I'd not written about this year's BU men's ice hockey team yet as i never quite got my finger on them. They started the year 6-0-4, grabbed the top spot in the polls, and then proceeded to tank, with a loss and tie Brown and a blowout loss to RPI. They lost all four games they played against BC, and became the first BU team in 31 years to finish last at the Beanpot. They turned things around a bit towards the end of the season, going on a run against the weaker teams in Hockey East, before playing Northeastern in both the final weekend of the regular season and the first round of the playoffs.

I write about them in the past tense as tonight they lost the deciding game in their playoff series against NU, and they are almost certainly not going to make the NCAA tournament (though I'll have to fiddle around with USCHO's Pairwise Predictor a bit to prove it). And while I'm never happy when a season ends, I think this probably the right ending for this team (as bad as it makes me feel for the two seniors on the team, who deserved better).

In some ways this year's team reminded me of the 2007-08 squad, another talented group that underachieved and missed the NCAAs. Both squads had skilled players, solid goaltending, and an apparent disinterest in playing a full game. Jack Parker called both teams out for a lack of effort and passion. Both teams had a sure-fire pro in his freshman year (Colin Wilson and Charlie Coyle) who put up good numbers but didn't seem present. There are differences between the teams as well - the '08 team had distinct captain issues, while this year's did not, for example - but in the end I think the similarities outweigh the differences.

Now, that '08 team came back the following year and put together what is probably the best season in BU history, winning every trophy they could en route to the national title. I don't know if this year's team has the same potential, but with almost everyone coming back, and hopefully coming back with a bad taste in their mouths for how badly they squandered this season, I am keeping my fingers crossed. The puck drops again in seven months.

Book Log 2011 #5: The Trial by Franz Kafka

A classic tale of a man, Joseph K., arrested for a crime never revealed and judged by a government that is equal parts cruel, aloof and bureaucratic. Or at least that's what I understand happens, as I didn't get past Joseph's meeting with the wife of the courtroom attendant, which happens fairly early on. As much as I identified with his plight at the hands of forces he could not control, there were too many other times where I'd really question Joseph's actions, to the point where I'd figure he did something illegal and was too stupid to realize it.

This was another e-reader selection, and maybe that had something to do with my disdain, all of the page turning compounding my frustration with Joseph. Anyway, it didn't work for me.

Book Log 2011 #4: The Great Typo Hunt by Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson

This was, in theory, a book right up my alley. Two guys road trip to correct typographical errors in public signage, and along the way help everyone improve their grammar and learn something about America. It reminded me of One Red Paperclip, albeit with less of a financial reward at the end.

The only problem was that I couldn't get past the writing, which never found an adjective it didn't want to cram into a sentence to make it more descriptive. In some cases the excess verbiage was probably not the right word to use. This quickly went from annoying to unbearable, and I bailed. I didn't even make it to the start of the road trip.