Well, we’re pretty much in a news blackout time period for UMass hockey currently, which is probably a good thing since the news coming from other parts of Hockey East involve BC players playing chicken with the Green Line or BU kicking players off the team for things that happened during the playoffs (yet strangely they didn’t feel the need to discipline them back then, hmmm).  I’ll likely be taking some early looks at next year’s team and the conference sometime in the future but it likely won’t happen until after the Bruins’ season is over.  So hopefully not for a while.

One piece of news I did want to pass along though were the details of this year’s Pond Club Golf Tournament which will take place Monday, June 14th at The Orchards in South Hadley.  More information on the tourney and how to sign-up can be found here.  Now I admit, I hate golf.  If there’s no windmill involved, I’m not playing.  But I also know I’m in the minority in that respect and plus this is another way to help the hockey team while have a lot of fun and getting together with other UMass hockey fans at the same time.  Plus from everything I’ve heard The Orchards is a top notch course.  While I won’t be playing, I do hope to get out there to enjoy the festivities in some way.

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One other piece of news I want to pass along was that Martin Nolet was named the UMass Male Scholar Athlete of the Year.  Sometime it’s easy to forget that the whole reason these guys are on campus are to get an education so I’m happy to make sure to mention such an honor for Marty.

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Finally, I try to keep this space free of current event/political topics (even though I’m incredibly opinionated on both), but I did think it was worth passing along this editorial from the Globe on the importance of public higher education in the commonwealth.  Year after year Massachusetts continues to be at or near the bottom of the list of states in terms of support of higher education.  Make sure to relay to you local representatives that this simply is unacceptable and only hurts the state in the long run.