In Defense of Friends

We mentioned a few weeks back that Alabama-Huntsville was enduring what we called a "nightmare scenario" with the WCHA and CCHA agreeing, in principle, to a full merger.

Our friends at SaveUAHHockey.com didn't need to be told that. They see what is going on. And thankfully, they aren't taking it lightly - certainly not taking it sitting down.

http://saveuahhockey.com/2011/09/05/how-to-help-urgent-action-needed/

"[T]here is a possibility of dropping the Division 1 Charger Hockey program to the Club level, and a decision could be made in early October."

WaP is a family blog. So let me just say that the first word in our two word response is four letters, starting with the letter F, and the second word is "that."

Long term, UAH needs a conference that it can call home. Short term, it doesn't seem to look overly promising. But if Chancellor Mack Portera decides to fold his tent early, we'll never know.

It's time to make our voices heard. Sign the petition.

http://www.change.org/petitions/uah-charger-hockey-should-soldier-on-and-thrive

You may remember that Tech Hockey Guide and WaP made a bit of a mistake in using change.org, which sends emails to petition targets on every signature, as a tool for our petition. After all, we were just hoping to show a bit of support for playing a few games. This is different. We WANT to bombard this decision maker with our numbers. We NEED him to see, full force, that our community wants UAH not just to survive, but to thrive.

Hockey at UAH isn't a novelty, not anymore. It's tradition. We, as a community, cannot turn our backs on tradition, not with so much about our sport about to change in the coming years. If UAH loses their program, it is a clear message to other schools that might be a little bit off the beaten path and outside of the "traditional" hockey areas: don't bother, you won't make it.

Please, sign the petition. Let the powers that be in Huntsville hear not just Charger fans but college hockey fans as a whole: college hockey NEEDS its southern outpost!

False Start, Trying Again

OK, so... about that petition...

Last week we brought up the idea of Michigan Tech and RPI playing each other in the near future, and, in league with Tech Hockey Guide, we put together a petition that would be sent to decision-makers at the two schools encouraging such an arrangement to be made.

Apparently, we should have done a little more research about where to host the petition. The site we chose, it turns out, not only sends an email out to the decision-makers every time someone signs the petition (we'd wanted to gather signatures and then deliver them... you know, like a regular petition), they also signed up everyone who signed to receive their emails, which we had been led to believe would not be the case.

Our most heartfelt apologies to everyone (including the decision-makers) who has been needlessly hassled by our poor choice of partnership with this particular site.

However, we do still want to do a petition, and after initial tests at a second site proved to be not much more than a huge joke, we decided that we'd have to do it in house, instead.

If you're interested in signing our petition - this time, 100% free from problems - surf on over to our new location right at Tech Hockey Guide and sign away.