries what they’re put through on a daily basis.”
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/sep/24/food-or-first-amendment-rights-fgcu-students-face-/
