“Woodward and Bernstein had Deep Throat, you have me,” said the Minnesota accent on the other line.
Strange calls frequently come across The Sun’s telephone wires, but rarely does an informer on par with Deep Throat solicit the sports section. This person baited us with information on a secret plot within ECAC men’s hockey. The mention of men’s college hockey piqued our interest.
But it was even better — it was a plot that sought to promote Harvard above and beyond all other ECAC schools. This piqued our interest even more.
“I’m just interested in why the Cornell student newspaper hasn’t published anything about this conspiracy, when I’ve read about it in USA College Hockey and in the Boston Globe,” the smug midwesterner sneered into the receiver.
As much and as juicy this story seemed — this combined the obsession of Cornell hockey and hatred of Harvard, arguably the two most important themes in the Sun sports section — it was pretty suspicious. Between the dozen or so of the hockey junkies, we pretty much check out every website pertaining to college hockey on a daily basis. Even the online college hockey forums, those hotbeds of rumors, didn’t seem to pick up this conspiracy theory. (Just a note, according to my extensive research, there has been no mention of a James Bond-esque plot in either of the aforementioned publications).
“Excuse me, I must not be following you. May I take your name?”
“I must be talking over your head,” he scoffed.
Well, no matter how offensive his tone was, he did have a point. We aren’t accustomed to strange people>
ling our offices to yell at us unless they are parents of an athlete or on a club sport.
“Please explain this to me, I really don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“Have you looked at this week’s poll. Cornell dropped in the rankings!”
Being the na