HOCKEYBEAR's Guide to Campus Destruction VII: University of Michigan, South Campus

Greetings once again, small creatures of the University of Michigan! HOCKEYBEAR can only assume that's what the acronym scUM stands for -- I probably should have asked someone at Michigan State or Ohio State before I destroyed their campuses.

Anyway, the day of reckoning you've feared since the CCHA schedule was released is at hand! The mighty HOCKEYBEAR, leading my indomitable team of Alaska Nanooks, is heading to Yost Ice Arena for the ultimate conference showdown. And I'm going to be making a few changes when I get there.

Before getting into those changes, I must tell you an AMAZING HOCKEYBEAR FACT! Did you know I can change my size at will? It's true! You can see it my famous intro videos. Here, I'm large enough to dwarf an icebreaker:

But one cut later, I'm small enough to fit in an F-16 cockpit. A little bit later, I'm back to normal space polar bear size, skating comfortably on the Carlson Center ice:

If necessary, HOCKEYBEAR can also shrink in size as well. You may think that, in this still from my 2011-12 season video, I'm standing on a giant hockey puck:

That's not true. I miniaturized myself and was standing on top of a regulation three-inch diameter puck. Saved UAF thousands in set construction.

My ability to change size extends to objects I'm touching when I expand or contract. Because you scUM have been so respectful to HOCKEYBEAR over the past several years, I will use my powers less to destroy your athletic campus and more to renovate it. Don't worry, destruction fans: there will be lots of collateral damage.

HOCKEYBEAR's Guide to Campus Destruction VI: Iowa State University

HOCKEYBEAR is not a bear to argue with success. When I created an army of radioactive ants to destroy the University of Phoenix, not only did they succeed in wiping out all of its locations in HOCKEYBEAR's plane of existence, they breached the very fabric between fiction and reality and caused the closure of 115 Phoenix branches in the universe you small humans inhabit.

So when HOCKEYBEAR fan MGoShoe requested that I follow up my demolition of the University of Phoenix with a rampage of DeVry Unversity, I knew what I had to do. I fueled up my F-16 and set course for the radioactive ant homeworld, where my army of ants had retired after completing their epic destruction. Having built themselves a quiet and tranquil anthill, they were reluctant to return to Earth for this extra mission but agreed on the condition that HOCKEYBEAR provide them with 100 megatons of Earth sugar.

Due to my affiliation with the University of Alaska, HOCKEYBEAR is required to buy American whenever possible. On my way back to Earth, I stopped by the Galactibank to convert enough galactic credits to Earth currency to purchase the sugar. Or so I thought. When I landed in the U.S. to buy my sugar pile, I was ENRAGED to discover that the price of sugar in the U.S. is more than twice its price in Canada!

He eventually tried to nick some sugar from HOCKEYBEAR.
His tea-drinking days are now over.

What could be the cause of this discrepancy? According to the Cato Institute, U.S. sugar prices are artificially inflated to support the corn industry! And what state gains the most from a propped-up corn industry? IOWA. HOCKEYBEAR has always been suspicious of Iowa's mysterious lack of hockey:

For the purposes of this map, HOCKEYBEAR defines the presence
of hockey to mean either a D-I or a D-III team.

And now I learn they game the political process so that their corn industry is protected and HOCKEYBEAR has to pay way too much for sugar! I am ready to RAMPAGE, but which school should I rampage?

You escape this time, Hawkeyes, because your nickname kind of sounds like "hockey." Also because HOCKEYBEAR wants to make references to The Home Economics Story.

HOCKEYBEAR's Guide to Campus Destruction V: California Institute of Technology

HOCKEYBEAR is not impressed by The Big Bang Theory. First, it's the Big Bang FACT - the ur-explosion from which even my greatest destructions pale in comparison. Second, it indulges in the laziest stereotyping of graduate students possible. If you're going to stereotype Caltech graduate students, at least stereotype them accurately. The Big Bang Theory's costume design goes to great effort to make Sheldon et al. appear anti-fashionable by outfitting them with ugly or bizarre clothes. In actuality, Caltech graduate students are, at worst, unfashionable in that they wear T-shirts, jeans/khakis/skirts, and comfortable shoes. Based on HOCKEYBEAR's observations, this is what about 80% of humans would wear 80% of the time in a casual workplace. It's like people who work at an institute of technology are more interested in SCIENCE than FASHION.

Antifashion. When antifashion and fashion collide, the resulting energy release
is large enough to keep Joan Rivers alive for another year.

Actual Caltech grad students. Note that their clothes are boring.
Photo from www.gradoffice.caltech.edu. For some reason they
had no photos with both male and female students. HOCKEYBEAR
is not impressed.

I spend a fair amount of time in Pasadena, checking out the progress at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I could just give the JPL the mass of accumulated aerospace knowledge that space bears have gathered over the years, but we have an agreement not to divulge these technologies to humans until such time as you learn not to be boorish, violent, embarrassments. Despite what you may have seen in Star Trek: First Contact, the development of warp drive technology is not the events that provokes alien species into instigating contact. Alien species are waiting until the time when humans evolve far enough as a species to form an intelligent and well-reasoned YouTube commentariat. Keeping humans for advancing too far into space before this happens is why HOCKEYBEAR keeps destroying the International Space Station.

I was dismayed to learn the Caltech was guilty of using thirty ineligible players between 2007 and 2011. If a school is going to blatantly disregard NCAA rules in order to preserve a class registration schedule that it feels is optimal for educating its undergraduate students, they should at least win a few games as a result. What they need is a HOCKEYBEAR to transform Caltech into an athletic powerhouse. Caltech, prepare to receive of generous helping of rage!

HOCKEYBEAR's Guide to Campus Destruction IV: University of Phoenix

Let no one say that HOCKEYBEAR is not a supporter of non-traditional education, especially since I have a non-traditional education myself. You small humans may know that the traditional education for terrestrial polar bears is very basic -- essentially just swimming lessons and a reminder to cover your nose while stalking prey. For space polar bears, the level of education is more advanced. We need to cover Bernoulli's principle and other basics of fluid mechanics, flight school and aerodynamics, and, or course, hockey. HOCKEYBEAR's education is non-traditional because I have obtained several advanced degrees in order to gain the knowledge necessary to have a successful career in epic destruction. I have Ph.D.s in aerospace engineering, optics (for laser hockey stick building), civil engineering (to know the weak points of structures that need to be destroyed) and vulcanology. I also have numerous honorary degrees; I am most proud of the day when UAF granted me an honorary MFA -- MASTER OF FRAKKIN' AWESOMENESS.

Despite HOCKEYBEAR's overwhelming support for education, both traditional and non-traditional, I am ENRAGED by many of the schools that provide non-traditional education in the United States. While I think there is nothing wrong with wanting to have a comfortable career in teaching, HOCKEYBEAR thinks for-profit education always goes wrong for a simple reason. The sort of human who decides to start a business on the model that "People don't know things they need to know. I want to make millions of dollars off of that" is a jerk. And, because that human is a jerk, he/she will decide to do other things like instruct recruiters to mislead potential students about the costs and benefits of attending his/her school, maintain extremely low graduation rates, extract millions of dollars in loans that eventually default from the federal government, and cheat on standardized tests.

Why wait for Superman when HOCKEYBEAR's already here?

The problem with destroying for-profit universities is that they open numerous campuses across the country, and so HOCKEYBEAR's methods for destroying traditional campuses would result in far too much collateral damage. However, their destruction is required, so HOCKEYBEAR will have to get creative. University of Phoenix, prepare to meet you're doom!

HOCKEYBEAR's Guide to Campus Destruction III: University of Virginia

The best place to find someone for your college or university's Board of Regents is the Milford Academy of Newport Beach, California. Regents should be neither seen nor heard, not even by someone with the super-terrestrial visual and auditory capabilities of HOCKEYBEAR. The only way that good regents can be detected is by the steady stream of sizable alumni donations and the steady inability of the state to pass legislation cutting higher education funding.

Unfortunately, for many state schools, regents are chosen by election or by gubernatorial appointment, and a human does not get elected or appointed by being neither seen nor heard. (HOCKEYBEAR could identify some humans whose chances of getting elected would improve if they were neither seen nor heard if he had much interest in non-galactic politics.) These humans realize that their position as regent gives them power and yet do not realize that with great power comes with great responsibility. They could use radioactive spider bites.

In Summer 2012, HOCKEYBEAR was enraged to see the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia abuse their authority and interfere with the academic leadership. While previous episodes of my Guide to Campus Destruction have involved fiery explosions, this week HOCKEYBEAR will destroy with subtlety, deviousness, and minimal property damage. The University of Virginia will receive my vengeance, served very, very cold!

HOCKEYBEAR's Guide to Campus Destruction II: The University of Georgia

HOCKEYBEAR was very sad to hear that my old pal Neil Armstrong died recently. I was on the committee of space-faring species that welcomed him to the moon, along with Flipper, Lassie, and Mr. Ed. That's the part of the moon landing that the government tries so hard to keep hushed up. What HOCKEYBEAR found really confusing was how the news media reported on the death of a human hero. The Anchorage Daily News had the headline "Neil Armstrong, first man to walk on moon, dies at 82." CNN had a video report called "Armstrong, first man on moon, dies." HOCKEYBEAR thinks there are three types of humans who do not know why Neil Armstrong is famous: 1) those who are too young and thus unlikely to purchase newspapers or cable; 2) those so unfortunate that they did not receive a proper education and thus likely to also be too unfortunate to afford a newspaper; and 3) those too stupid to know who he is and who are unlikely to be interested in keeping up with the news. HOCKEYBEAR's point is YOU DO NOT HAVE TO EXPLAIN WHO NEIL ARMSTRONG IS. Every human interested in paying for the news knows who he is!

Most humans agree that the prominent national media has grown quite complacent. HOCKEYBEAR sees this in the reports on the foot-ball game where the small humans of Michigan were defeated by the less-small humans of Alabama. ESPN's Gene Wojciechowski, by no means the most odious "reporter" at that network, filed a story about how the less-small humans of Alabama "played with a purpose" and were "hungry" to win. HOCKEYBEAR has no doubt that this is true, but I also have no doubt that the small humans of Michigan "played with a purpose" and were "hungry" to win. That is not news, only meaningless cliché. HOCKEYBEAR is not impressed.

HOCKEYBEAR is not impressed.
Original photo by Paul McCarthy.

Meanwhile, the student reporters at The Michigan Daily were ready with two separate analyses dissecting the foot-ball strategies and execution that resulted in the defeat of their small humans. Unlike reporters at big media outlets, who are relatively secure in their jobs and can afford to be lazy, student reporters are fighting to make names for themselves and these days are producing better reporting than the "professional" media. HOCKEYBEAR is, of course, most interested in hockey than foot-ball, and notes that Matt Slovin of The Daily produced the most important hockey journalism of 2012 by reporting on the UNHOCKEYBEARLIKE shenanigans of the Kitchener Rangers. The newspaper has since "clarified" that story by apologizing that it did not include facts that were not known at the time the story was published and would not have come out in the open if the story had not been published. HOCKEYBEAR is happy to see that steps are now being taken to cut down on cheating in the OHL, even if my favorite OHL team, the Windsor Spitfires, were punished. None of these steps would have happened without student journalism.

Last time I demonstrated a fairly standard campus destruction on North Campus. In columns to follow, I will show you subtler ways to destroy a campus. To show you how destroying independent student journalism can make destroying a campus much easier, The University of Georgia will tremble beneath my rage!

HOCKEYBEAR's Guide to Campus Destruction

Greetings once again, small humans of Michigan! I, HOCKEYBEAR, destroyer of planets, planetesimals, continents, nations, states, provinces, universities, colleges, etc., am pleased to announced that I will be writing a guest column at the Hoover Street Rag during college egghockey season!

Sometimes, as I curl up in my den to relax after completing a destructive mission of vital importance, I think back to the fear and trembling I leave in my wake, which leads my to think of Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard - a great northern soul, just like HOCKEYBEAR - and I ask myself, "Is it all worth it, HOCKEYBEAR? The destruction, the collateral damage, the smoking craters? Wouldn't it be better to just relax in my den, venture out occasionally to eat every part of some Chena River fish and some locally-grown potatoes, and pursue a life of quiet contemplation?"

But eventually I come to my senses and say Fah! to that line of thinking. Destruction can be a force for good. Destruction can inspire, or pump up, a crowd, as viewers of my videos are well aware. Destruction is necessary so that the old can be replaced by the new. Nowhere is this more true as in the modern academy, where new advances in knowledge and in technology make constant rebuilding and renovation necessary. With those thoughts in mind, I present to you:

HOCKEYBEAR's Guide to Campus Destruction!

The naive reader may think that my first column will be about how to destroy the University of Alabama, the first opponent the small humans of Michigan play in egghockey. But that is not the case: HOCKEYBEAR has no interest in your dull egghockey rivalries. The University of Michigan is clearly superior to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa because it has a high-level hockey team, and Alabama does not. The finest institution of higher learning in Alabama is Alabama-Huntsville, a school that bravely tries to compete in the highest levels of college hockey despite being located in a sweltering southeastern clime.

Instead, the first campus I shall destroy in my column is one that will hit close to home for many readers from Michigan, but fortunately, an adequate distance away from home itself: North Campus shall feel my wrath!