2018-02-19

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Monday, February 19, 2018

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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Bucks stopped The No. 22 Michigan basketball team earned a huge win over No. 8 Ohio State on Sunday afternoon.

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GOVERNMENT

Anti-LGBT clergyman to join Civil Rights board ROSEANNE CHAO/Daily

A timely solution? Administration announces end of Michigan time Beginning in May, University will put end to tradition maintained since 1930s MAYA GOLDMAN Daily News Editors

LSA sophomore Lexi Michaels wasn’t expecting to be late to her Psychology 280 exam. In fact, she thought she was early. But when she walked into the testing accommodations room a few

minutes after 2:30 — she’d run there right from her last class — she realized the exam was not being administered on Michigan time, and everyone else had already started.

“My expectation was that it would (start on Michigan time), because that’s what most of my classes and exams start

on, even if they’re in a testing accommodations room,” Michaels said. “And it didn’t. I walked in really flustered. I was like, ‘Are they going to let me take the exam?’”

After the initial scare, everything turned out fine for Michaels. She was still given a full two hours to take her exam, and no one was angry at her for coming in

late. However, start time confusion is common at the University of Michigan, and the administration has decided it’s time to take action.

Starting May 1, no University classes will run on Michigan time, the 10 minute late-start built into most undergraduate classes at the University. Michigan time is a See TIME, Page 2A

Governor Rick Snyder appointed Ira Combs Jr. to Civil Rights Commission MAEVE O’BRIEN Daily Staff Reporter

Gov. Rick Snyder recently sparked controversy by appointing Bishop Ira Combs Jr. to the Michigan Civil Rights Commission. Combs, a Republican and Pentecostal minister in Jackson, is wellknown for condemning proLGBT legislation. However, Snyder said he appointed Combs because of his background in fighting for racial justice and people with disabilities.

In February 2017, Combs outwardly opposed an ordinance that would ban discrimination against

individuals in the LGBT community. The Jackson City Council eventually passed the ordinance with 5 in support and 2 against the vote.

Combs’ anti-LGBT record dates back farther than 2017.

He has supported anti-LGBT lawsuits, including defending marriage discrimination against same-sex couples. He also opposed the formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance at Jackson High School.

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission is an eight-person body that investigates civil rights complaints and proposes legislation to the governor.

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Second annual Hijabi Monologues Event Arab Domino’s Xpressions discuss unique pressure and identity CEO talks

CAMPUS LIFE

CAMPUS LIFE

showcases dance, skits

Event was created last year in response to resurgence of hate crimes against Muslims

Event by Arab Student Association hosts 1,400, discusses transformation

Speaking of their experiences wearing the hijab, the pressures hijabi women face in the United States to compromise their identity and the unique significance it carries in their own lives were several hijabi women who spoke as part of the second annual Hijabi Monologues commenced Friday night in the packed Rackham Amphitheatre.

LSA sophomore Ayah Kutmah, co-coordinator of Hijabi Monologues, said the annual event was created last year after the presidential election to combat a surge in hate crimes against Muslim women.

“Last year was much more reactionary in a sense that as we did it specifically in response to Trump and the increase in hate crimes, but this year, not to say that the hate crimes and Islamophobia doesn’t exist, it was a continuation of giving people voices,” Kutmah said.

Some of the speakers spoke of the insensitive comments they’ve received in their hometowns and the Ann Arbor community, and how even in a progressive city, Islamophobia still occurs. Other women spoke about their decision to wear the hijab and how their encounters with the community were modified.

LSA junior Alyiah Al-Bonijim,

RACHEL CUNINGHAM Daily Staff Reporter

On Saturday night, close to 1,400 students, faculty and community members flocked to the Power Center for the Performing Arts to attend Arab Xpressions — the University’s annual showcase of Arabic culture. Xpressions is organized by the Arab Student Association, and featured Arab dances, skits, poetry and student talent to celebrate the beginning of Arab Heritage Month. It is the only Arab culture show produced on such a large scale at the University of Michigan.

LSA seniors Jad Elharake and Haleemah Aqel were the hosts of the event. On stage, they described how Arab Xpressions had transformed in terms of attendance and venue, year by year. Starting in the dorms, it was later moved to the Angell Hall Courtyard computing site –– commonly known as the Fishbowl –– then the Diag, the Michigan League and finally the Power Center.

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fellow co-coordinator of Hijabi Monologues, said she hopes people will walk away from the event with a greater understanding of the complexities of being a hijabi woman.

“I think the main takeaway from the event is the nuances every hijabi women has in her experiences wearing the hijab, as well as what led her to wear the hijab,” Al-Bonijim said.

“Because even in the narrative of Hijabi women, it tends to be homogenous, where it doesn’t take into account our various identities, that influence why we wear it.”

LSA freshman Nada Eldawy explained she came to the event partly because of her sister’s recent decision to wear the hijab.

“It was really nice to come and hear people’s personal narratives, because I feel like

there’s a story that’s always spread about the hijab as oppressive, and I liked hearing people challenge that stereotype,” she said. “Especially because my sister recently started wearing the hijab and it was nice to hear people who had similar stories to her, and that it doesn’t have to be a stigma.”

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REMY FARKAS

Daily Staff Reporter

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INDEX

University alum, Patrick Doyle, talks methods for reimagining business

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The Hijabi Monologues focused on the stories of Muslim women who wear the hijab, where women had the chance to tell their stories and unique experiences to a crowd in Rackham Friday.

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economics, analytics

Vol. CXXVII, No. 78 ©2018 The Michigan Daily

Patrick Doyle, CEO of Domino’s Pizza, discussed the importance of data analytics as part of the Economics at Work lecture series Friday. Doyle graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in economics in 1985 and began working at Domino’s in 1997.

Doyle began by discussing the company’s revitalization under his direction and illustrated their three-step plan for success. The company began by refining their pizza flavors, improving customer convenience and developing their data analytics system. Since the implementation of these programs, Domino’s has seen dramatic progress in their business.

In 2009, Domino’s released a commercial depicting customer dissatisfaction in the taste and quality of their product. In the advertisement, Domino’s emphasized it’s desire to improve their flavor and brand.

“To date, we remain the only brand ever to go out and spend tens of millions of dollars to tell customers exactly how crappy our pizza is,” Doyle said. “We See DOMINO’S, Page 2A

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News

2A — Monday, February 19, 2018

MONDAY: Looking at the Numbers

TUESDAY:

By Design

WEDNESDAY: This Week in History

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THURSDAY: Twitter Talk

FRIDAY: Behind the Story

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ON THE DAILY: ANN ARBORITE PROVIDES DRESS RELIEF Prom may be a rite of passage for most high school students but often poses a large financial burden. Ann Arbor resident Jan Wery, along with several other volunteers, founded the Prom Dress Project — an organization that collects donated prom dresses and sells them for $25 or less — to address this issue.

According to Wery, donations for the prom dress sale continue to grow every year, and this year, the project has once again achieved a new record of donations. Now in its sixth year, this year’s annual sale will be the biggest yet. The event will feature 500 long prom dresses and 100 shorter dresses, all between $10 and $25 and including sizes 0 to 20.

DOMINO’S From Page 1A launched on Monday with that advertisement and by Wednesday we were up double-digits… it was the strongest quarter in the history of public restaurant companies at the time.”

Domino’s recognized the advantages of redesigning their stores and identifying more

Volunteers have helped to build dressing rooms for the event, which will take place March 11 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Holiday Inn on Plymouth Road.

Volunteers will also be available to help students pick out and try on dresses.

“It’s gotten so much bigger and so many donations,” Wery said in an interview with MLive. “The community is so generous. The dresses that come in are just really beautiful.”

In prior years, Wery stored the project’s donations in the basement of her home, but this year’s donations have outgrown that space, so Wery rented storage to accommodate the increased amount.

According to Wery, she first conceived the idea when she was working in an Ann Arbor thrift shop. Wery was disappointed students didn’t shop for prom dresses in the thrift shop, despite the store having beautiful dresses available.

“Girls weren’t coming to shop for a prom dress at the thrift shop. ... But there were some very pretty dresses,” Wery said. “That’s when I decided we’ve got to have a special place and a special day for girls to come for prom dresses.”

Wery also noticed how the prom dresses the thrift shop received were in great condition because most students wore their dresses for only one night. While most dresses donated to the

project are in excellent condition, Wery cleans all of the dresses and makes small repairs when necessary to make sure every dress is stunning.

Wery said her favorite moment is when a girl finds a dress.

“It’s just so much fun when they get the dress that is meant for them,” Wery said. “They put it on and the smiles are just unbelievable.”

The group welcomes any student in the Washtenaw County area to come to the event and look for a prom dress.

Wery emphasized the group accepts donations year-round. To donate a dress, send an email to A2promdressproject@comcast. net.

convenient locations for customers.

They realized the effects of location on their customer’s purchasing habits and positioned their stores accordingly.

“People will not walk past five other pizza places to pick up a pizza,” Doyle said. “I don’t care how good your pizza is, convenience starts to override the quality of the food. Basically, people will not go more than a mile to pick up their pizza — for the most part, they won’t go more than

a half a mile — this means we have to have more stores.”

Doyle also emphasized the value of data analytics and media design for business success.

“Data drives everything: We know who our customers are, we know what they eat, which devices they prefer, we know where they receive their messages and most importantly, we know what changes purchase behavior and have modeled all of that and know exactly what it’s going to do,”

Doyle said. “Math is driving our business.”

He provided an example of research on the function of Domino’s website allowing customers to order online.

Domino’s realized the difference between the term “order” and “order online” led to a 0.86 percent increase in the number of people who purchased.

Michigan time for many years now — University Provost Martin Philbert said there have been conversations since he came to the University in 1995 — this is the first time anything conclusive has passed. The change will start in May for the Spring and Summer terms, so any unexpected kinks can be worked out before the Fall 2018 semester.

“The freshmen will come in not knowing a time we had it,” Philbert said.

According to Philbert, it was a “tradition born out of necessity.”

Now, however, some see the once-crucial tradition as a hinderance. Many newer University schools never adopted

it, and Patricia Hurn, dean of the School of Nursing, told The Daily in an email Michigan time was never an option for the Nursing School.

“The major reason our classes University tradition that dates have not used Michigan Time back to the 1930s. Students and is because we are a clinical professors used to time their discipline,” Hurn wrote. “So we classes according to the chimes of very early on aligned our class the Burton Tower at the beginning times, specifically the on-theof each hour, and Michigan time hour start time, with the time was officially adopted to allow of our clinical partners. None of students to get from class to class these partners recognize or utilize without being late.Now, to allow ‘Michigan time.’” for students to get to back-to-back Problems arise when classes, all classes will stop 10 University units aren’t operating minutes before the hour. on synchronized schedules, and because programs like Nursing Sudoku Though Syndicationadministrators have been talking about removing don’t have the option of Michigan time, Philbert thinks going to “clock time” is the most logical course of action.

One of the major issues the new system aims to fix is the shortage of classrooms. When EASY some schools are on Michigan time and others are not, classrooms are unavailable for up to 10 minutes at the end of the hour.

“We have the need for more classrooms,” Philbert said. “We have more sections, which require more rooms, and some of these rooms require specialized services.

So by aligning time, we free up the number and types of classrooms available.”

University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said the University is also hoping the switch will make collaboration among different schools and departments easier.

“I’d say one of the hallmarks of our campus is crossUniversity collaboration,” Fitzgerald said. “From school For personal use only.

WARMTH?! puzzle by sudokusyndication.com © sudokusolver.com. and colleges and departments and different units who are constantly cross-pollinating

TIME From Page 1A

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all of our efforts, and this really facilitates that… We’re just eliminating one of those stumbling blocks.”

DANIELLE YACOBSON and MADELEINE GAUDIN Managing Arts Editors arts@michigandaily.com Though there are clear benefits for faculty and administrators, Senior Arts Editors: Becky Portman, Sam Rosenberg, Arya Naidu, Dominic Polsinelli students are uncertain about the Arts Beat Editors: Danny Hensel, Erika Shevchek, Matt Gallatin, Naresh upcoming change. Michaels, even Iyengar after her exam confusion, thinks ROSEANNE CHAO and CASEY TIN Michigan time works well. She’s Managing Design Editors design@michigandaily.com concerned professors will have a difficult time stopping 10 minutes ALEXIS RANKIN and KATELYN MULCAHY short of the hour.

Managing Photo Editors photo@michigandaily.com “I really like Michigan time.

Senior Photo Editors: Amelia Cacchione, Emma Richter, Evan Aaron Assistant Photo Editors: Claire Meingast, Sam Mousigian, Aaron Baker, Ryan I think it makes so much sense, McLoughlin, Alec Cohen especially when you have back-toback classes,” she said. “It gets your BRIAN KUANG Statement Editor statement@michigandaily.com day rolling. I think that (this new Deputy Editors: Colin Beresford, Jennifer Meer, Rebecca Tarnopol system)http://sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/ is just a cause for disaster. I think that professors are way more FINN STORER and ELISE LAARMAN Managing Copy Editors copydesk@michigandaily.com aware of starting 10 minutes late because they haven’t started yet, Senior Copy Editors: Emily Stillman and Allie Bopp but if they have to end 10 minutes BOB LESSER and JORDAN WOLFF early, they’re not going to know to Managing Online Editors lesserrc@michigandaily.com Senior Web Developers: Patricia Huang, Abna Panda, Hassaan Ali Wattoo, stop.”

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Monday, February 19, 2018 — 3A

Not just “Chinese” New Year Race & dating ELIZABETH LE MiC Columnist

It is Feb. 16 at the time I am writing this. To some of you, today will have been just another Friday.

To me and others, however, today is New Year’s Day, a time not only for festivities, but also reflection.

Recently, the political correctness of “Chinese New Year” has been called into question, and I wanted to take this opportunity to share my thoughts on the issue and explore its relation to my own identities.

Let us travel back about 13 years to a Midwestern elementary school, where my first-grade class received a “cultural lesson” on Chinese New Year.

In reality, this meant learning a couple sayings in Cantonese, folding red envelopes and snacking on fortune cookies.

Many of my classmates started turning to me as if to seek some sort of confirmation; I suppose it was because I was the only AsianAmerican in the room. To their surprise, I vehemently denied any previous involvement with the holiday.

“I celebrate Vietnamese New Year,” I insisted.

At first, the Vietnamese and Chinese New Years may not seem too different. They usually begin on the same day because they are both based on a lunar calendar, which the Vietnamese adopted from the Chinese. Millennia of cultural exchange have also led to similarities in celebratory activities, such as giving pocket money to children and watching lion dances. If you look beyond the surface, though, you will see there are traditions unique to each culture. For example, eating sticky rice cakes (bánh chung) is a distinctly Vietnamese tradition, one that is tied to the ascension of Prince Lang Liêu.

Several Asian cultures have a Lunar New Year, though the exact time varies. There’s the Korean Seollal, Mongolian Tsagaan Sar and Tibetan Losar, just to name a few. Jewish and Muslim holidays are based on a lunar calendar, too.

The term “Chinese New Year” becomes problematic when we fail to realize there are non-Chinese peoples who celebrate their own versions of the Lunar New Year, some of which have no historical ties to China. I acknowledge

that China has made major contributions to the cultures of its neighboring countries, but I believe referring to the New Year as “Chinese” across the board asserts Chinese dominance, while ignoring the incorporation of local customs. It reinforces the false view of Asians as a monolithic group. In the process of dispelling assumptions about who I am and the cultures to which I belong, I feel it is necessary to specify that I celebrate Vietnamese New Year.

But of course, there are complications.

It has been pointed out to me that I don’t use any cultural markers when referring to Jan. 1 — I just call it “New Year.” Doing so suggests that this New Year is the norm, yet I have always celebrated both Jan. 1 and the Vietnamese New Year with the same amount of familiarity. I manage to other-ize half of the traditions in which I participate.

I think this is an unavoidable consequence of trying to express the Vietnamese part of my identity through the English language. Lunar New Year is known as Tet in Vietnamese, which simply means “beginning of the year,” but because English-

speaking countries celebrate the beginning of the year on a different day (as determined by the Gregorian calendar rather than a lunar one), it becomes necessary to distinguish between the two New Years. Since most people in, say, the United States will assume I’m referring to Jan. 1 when I speak of “New Year.” It becomes almost natural for me to place the cultural marker on New Years that begin any other day.

It is a strange situation because it seems as though I am feeding into the perpetual foreigner syndrome on one level and going mad with political correctness on another.

Even the labels I have chosen for myself don’t quite offer sufficient explanations. The part of me that ends up as the “Other” depends on the language I am using. It is just as true that my American side sounds foreign when I speak of it in Vietnamese. Certain concepts behind American traditions don’t exist in Vietnamese culture, so it is hard to directly translate.

To be honest, I am not sure what the solution is. Perhaps my best option is to make do with what I have until I discover ways to express some of my identities without undermining the rest.

What Black Panther means to me EFE OSAGIE

MiC Assistant Editor

As soon as I heard Marvel was planning to create a Black superhero movie, I was psyched. I love Marvel and as a Black person and a Nigerian, it wasn’t that hard to notice the lack of representation in Marvel movies as I grew up.

But I knew the release of “Black Panther” would change that. A movie taking place in Africa that doesn’t show it in a degrading light with a soundtrack produced by the legendary Kendrick Lamar? It was perfect.

The one thing I think I loved the most about the movie was the portrayal of the fictional African country, Wakanda. Most times when African countries are created for movies, it’s so it can be portrayed as a terrible third world country without actually insulting any real African countries. But the movie portrayed Wakanda, supposedly set in Central Africa, as a gorgeous, technologicallyadvanced place, with a rich culture and vibrant thriving people. It effectively showed the Africa that I see and love, instead of just the stereotypes and exaggerations

we’re all made to believe.

Not only was the portrayal of the country Wakanda positive, it accurately captured different African cultures as well. Their vernacular, accents and languages reminded me of the way Nigerians spoke. The clothes they wore were similar to something someone in Nigeria would wear, and their dances and chants reminded me of ceremonies and family gatherings back home. They were also able to intertwine the supernatural aspect of superhero stories with the mystique and sacredness of African traditions and folklore without ridicule.

Another thing I loved about the movie was how they touched upon the complex dynamic between Africans and African Americans.

As a first-generation immigrant Nigerian living in the United States, it’s easy for me to see this disconnect. Even though they’re both Black, Africans and African Americans don’t always see themselves as the same people, as African Americans’ identities are more strongly tied to the United States while Africans’ identities are more closely tied to their home countries in Africa. Thus, Africans (including those living in America)

and African-Americans don’t always see the need to support each other as they don’t always see themselves as the same people.

This is brought up in the movie when the character Erik Killmonger wants to use the resources of Wakanda to help the disenfranchised Black people in the United States. This is because he’s half African American, half Wakandan and grew up in America. This is contrary to the Wakandans who only believe that “their people” are only Wakandan people, not other Black people across the diaspora, which is extremely analogous to Africans and the lack of unity between them and African Americans.

The dynamic between Africans and African Americans is a concept that is typically not explored in present-day media and culture and, as someone who finds it prevalent in their everyday life, I’m extremely glad “Black Panther” decided to tackle it.

The last thing I loved about “Black Panther” that I have to talk about is the amazing Black cast and the portrayal of Black women. The female characters in “Black Panther” RAN that movie. The country of Wakanda

literally had an army solely made up of women, women who were willing to put anything on the line to defend their country and the throne. King T’Challa’s younger sister Shuri was SINGLEHANDEDLY IN CHARGE OF ALL TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS AND INNOVATIONS IN THE NATION. Okay yes, maybe a 16 year old being in charge of a whole nation’s technological section was a little far-fetched. But I’m completely fine with Marvel making things a little unrealistic at times if it’s with the intent of creating powerful women characters.

Besides the female cast, the rest of the Black cast was extremely amazing and it was refreshing to see so many powerful, humanized Black figures up on the screen.

Additionally, many were actual African actors, which was extremely inspiring to see as an aspiring African actress.

I could go on about this movie for many more paragraphs, but all in all I found the movie amazing and extremely well done. It was full of powerful characters, actors and actresses that I, along with multiple others, will look up to for a long time.

ALLISON BROWN MiC Columnist

I am sorry, but exclusively dating white women is not “just a preference.”

At the root of your exclusion of women of color from your dating pool lies a deep-seated allegiance to whiteness so that you and your kin can continue to benefit from white privilege.

Further, straying from white women as your partners of choice could have dastardly consequences that result in the dilution of your family and your own perceived whiteness.

So, let’s make it clear: No one is the passive victim of their own internalized biases. It is not a coincidence that the girl that you had relations with last week looks like your sister, mom, aunt or the random Gap ad you found yourself staring at for a little too long.

You have had choices this cuffing season and every other cuffing season. And to think that you don’t, or that your romantic attraction is out of your control, you’re kidding both yourself and everyone around you.

You exclusively date white women because trying to understand someone else’s world is too difficult — and white privilege is as valuable as gold in a country overflowing with Trump apologists and white resentment.

Not to mention, there is a worldwide cultural obsession with looking, acting and appealing to whiteness in romance. Many women of color

are encouraged from a young age to use skin-lightening creams, use apps to make their eyes wider and conform to white societal standards of beauty.

The entire world is tied into this white privilege.

And you, Mr. “I-only-datewhite-girls” reinforce the intrinsic value of whiteness in this nation.

Saying that you “prefer” white women is racist. Well, maybe not racist to you, except it’s hard for me to find another word to refer to someone making negative assessments of large groups of individuals that they’ve never met, based solely on the color of their skin.

It’s ultimately a bigoted and harmful way to think about potential partners.

Saying that you prefer certain women to others not only reinforces stereotypes about women of color, but white women too. Arguing that you prefer white women based on the presuppositions that white women are inherently more beautiful, passive, kind or financially-stable is — you guessed it — racist!

And not only is it racist, but it’s insincere.

You know that a white woman will let you ignore your privilege a lot more than a woman of color will. Shoot, a majority of white women voted for Trump. For the most part, women of color aren’t going to put up with that. Unless her name is Omarosa.

Let me be clear: I don’t expect you to reject your white privilege.

But don’t act like you don’t have it, like you’re not protecting it or that it doesn’t exist.

“You exclusively date white women because trying to understand someone else’s world is too difficult ”

Interested in being on the Michigan in Color podcast? Email us at michiganincolor@ umich.edu.

Bootstrap loving: on progress and work ethics

Sadhana Ramaseshadri

YOUNG LEE

MiC Columnist

The time is late. I do not even have to check my clock to tell.

What started as a crusade in my bed has slowly crept its way to having set my alarm on my phone, plugging my phone into my charger and sitting crosslegged on my carpeted apartment floor. Outside, the normal buzz of campus, so alive during the day, has died down. It is hard to believe it is the same place during the day.

My roommate has already fallen

asleep and even the drunk partygoers have stumbled back to their places.

The white glow from my smartphone illuminates my face as I scroll through organization after organization on Maize pages, another thing to pad the résumé, another thing to selfimprove. The familiar touch of flesh on glass guides my thumb along. “Come on Young, just put it to rest,” I think, but my thumb keeps scrolling, unable to silence the voice in my head.

There are not many things that Americans praise more than

the rugged individual, one of the bedrocks of American ideals.

Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. The value of a life well-lived determined by the wear and tear of your boots. Perhaps even to the point you aren’t even wearing boots anymore and are just walking barefoot with cracked skin and blisters. Society lauds the student who is part of 17 organizations and somehow still goes to class and excels.

The interesting thing about America is that it is not enough to just have people suffering in our country, but there are institutions, policies and groups that are established to keep the poor and marginalized suffering. Society looks at homeless folks and people with addictions and boxes them and their humanity into the effort they put in life and are so eager to see them suffer because of it.

The reality society has to face is that the stereotypical welfare mom who’s working several part-time jobs is not putting in any less “effort” than the CEO of the Fortune 500 company. Yet, society never lauds the mom, but we always hear about the CEO. Do we buy this message because it is easier to do so? Do we simplify the issue down to lack of effort just because it removes our responsibility to others and the weight on our moral conscious if the real issue is more complex? Society does not want to acknowledge mental health.

It does not want to acknowledge upbringing and access to opportunities and resources.

Rather society sees what it sees and attributes it to laziness.

Society is so caught up on in our nation of fairness because people expect things for their hard work.

If people work hard, then things should automatically be given to them. It is not fair if others are just as successful for minimal effort.

People are so eager to make other people try just as hard too, using the few anomalies of individuals living off the system to justify a whole. The person serving food in the dining hall who is trying to get to medical school has all the same hopes and ambitions as the one who has all the tutors in the world.

And the thing is, I bought this message, hard. The biggest lie I ever believed in. It also was not even just about myself; it affected how I viewed other people too.

In third grade, I participated in a bike race for elementary school students. After the race, I was eating pizza with my family when a homeless man walked by and started rummaging through the trash for remnants of food. I asked my dad why that man was looking through the garbage. Wasn’t that gross? Seeing an opportunity for a life lesson, my dad told me that was how people ended up if they didn’t make good life decisions and choices. If they didn’t work hard enough. I have forgotten the

rest of the conversation from that day, but I will always remember those words. In high school, it became the reason my peers were in regular classes and struggling to pass. In my ignorant view, they just did not work hard enough (no longer do I hold these beliefs).

More effort became the answer to everything for me. Don’t like how your life is shaping up?

Simple. Just try harder. Always forward. Crunch every minute out of every day. Just do it. If you’re not going somewhere, then you’re not worthy. If you’re not producing, then you’re falling behind. Leaders and the best. So I numbed myself. I got busy to the point where it all blended together.

Escalating to the summer after my freshman year when I had to quit everything instead of being able to achieve everything I had set to do. Procrastinating was never my issue. Instead, it was always seeking more. At least this way, I was “moving” or “progressing” onto something else. It became a weight on my shoulders that I did not know how to be without. I craved the anxiety being busy gave me. I became my harshest critic; nitpicking every little thing about me. If I was obsessed enough, then things would work out.

I am not saying setting goals and striving is bad. However, with rates of anxiety and depression for students climbing every year, this obsessive, borderline-stalker love affair with effort is toxic and must

stop. It is perpetually feeding this cycle to the point other people become seen as nuisances and hindrances to personal goals and ambitions. We will continue to achieve things if we keep the status quo, but will we get there in pieces or will we get there enjoying the process? Life doesn’t have to feel like a series of putting out fires. Stop and take a pause.

Take time for self-care, not only for you but because it will affect those around you as well. Whether it be personal, career or societal, let’s aim for progress that is truly progress rather than just the results. Let’s stop the comparison game of always defining success by borderline burnout. Hard work and dedication are important, but at what cost?

I confess my love affair with hard work, my own Shakespearean sonnet. It is the thing I am not complete without, the thing that keeps me up at night. It’s the thing that causes me to ignore my own well-being. You see, diligence is intimately tied with my Asian yellow immigrant skin. It symbolizes my mother, always serving. During the week, she tenderly cares for patients at the hospital; at home, she cooks food and does laundry and, on the weekends, she is serving at church. Her hands are never still.

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Opinion

4A — Monday, February 19, 2018

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HANK MINOR | COLUMN Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

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MATTHEW FRIEND | COLUMN

Are we being close minded to open mindedness?

Y

esterday, I found myself sitting at a café in downtown Ann Arbor engaged in a conversation about religion, gender roles and libertarianism.

To give a little more context, a few nights beforehand I was at a bar talking with a friend of mine, and at one point the topic of Judaism came up.

We are both Jewish men, but it quickly became apparent that our relationships to our religion were quite different, and we decided to continue the conversation another day with clearer heads and a quieter environment.

Over the course of the conversation, we encountered some opinions we shared and many more we did not. We clashed over our beliefs in divinity and the importance of tradition, and the discussion even touched on the topic of reproductive rights. After our time together, I departed the café with a stronger conviction in some of my beliefs, newfound doubt in others and, most importantly, with a better understanding of my friend and his world, about which I now realize I knew little.

I bring up this anecdote because I believe experiences like these are some of the most important learning opportunities a person can encounter, and from my perspective, they are an increasingly rare phenomenon.

Conflicting ideologies have always existed, and as we move deeper into what some are calling the post-truth era, even facts are up for debate.

Yet, as people gain access to a greater diversity of thought during the age of information, I see both within the University of Michigan community and beyond a growing reluctance for many to expose themselves to ideas different from their own, let alone engage with them.

The reasons for this decline in discourse are unclear, but I have a few ideas. Perhaps the belief-affirming tendencies of social media are making our generation less aware of ideas that differ from our own, leading us to become less comfortable with and less open to ideas that contrast ours. Perhaps we are

perceiving the presentation of ideas different from our own as attacks on not just our beliefs, but as attacks on ourselves and our character, leading to the end of a conversation before it can even begin. Or, perhaps we just feel so strongly about certain beliefs that we don’t feel there is any need to expose ourselves to others, because, of course, we’re always right.

Regardless of the reasoning, I believe this growing trend of homogeneous thought has the potential to be harmful to the growth of our generation and its potential to develop thoughtful, inclusive leaders. To be frank, there is no downside to engaging with differing and even difficult-to-understand ideas.

If you engage with someone who feels drastically different than you about a certain subject and leave the conversation with the same stances you entered, I would consider the exchange well worth your time. Not only can you now walk away from the experience feeling even stronger in your convictions because they have withstood the scrutiny of the opposition, but perhaps you might have changed the mind of the individual on the other side of the aisle.

If you engage with someone who holds a conflicting viewpoint to your own and find yourself doubting your beliefs or struggling to defend the ideas about which you previously felt so strongly, then this too is a beautiful thing. Change is difficult, but in the words of the former Roman Emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius, “If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.”

I would argue, though, that the greatest benefit of exposing oneself to uncomfortable and different ideas is gaining a better understanding of the world around you. Ignoring others and their beliefs won’t erase the potential influence they may have on your world.

For example, dismissing and denouncing ideas of white

NIA LEE | CAN BE REACHED AT LEENIA@UMICH.EDU

supremacy didn’t keep the Charlottesville rally from materializing. Chalking off a celebrity businessman’s bid for a presidency as ridiculous and ignoring the voices of his previously disenfranchised supporters certainly didn’t put Hillary Clinton in office. But, engaging with individuals who hold different beliefs than you, understanding and empathizing with their positions and seeking to find solutions that work with—rather than in spite of— the opposition may have been able to alter these narratives.

Certainly, there is a time and place for these dialogues.

Individuals feel strongly about their beliefs for a reason and are certainly entitled to feel offended if feel they are being personally attacked. Being respectful and thoughtful, with an awareness that how you say something is often just as important as what you are saying, is key to the success of these conversations. There is a thin line between bringing up important, conflicting ideas in a discussion and being unnecessarily provocative to rile up those around you. I do not consider trolling someone or yelling ignorant hate speech at anyone to fall into the category of constructive dialogue.

Our world is comprised of more communities than one can count, varying from each other in manners, both large and small. None of these communities—even your own utopia—are perfect, and I firmly believe we all can learn from each other in some capacity.

By entering into honest dialogues, acknowledging that our ways may not be perfect and explaining to others how their ideas may have room for growth, we can truly make the world a better place – or at least a more empathetic one. I urge anyone reading this to take a step outside of their comfort zone and to engage with someone on the other side of the aisle. No matter how wrong you initially might think they are, maybe, just maybe, you might like what you find.

Matthew Friend can be reached at mjfir@umich.edu.

Why don’t Republicans pass conservative legislation?

I

hope I speak for a lot of people somewhat left of center when I say that the Republican Party’s capability for hypocrisy can be amazing — we’ve spent years listening to Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-KY., grumble about spendthrift Democrats, and those of us from the South and Midwest have heard a thousand different ways the communist, Muslim, socialist, President Barack Obama was going to waste our tax money.

And then — just last week — the White House published a budget that would add $984 billion to the deficit in 2019. What happened to the party of fiscal discipline?

The answer lies in the way the Democratic and Republican Parties are composed — we see them as mirror images of each other, with only ideology to distinguish them, but the real differences run deeper. What looks like hypocrisy to the Democratic Party can often be explained by differences in the Republican Party’s structure.

In the book “Asymmetric Politics,” Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins argue the modern Democratic Party is based on a coalition of people who are united in their identity as disadvantaged peoples or the allies thereof. The LGBT social movement allies with the feminist movement to vote Democrat, not because they necessarily agree on tax policy, but because Democrats represent them both as interest groups harmed by the status quo.

Similarly, Democrats unite the majority of Americans minorities, not because the composite groups necessarily agree about whether the minimum wage should be $12 or $15 an hour, but because they share an interest in protections for disenfranchised groups and the Republican Party doesn’t — not at the same level, at least.

The Republican Party, conversely, is based on ideological identity. It helps that the Republican electorate is somewhat homogenous — most of their voters are white, straight and over 35 — but the most important factor seems to be that Republicans are ideologically conservative.

An example from recent

political history comes to mind: former Gov. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., vanished for a week in 2011 to visit his mistress in Argentina, and still managed to beat the Democratic candidate — Elizabeth Colbert Busch — in a 2013 race for the U.S. House of Representatives. Colbert Busch didn’t lose because she wasn’t a white heterosexual female — she was — she lost because Sanford could better demonstrate his conservative identity.

The Republican Party is based on ideological identity The Republican Party is, to condense the above, primarily rooted in the perception of oneself as a conservative: individual policies — more spending on defense, or defunding Planned Parenthood — don’t really matter so long as party politicians can clearly demonstrate their conservative ideology.

I’m not trying to make a value judgement. Democrats aren’t worse for their lack of a central ideology, and Republicans aren’t worse for their indifference over individual policy concerns. The divide, though, explains why liberals and conservatives can’t always see the coherence in their opponents’ actions.

This also explains the seeming paradox in which Americans tend to be liberal on an issue-by-issue basis but most describe themselves as overall moderates or conservatives.

Whichever side of this dichotomy is more important to someone might be what determines their party alliance — and it would explain why someone like Trump can get away with suggesting both universal health care and legally penalizing women who seek abortions. Policy concerns aren’t necessarily what determine a voter’s behavior.

Other recent trends — like

negative partisanship and polarization — interact with this disparity to, honestly, give a campaigning advantage to Republicans. Their core electorate is willing to go cycle after cycle (think the Obama years after 2010) without any real policy victories because their representatives are seen as fighting the good fight. The Democratic electorate, on the other hand, is far less forgiving of policy failures, such as the Democratic wobbling on whether or not the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy is worth a government shutdown has become divisive among potential 2020 presidential contenders.

When people on the left try to analyze the right wing, they should avoid using a Democratic mindset to interpret Republican behavior. Students who work for (or will eventually work for) campaigns and student activists have to remember that the way they think about politics is often shaped by what the party with which they identify.

I think it’s legitimate to make one’s case using reasons that are less than practical. I support DACA because Dreamers shouldn’t have their lives destabilized. I support a higher minimum wage because people deserve to support themselves if they work full time. I also think that there are times to avoid this, though; the goal is to actually translate your ideas into to legislation and have them signed into law.

When we evaluate our current environment and find it flawed, there has to be a step before action when practical reality is considered. How will this look to the opposition? Is this viable, given the way it will be evaluated? Can we, given the composition of our party, really pursue this strategy? In a political environment where partisan conflict has become one of the most important influencing factors, cross-party conversation has to be tailored to the way each side sees itself and its opposition.

Hank Minor can be reached at hminor@umich.edu.

CLAIRE DENTON GRENCHIK | OP-ED

O

Today I thought

n my way home from class today, I thought about what it would be like to be shot. What would I do if someone opened fire right here, right now?

I glanced at a snow bank that had piled up on the side of the sidewalk from daily plowing. I could hide behind that. I could try to dig myself an area where I would be concealed from view, hopefully out of sight and out of mind. I thought back to when I was a kid, and my brother and I would hide in the piles of leaves that had collected on the side of roads so we could jump up to scare the drivers going by.

Since then, I’ve frequently thought about what would have happened if a car had driven over the pile of leaves instead of around. The same thoughts came to me now, considering the permeable safe haven of a snowbank. It definitely wouldn’t stop any bullets.

While I was eating lunch today, I thought about what it would be like for my brother or sisters to be shot. What would they do if someone opened fire at their school? I have a sister in middle school, and two more siblings in high school. What if their school were the next scene of yet another mass shooting?

I thought back to when I was younger, to the times when I’d sneak out of my school to go buy lunch somewhere, even though we had a closed campus. I always walked back into school with no problems, often to an empty lunch room, with no one to testif y if I looked even

remotely like I belonged there.

I’ve been back a couple times since I’ve graduated, and not much has changed.

I’ve never been stopped to be asked who I am, or what I was doing there, or what my bag or jacket concealed. No one would be there to stop any bullets.

It now seems that mass shootings are just another college student thing During a fundraiser for my student organization today, I thought about who I would call if people in this room were shot. Who would I want to call during my last moments, while someone opened fire on my classmates?

I considered my boyfriend, my parents, my siblings, my grandparents.

I thought back to all of the missed calls I’ve ever gotten from my mom, and how every time she had assumed the worst: that I had crashed my car, got lost on a road trip, didn’t make it back to my vehicle after a closing shift.

I wouldn’t want to worry her, I thought, in case I made it out okay. I wouldn’t want to call her, wouldn’t want to confirm her worst-case scenarios. And if I didn’t make it out ok, I thought, she would know I love her. Deeply and fiercely. She would know

that. And it would be out of love that I didn’t call her, that I didn’t force her to listen to her terrified, 19-yearold daughter sobbing into the phone while g unshots and screams echo in the background. After all, no call would stop any bullets.

These shouldn’t be the thoughts that I have. I should be fretting over my history exam next week, or the fact that I have a pimple on my chin that for the life of me I can’t get to go away. I should be thinking college student things.

Yet it now seems that mass shootings are just another college student thing: history exam, pimple on my chin, escape plan in a mass shooting. It is a legitimate possibility for my life to be taken from me by the hands of a stranger with a g un, opening fire on my campus. It is a legitimate possibility that the same thing could happen to my younger siblings on their campuses.

And it doesn’t seem to be taken seriously. There are people who hold the power to make this the last school shooting in the history of the United States, and yet they are more persuaded by personal interests and greed than the lifeless bodies of more than 1,829 civilians killed in mass shootings since Sandy Hook in 2012. Those with power in the U.S. have a responsibility to protect our people and they have the opportunity to do so.

So why aren’t they taking it?

Claire Denton is an LSA junior.

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

FILM REVIEW

WALT DISNEY STUDIOS

With ‘Black Panther,’ MCU gets a needed burst of life SYDNEY COHEN Daily Arts Writer

While Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther” lies in the cinematic universe of the Avengers, it is a film self-contained by its own breathtaking world-building.

Following the death of King T’Chaka (John Kani, “Captain America: Civil War”) in “Captain America: Civil War,” Prince T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman, “Marshall”) returns home to Wakanda to assume the throne and the responsibilities that come with it. With his return to Wakanda, T’Challa reveals a nation only hinted at in “Civil War.” With an ensemble cast of incredibly strong, compelling and fully-fleshed out characters, “Black Panther” showcases the vitality of leading actors of color and delivers a longoverdue demonstration of diversity in major blockbuster franchises.

Nestled in the sweeping plains of West Africa, Wakanda is an aweinspiring civilization of stunning technological advancements and incredibly vibrant culture. The city sits atop a geological treasure trove of vibranium, the strongest and most valuable element in the MCU. The metal is woven into their clothes, powers their tech and is infused in their medicine. The inextricable cultural and scientific importance of vibranium to the nation of Wakanda justifies their isolation; to the rest of the world, Wakanda is a third-world pastoral country. To protect their way of life, the Wakandans have hidden themselves and their achievements behind a force field, choosing to

remain the world’s most advanced society in secret. But with isolation comes complications, that the film works to expertly address and explore.

The fabric of Wakanda is teeming with bright, colorful

“Black Panther” Walt Disney Studios Rave, Quality 16, State Theater vibrancy. The costume, hair and makeup design in “Black Panther” is almost overwhelmingly gorgeous — members of each of Wakanda’s five tribes are decorated in dazzling costumes that speak to the inventiveness and inspirations of the designers, who worked to pay homage to the aesthetics of African tribes in every thread.

The headdresses, hair design and face makeup demonstrate the incredible attention to detail and precision made by the designers.

Wakanda comes alive through the costumes, and there is a genuine sense of rich culture that pulses with every beat of the film. Even the graphic design of the title cards emphasizes the inspirations of African heritage in the film.

Mythology also plays an integral role in “Black Panther.” Ritual and ceremony are a vital part of the coronation process; after asserting his right to the throne, T’Challa drinks an infusion made from herbs grown with vibranium and enters a mystical spirit realm, where he communicates with his

father. The Black Panther suit also acts as a ceremonial right handed down through generations, giving power to each King throughout time. The way in which the film weaves the mythology of Wakanda and the spirituality of its people with political and scientific elements speaks again to the film’s incredible incorporation of African culture, and sets it apart as a superhero film with its own distinct sense of self.

Chadwick Boseman as T’Challah, along with Daniel Kaluuya (“Get Out”) as his best friend W’Kabi and Winston Duke (“Person of Interest”) as the outlying chief M’Baku, deliver compelling and magnetic performances that demonstrate the strength and regality of men willing to fight for their country.

But even more compelling are the women of this film, who capture each frame with a commanding and almost tangible sense of presence. Danai Gurira (“The Walking Dead”) plays Okoye, the General of the Wakandan army — a woman who is both physically powerful and strong in her sense of purpose and loyalty. Lupita Nyong’o (“Queen of Katwe”) is mesmerizing as a strong-willed and compassionate Wakandan warrior, and Angela Bassett

Monday, February 19, 2018 — 5A

(“American Horror Story”) radiates regality and grace as the Queen Mother. T’Challa’s kid sister Shuri, played by Letitia Wright (“Black Mirror”), is single-handedly responsible for the entire technological operation of Wakanda, an amazing feat of feminist power that proves that women can do incredible things when given the space to.

In classic Marvel fashion, “Black Panther” steps away from the traditional hero-villain binary, instead choosing to tackle more complex and weighted themes. Soon after becoming king, T’Challa is confronted by his past when his cousin, an American mercenary soldier born to King T’Chaka’s brother, returns to his native home of Wakanda to assert his blood right to the throne. This antagonist, Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan, “Creed”), addresses the problematic aspects of Wakanda as a hidden but powerful nation.

People of color around the world experience injustice, brutality and oppression, and Wakanda has the power to liberate them.

Killmonger works to complicate the Atlantean fantasy of Wakanda by arguing for its active presence in global politics, and its responsibility to weaponize and liberate Black people everywhere.

“Black Panther” reinforces Marvel’s brilliance as a franchise by showing an active infusion of real-world issues in a fantastical space. Killmonger advances the notion of a Black power fantasy by imagining a world where people of color upend the social hierarchy, while complicating the issue with his emphasis on bloodlust and violence.

“Black Panther” is a revolutionary, important and dynamic film that showcases a diverse ensemble cast of powerful Black actors and builds a world where African people have the technology and agency to determine world order. The movie balances an upbeat, playful tone with one that seriously examines the plight of oppressed people, focusing in on the Black experience in America. It is a breathtaking film that sings with vibrancy in every stroke, melding art forms and influences to create a world unlike anything seen before. It stands as one of Marvel’s strongest hero films, and one of the most inventive and thought-provoking pieces of cinema to ever be put on screen.

DAILY WORLD MUSIC COLUMN

‘98.12.28’ is peak Japanese pop SAYAN GHOSH

Daily World Music Columnist

On Dec. 28, 1998, the Japanese dream pop group Fishmans performed for the last time at Akasaka Blitz in Tokyo. For a little longer than two hours, the band played their biggest hits throughout their discography, as well as the entirety of their album Long Season. The performance is a stunning example of a band’s final goodbye, with every last second filled to the brim with rich detail and stunning performances.

I discovered 98.12.28 through the classic music lover’s pasttime of perusing through internet boards such as Rate Your Music. I usually greet albums like 98.12.28 — rather rare, foreign works with an unusually high level of acclaim on such internet boards — with skepticism. Quite often, such albums offer little uniqueness beyond a sense of mystery and allure.

98.12.28, on the other hand, is one of the most profoundly affecting live albums — scratch that, just albums — I have ever heard. It remains one of the few examples of a work that truly took me on an odyssey. Lead singer Shinji Sato has a uniquely androgynous voice that may be somewhat of an acquired taste, but on 98.12.28, he manages to extract every ounce of raw power and passion he can muster for the entire two-hour duration.

The album’s brilliance also lies in traversing such a wide variety of emotions. As someone who cannot understand the lyrics, the album nonetheless has the same effect as any great symphony or opera of being able to transmit feeling simply through the transitions and development of the music. The background chords of the album’s opener “Oh! Slime” are reminiscent of instrumentals on The Avalanche’s “Since I Left You,” carrying a pure, innocent sense

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of joy and uplift. As “Since I Left You” features a sunny sample of dialogue from the movie “ClubMed” (“Have a drink have a good time now, welcome to paradise”), Sato starts the concert with a simple “Are you feel good?” Yet Fishmans is equally capable of exploring feelings of melancholy and loss.

Fishmans uses typical dream pop tropes such as heavily washed out guitars and a slow, almost sloppy manner of playing, but it shines due to the small details and interludes interspersed throughout the album. Moments such as the short violin interlude in “Oh! Slime” and a chorus of bells in “Long Season” add new dimensions to the music not present in the studio recordings.

These short moments are where the band truly feels as if they are transcending the confines of their stage.

Sato’s constant banter with the audience, although obviously unintelligible to non-Japanese speakers, makes the album feel truly organic. This point is what made me realize why I enjoyed 98.12.28 so much more than the band’s studio albums. It is the rare live album that starkly exceeds the impact of the group’s studio albums precisely because one gets the sense that the artists are pouring everything into the performance. The instrumentals aren’t perfect, Sato’s voice wavers and strains, but none of it matters because it all feels so real.w Overall, 98.12.28 is a triumph.

There is really just no other way to describe it. It is a masterful display of skill, ingenuity and passion, and to fully dissect its brilliance is nearly impossible.

Shinji Sato died tragically of heart disease just three months after the performance, unable to see the monumental impact of his magnum opus on people around the world. But he can rest assured that few people have said goodbye in such a brilliant way.

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NEW YORK FASHION WEEK REVIEW

Vivienne Hu A/W blends romance and practicality TESS GARCIA

Daily Style Editor

Vivienne Hu is a former investment banker. Her latest collection is tailor-made for the feminine millennial businesswoman. The clothes are both classic and decadent.

The accessories are versatile.

Every look is downright smart.

The New York-based designer looked to her Chinese heritage for her Autumn/ Winter 2018 show, presented at Spring Studios during New York Fashion Week. According to the brand’s public relations team, Vivienne Hu’s design team drew inspiration from the historic Mogao Caves of Gansu, whose decorations combine Central Asian, Indian and Chinese motifs. The caves’ inf luence appeared in the collection’s jewel-toned satins, textured tweeds and delicate f loral prints.

In a strategic marketing maneuver, Hu’s dreamy tribute to her ancestry was

juxtaposed against an array of modern details. Nearly every look included a faux fur stole or purse in a cheeky, eye-catching hue. Though presented in lesser quantities, mock-reptilian fanny packs and monogrammed knits are sure to become best sellers.

The icing on the contemporary cake was the unveiling of a line of high-tech sneakers designed in collaboration with Chinese software developer Tencent Co. All things considered, it’s no surprise that the crowd at Vivienne Hu was remarkably youthful. For once, I didn’t feel like the baby in the room (perhaps because there was an actual toddler in attendance).

Rather, I was a poster child for the collection’s market: A career-oriented, sociallyconscious young woman who would still love to wear a frilly dress every once in awhile.

I don’t know the first thing about banking, but I do know Vivienne Hu was right to leave finance for fashion.

ACROSS 1 Android downloads 5 Array around a surge protector 10 Words after deal or count 14 Bridges of Hollywood 15 Part of a sports complex 16 Enveloping glow 17 “NBA Friday” channel 18 Peachy 19 Dental exam image 20 Inquiry meant to entrap 23 Right-angled shape 24 Per __: daily 25 Freebies with a bowl of soup 30 Mud __: type of wasp 34 Sharp-eyed flier 35 Nonfluctuating method of doing things 37 Org. supporting flossing 38 Freelancer’s encl.

39 QB scores 40 Impressionist once labeled “The Man of a Thousand Voices” 45 Pedometer unit 46 “Already?”

47 First-stringers 49 Honorary legal degs.

51 Ipanema’s city 52 Wealthy, and a hint to the first word of 20-, 35and 40-Across 59 Pop music’s “hottest spot north of Havana” 60 Shut down 61 Three, in Germany 62 Baking chamber 63 Makes docile 64 Folklore brute 65 Remain up in the air 66 Sport with clay disks 67 Can’t live without

DOWN 1 Brother of Cain 2 Cuban currency 3 Respected Smurf 4 Basking locale on a cruise ship 5 Walks like a duck 6 Baghdad’s country 7 Eye care solution brand 8 Pulled the plug on 9 Ties the knot 10 Largest amount 11 Money in Malta 12 Mideast nation in a 2015 nuclear deal 13 Vote against 21 Lodge logo animal 22 Hazmat suit hazard 25 Seals in the juices of 26 Traffic report source 27 Spy plane acronym 28 Sit for a bit 29 ERA and RBI, e.g.

31 Montana city 32 Tribal leader 33 Talks hoarsely 36 Stetson hat material

41 The Netherlands, informally 42 Lounge around 43 Formally accuses of, with “for” 44 Heart-to-heart 45 Used to change a ceiling light bulb, as a chair 48 Relieved (of) 50 Move on tiptoe, say

52 Wander 53 Take the lid off 54 It usually has a set of rules 55 “That makes sense” 56 Hard-to-resist feeling 57 Actor Richard 58 Moved quickly, old-style 59 Squad car driver

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Arts

6A — Monday, February 19, 2018

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Porches’s Aaron Maine on poetry and songwriting

CONCERT PREVIEW

SEAN LANG

Daily Arts Writer

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WALLACE HOUSE PRESENTS

“I don’t really know, actually,” said Aaron Maine, the mastermind behind Porches, taking a long, patient pause. “I don’t even know how to describe it in a lot of words,” he finished, after I asked him to describe The House, his third official full-length album and second for Domino Recording. It wasn’t quite the answer I expected, but it reveals the personal necessity of his art. If he could have said what he needed to say with The House any other way, he would have. There is no way for him to condense his truth any further.

Maine tours with the band, but it’s no secret that he’s the project’s creative force. He wrote every song on The House aside from “Understanding,” penned and performed by his father, Peter Maine. This track and several others reflect what seems to be a fresh branching out in Maine’s creative process.

Dev Hynes of Blood Orange joins him on leading single “Country,” Alex Giannascoli of (Sandy) Alex G on “Leave the House” and his girlfriend Kaya Wilkins — who performs as Okay Kaya and recently appeared in the Norwegian supernatural horrorthriller “Thelma” — on “Åkeren,” among others.

When I ask Maine how some of these collaborations came about, one story is more than I could’ve asked for. He and Alex G had been crossing paths for a time, being more or less in the same scene, before they went on a month-long tour in 2016.

“It was right when I got back from that that I invited him over to sing on the record and we ended up with (‘Leave The House’),” Maine said, and as for Wilkins: “I had been a fan, and wanted to have her voice on (the record), and we ended up with (‘Åkeren’).” Originally a poem by Maine, Wilkins translated the piece, whose title means “cornfield,” to her native Norwegian.

As for Blood Orange: “I’ve known Dev for maybe four years now,” Maine said. “We started hanging out playing ping pong at this spot called Fat Cat in the West Village.”

Speaking to Maine is much like listening to him sing. His words are measured, his speech economic. At first, I thought it was because he was annoyed or bored with my questions, but I quickly learned that it’s just who he is. Which is why his meeting Hynes over ping pong is even more humorously disarming — it’s hard to imagine him doing anything as quick as playing table tennis, where there isn’t time to be careful, to stop and think.

As we talk, it becomes only more and more evident that this intentionality lies at the core of every step Maine takes as an artist, from the first penning of lyrics to their eventual

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performance.

Part of this deliberateness might just be connected to Maine’s ostensible obsession with water (see: 2016 LP Pool, EP Water and The House’s “Now The Water,” “Country” and “Swimmer”).

“It’s a topic I honestly didn’t quite realize how often I was coming back to,” Maine said, following up with a theory he has devised. “When I sit down to write, one of the first things I try to do is give the setting. A lot of the time, water seems to be one of the best descriptors, whether it’s the temperature or the humidity or the precipitation or what you’re drinking.”

Here, water is a solution to a practical problem, but it’s more than just a tool to describe surroundings.

“It’s a spiritual thing, sometimes, to be submerged … you’re suspended in this thing

Porches El Club Feb. 20, 2018 $15 and all the sound disappears and kind of reminds you that you’re small,” Maine added.

There’s something very fitting, too, about the ubiquity of water in Maine’s discography. “Humid” is a word to which I often return to describe his art, both musically and visually. Pool and The House are both masterclasses in balancing the nostalgic and the synthetic, perfect soundtracks for late summer nights. He’s branded his music “dark muscle,” which I think is likely a different way of saying the same thing.

Hollow-sounding synths and percussion provide forward motion, while Maine’s voice soars above it all, syrupy and lackadaisical, but loaded with emotion and yearning.

“I do think that it has always been my tendency to write in a more economic way, even when I first started writing songs and, I think, I had less control over what came out … it is something that I’ve tried to embrace, or find myself inclined to keep coming back to,” Maine said. “I don’t know, just talking about things through seemingly mundane objects or subjects.”

He also notes that his writing style tends to partially mimic whatever author he happens to be reading at the time, or an artist who’s dominating his listening.

“I think for (Slow Dance in) the Cosmos I was reading a lot of Frank O’Hara poetry.” Then he laughs, “I don’t know if, you know, I’m not saying that it actually sounds like Frank O’Hara,” Maine finished, ever the humble artist.

While he was developing The House, he says he was really getting into Alex G’s catalog for the first time, and praises Giannascoli’s free-association, stream-of-consciousness style of writing.

“It’s like I can imagine him writing the whole thing in one swoop … the way he keeps the channel open is so effective and eerie and telling of what goes on in his head,” Maine told me.

Listening to Giannascoli’s 2015 breakout Beach Music partially inspired Maine to start keeping a more regular journal.

“Since then I’ve just been writing every day, kind of diaryish stuff, and then some of that will turn into poems or stories or songs.”

Later in our conversation, though, we touched on the difference, or lack thereof, between poetry and music.

“In terms of writing and the distinction between poetry and songs, I don’t … there’s not a line that I draw necessarily though I release music so that’s kind of where the poems go.”

But not all of his poems evolve into songs, and even the ones that do are edited, cut down to fit the track’s melodic structure.

So what happens to the lyrics we never hear?

“I have been collecting the stuff that doesn’t make it into the songs … and I am really interested

in putting out some sort of thing that resembles poetry at some point,” Maine answered. “I have a hard time even calling it that, because I know it’s such a thing of its own. I would hesitate to call myself a poet but I would like to put these things out to be read by whoever’s interested.”

Earlier, Maine said that one of the first things he does when writing is try to give the setting.

Another go-to writing strategy lies in creating characters, alter egos, for himself. On The House, you’ll hear more than one mention of his latest, Ricky (Pepsi) and his partner, Julie.

Maine has also previously donned the name Ronnie or Ronald Paris and, though the names in and of themselves don’t seem to bear significance, they do help him to click into the right mindset.

“I think that each ego or character, for me, represents the current version of myself that feels like it needs a distinction from the rest,” he said.

He also noted his appreciation for the artistic space afforded by having “a clean slate as (each) new character,” and though he doesn’t necessarily attempt to assume those characters onstage, “if it’s feeling good, I do feel very transported.”

“It doesn’t happen with all the songs, and it doesn’t happen all the time, but there are certain moments where I really am brought back to a certain memory surrounding the song. And that feels good,” he said.

These moments are when he believes he performs best, though this doesn’t mean that his best performances all look alike. One night he might feel like “crawling around on the floor or going into the audience or laying down,” while another he feels “very serious and very still, or severe, and will just sort of stand still and perform the songs.”

He reassured me that he doesn’t need to move onstage to be moved internally. For him, it’s all about embracing whatever he may be feeling that particular evening.

“Maybe they’d prefer it if I put on a wacky show every night, but I don’t think it would feel sincere if I did that, if I wasn’t feeling it,” he said, after tipping his hand as some kind of idealist: “I think that’s what people ultimately want is” — he pauses here to laugh at himself — “the truth, from you, I guess … maybe not all the time.”

Looking forward, Maine expressed excitement for the next Blood Orange record, apparently in the works, as well as the upcoming Empress Of. He was also anticipating his own tour, which began on Feb. 15th, two weeks after our conversation.

“We’ve been rehearsing a lot the past two weeks, and it’s finally gelling in a really special way, so that feels good and exciting,” Maine said, though he won’t romanticize life on tour: “I am not looking forward to being away from the people that I love for like four, five months out of the year … just trying to stay centered about it and put on as good a show as we possibly can, and have it feel good for everyone involved, on our side and on the audience side.”

We can be sure to hear much of The House, likely several cuts off of Pool and, if we’re lucky, one or two from Slow Dance. If the stars align, we may even get to hear a cover or two, as Porches performed The Beatles’s “If I Fell” for SiriusXMU in mid-Jan. “I picked that song because it’s so fucking savage, the line about like ‘and she will cry when she learns we are two,’” Maine said, betraying his more humorous side. When I ask if he might play the song on tour, he replies with a pensive “maybe,” but also offhandedly mentions Alicia Keys, The Strokes and, most interestingly, that his manager has been recommending Drake’s “Passionfruit.” Covers or not, though, Maine is a performer worth lending an ear to — his unpredictability and true commitment to his art makes him one of the most exciting acts in the scene today, both onstage and off.

MICHIGAN 74 OHIO STATE 62 B

The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | Monday, February 19, 2018

Poole’s hot shooting helps Michigan pull away from OSU Jord a n Po ole h a s h ad big p er for m a nce s b efore .

The f re sh m a n g u a rd s core d 19 against I nd ia n a , a nd he h ad 1 1 i n E a s t L a n si ng .

Su nd ay a f t er no on wa s a bit d i f ferent t hou g h . It wa s S en ior Day, Cr i sler Cent er wa s s old out a nd t he M ich ig a n men’s ba ske t ba l l t ea m ho s t e d No. 8 Oh io St at e — t he t ea m who b eat t he Wolver i ne s v ia a hu g e comeback i n D e cemb er — i n a v it a l g a me i n t he home s t re t ch of t he s ea s on .

A nd Po ole showe d up on t he big g e s t s t a g e of h i s you ng c a re er, helpi ng t he t ea m t o a 74 - 62 w i n .

The Wolver i ne s (1 1- 5 Big Ten , 22 -7 over a l l ) le d t he Bucke ye s (1 3 -3 , 22 -7) a m ajor it y of t he g a me, but t he lead felt f r a g i le . S o w it h 6 : 25 lef t a nd t he Wolver i ne s h a ng i ng on t o a f ive p oi nt lead , i n s u r a nce p oi nt s felt ne ce s sa r y.

Th at ’s when s en ior g u a rd Mu h a m m adAli A b du r-R a h k m a n d rove i nt o t he la ne a nd k icke d out t o Po ole i n t he r ig ht cor ner. The f re sh m a n col le c t e d h i m s el f , ro s e up a nd bu r ie d it b efore r u n n i ng back on defen s e w it h h i s a r m s i n t he a i r, t a k i ng i n t he s cene a rou nd h i m .

Th re e m i nut e s a f t er Po ole ’s shot ,

B1G upsets No. 18 Michigan swept No. 1 Notre Dame, bolstering its resume for the NCAA Tournament.

» Page 4B

back-a nd-for t h a f f a i r.

Po ole d a zzle d for M ich ig a n i n t h at h a l f t o o. W it h 6 : 05 lef t b efore h a l f t i me, he d rove r ig ht on Oh io St at e g u a rd Kam W i l l ia m s , s t opp e d on a d i me, s t epp e d back t o c reat e space a nd d r i l le d a 3 -p oi nt er over W i l l ia m s , who fou le d Po ole i n t he pro ce s s .

The play ex h i bit e d t he r aw sk i l l Po ole possesses a nd also

“The first (shot) felt great.

So I was just, kinda, liking my shot a little bit.

I had confidence once they started dropping.” ne e de d t o w i n . The pa i r le d t he t ea m i n s cor i ng . Po ole f i n i she d w it h 1 5 p oi nt s , a nd A b du r-R a h k m a n h ad 17.

F rom t here, M ich ig a n si mply ice d t he g a me away, 74 - 62 . “ W hen t he y c ut it t o fou r a nd h ad a fou l shot , a nd I t h i n k t he y c ut it t o t h re e, we m ade ju s t a b out e ver y g o o d play dow n t he s t re t ch t o g e t t he ‘ W,’ ” sa id Joh n B ei lei n . … “ I wa s rea l ly proud of t he way we bat t le d t he whole t i me .”

The f i r s t h a l f wa s a

t he spa rk he g ave t he Wolver i ne s , a s he le d a l l s corer s w it h 1 2 of h i s 1 5 p oi nt s com i ng i n t he f i r s t 20 m i nut e s . “ The f i r s t (shot) felt g reat ,” Po ole sa id . “ S o I wa s ju s t , k i nd a , l i k i ng my shot a l it t le bit . I h ad con f idence once t he y started d roppi ng .”

O n t he ot her end , t he Bucke ye s worke d more me t ho d ic a l ly. For wa rd Jae ’S ea n Tat e nea rly h ad a double - double i n t he f i r s t h a l f a lone, acc r u i ng eig ht p oi nt s a nd eig ht reb ou nd s . A l l t he ac t ion u lt i m at ely

le d t o a 5 -p oi nt M ich ig a n lead at h a l f t i me .

The s e cond half b eg a n si m i la rly. Oh io St at e f lexe d it s mu s cle s on t he i n side, but t he Wolver i ne s s t aye d a head .

Th at ’s how it wa s when Po ole toed t he 3 -p oi nt l i ne in t he r ig ht cor ner, s end i ng Cr i sler Cent er i nt o hy s t er ic s a nd M ich ig a n t o it s 22nd win of t he s ea s on . “ The f irst g a me h ad me a nd e ver y b o dy el s e on t he t ea m sick , on ly b e c au s e we were up by 20,” Po ole sa id . “A nd t hen , we ju s t k new we h ad t o g e t t h i s one . It wa s more of a , ‘ We ’ ve g ot t o g e t re veng e g a me,’ i n s t ead of it b ei ng a t op -20 t ea m a nd a t op -10 t ea m . “… We fe el we ’re b e t t er t h a n t hem , e sp e c ia l ly w it h t he p er for m a nce we put on at Oh io St at e .

We ju s t fe el we h ad t o g e t t h at w i n .”

Design by Jack Silberman

Managing Sports Editor

A b du r-R a h k m a n h it a n op en t h re e of h i s ow n t o m a ke it 65 - 53 t o e s s ent ia l ly put t he g a me away.

It wa s a w i n n i ng combi n at ion for M ich ig a n a l l n ig ht .

Po ole, w it h h i s ele c t r ic p er s on a l it y a nd f la shy s t yle of play, h it big t h re e s a nd u r g e d t he c rowd t o g e t exc it e d .

A b du r-R a h k m a n , w it h h i s c a l m , work m a n l i ke demea nor, m ade t he play s t he Wolver i ne s

Kateyln Mulcahy // Daily

MIKE PERSAK

Sweet Senior Day Michigan’s senior class showed just how special it is in the team’s 74-62 win over Ohio State.

» Page 2B

SportsMonday

2B — Monday, February 19, 2018

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

An unconventional senior class

T

here are certain occasions that all athletes look forward to in their careers.

Senior Day is near the top of the list.

The celebratory affair — fit with framed jerseys, cardboard cutouts and individual BETELHEM plaudits — ASHAME represents the exclamation mark at the end of a long chapter.

But in a sport known for its oneand-done culture, it can be a rare experience to be a senior in college basketball.

Even for Michigan, a top-tier program that isn’t often associated with lottery picks, only one of its past six first-round NBA Draft picks played a senior year as a Wolverine. And if it weren’t for a string of injuries, now-Brooklyn Nets forward Caris LeVert likely would have left early as well.

That’s why Michigan coach John Beilein makes sure that Senior Day is memorable for those who reach it.

“What’s sad is they think this goes on forever, and I know that some of the guys I’ve seen only once since then and that’s it,” he said.

“The rest of their lives, the next 80 years of their lives, you may only see them one time. So it’s really important that we embrace one of these last opportunities to play a home game.”

More often than not, the players that stay for four years aren’t the stars. They don’t come into the program as highly-touted recruits expected to make a flashy entrance and then a speedy exit. They are the players who work day in and day out to lay the building blocks for the foundation of the program.

That is especially true of Beilein’s senior class this season, even if theirs are more unconventional stories.

An underrated starter, a reliable

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily

The Michigan men’s basketball team honored its senior class at Sunday’s Senior Day before the Wolverines’ 74-62 win over No. 8 Ohio State.

sixth man, a graduate transfer and a living miracle made up the fourplayer contingent honored Sunday in front of a sold-out crowd at Crisler Center as No. 22 Michigan earned a 74-62 win over No. 8 Ohio State.

Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman, Duncan Robinson, Jaaron Simmons and Austin Hatch didn’t come in together four years ago, but they all have left their mark in Ann Arbor.

In 2014-15, it was Hatch who made his mark. He had to reclassify after surviving a plane crash that took the lives of his father and stepmother and ultimately cut his playing career short. Once one of the best high school sophomores in the nation — having just received a scholarship offer from Beilein — he could only play in five collegiate games, but he served as a source of inspiration for the team.

In 2015-16, it was Robinson, who

became the first player in NCAA history to receive a scholarship after transferring from Division III to Division I. He became a regular starter as a redshirt sophomore and ranked second in the Big Ten and ninth in the nation as a 45-percent 3-point shooter.

In 2016-17, it was AbdurRahkman, who turned his quiet beginnings as a two-star recruit into a starring role as a starter. He played a pivotal role in the Big Ten Tournament title run last March, averaging nine points and four rebounds per game in those four games, including a season-high 17 points in the first contest.

In 2017-18, it has been Simmons, who joined the Wolverines for one final year after transferring from Ohio University. While he hasn’t become the regular contributor he was expected to be, he has pushed sophomore guard Zavier Simpson into becoming a well-rounded

starter after the departure of nowMiami Heat guard Derrick Walton Jr. Each of the four, as players and as people, beat the odds and turned themselves into invaluable pieces of Michigan. In a season that had the potential to be a rebuilding year after the loss of five seniors and an NBA draft pick, these four have helped lead the Wolverines to an 11-5 Big Ten and 22-7 overall record.

After knocking off the Buckeyes, there seems to be much left in store for Michigan this season.

The same can’t be said for these seniors, whose playing careers are expected to end whenever the Wolverines’ season does. Though none of them are expected to make the jump to the next level, Beilein doesn’t see anything wrong with that. He used Abdur-Rahkman to illustrate his point.

“You see this in college basketball all the time. The guy who

comes in and gets who he is and isn’t about, ‘Get me to the pros’ and all these things,” he said. “He’s just about, ‘Coach, make me better. I’m gonna give you everything I have every minute. I’m not gonna be a holler guy, but I still love the team and my teammates.’ ” He may have been directly referring to Abdur-Rahkman, but the description is apt for all four.

Sunday, each of the seniors had his tip-of-the-cap moment.

Hatch, who has served as a student assistant since taking a medical scholarship in 2015, dressed for the game and warmed up with his teammates. Though he couldn’t play due to NCAA rule, Beilein provided a nice touch by announcing him along with the starting five.

Simmons pushed Michigan out to a nine-point lead — its largest of the game midway through the second half — finishing a fast-break layup to rousing applause.

Abdur-Rahkman nailed a threepointer with just three minutes remaining to open up a 65-53 lead, strutting backward with the look of a man who had sealed victory.

Robinson finished it off with 1:16 left on the clock, drawing an offensive foul to top off his impressive defensive display against Ohio State forward Keita Bates-Diop, the Big Ten’s leading scorer. As the whistle blew, Robinson let out a roar toward the crowd. It had ‘game over’ written all over it.

They already had their framed jerseys from the pregame ceremony. They had just earned the rivalry win. But they had one last piece of business to attend to after the game. The four seniors — upon the beckoning of Beilein, who called them “four of the greatest young men we’ve ever had” — took the microphone to address the crowd.

Hatch acknowledged that he “wouldn’t change anything about my four years here.” Simmons said “it’s been a great ride.” Robinson called it “one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life.” And Abdur-Rahkman considered himself “lucky to wear Michigan across my chest.”

The consistent message from all four was captured best by AbdurRahkman as he claimed that the Wolverines are “not done yet.”

The declaration comes with a caveat, though, as whatever comes next for Michigan will happen away from Crisler Center. That’s why, when Beilein asked him to lead the arena in “The Victors,” Abdur-Rahkman asked if the team could sing it with the Maize Rage.

So they walked into the student section and sang the fight song after the final home game of their Wolverine careers.

It was an unconventional move, to be sure. But with this senior class, it couldn’t have been any other way.

Ashame can be reached at ashabete@umich.edu or on Twitter @betelhem_ashame.

Austin Hatch among seniors honored in emotional day MAX MARCOVITCH Daily Sports Editor

A basketball game was played Sunday. Some guys shot baskets — some went in, others didn’t.

The team wearing maize jerseys scored more points than the guys donning scarlet and left Crisler Center significantly more pleased.

But for Austin Hatch and John Beilein, Sunday — Senior Day — was about so much more than basketball. Sunday was emblematic of the true meaning of sports, a foundation that supersedes a few baskets here and there, a few wins, a few championships. The story of Austin Hatch is a story about the impact sports can have in their purest form.

And when Hatch walked on the court to a roaring ovation with his grandparents and fiance, former Michigan volleyball player Abby Cole, on his side, the impact was clear. After all that he’s been through, it was the end of one era for Hatch, and the start of a blindingly bright next.

“Life’s good man,” Hatch told a group of reporters Friday afternoon. “It’s coming together.”

By now, you probably know the story of Austin Hatch. It has been well-documented, and for good reason.

It’s a story of remarkable tragedy, of unthinkable sadness.

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily

Austin Hatch (left) recovered from injuries sustained in a 2011 plane crash to attend Michigan and join the basketball team and will graduate this spring.

But Sunday was a reminder that it’s also a story of unparalleled perseverance. It’s a love story between a young man and a university, a player-coach relationship that reaches far beyond the bounds of basketball.

When he was eight years old, Hatch was involved in a plane crash that killed his mother, brother and sister. Hatch, seated in the front passenger seat, survived alongside his father, who was piloting the plane. When he

June25, May March 19, 5,2017 2016 2018

was a sophomore in Fort Wayne, Ind. Beilein offered Hatch — a promising scorer and knockdown shooter — a scholarship to play for the Wolverines. Eight days later, he was in another plane crash, this time killing his father and family dog. Hatch was left in a coma for eight weeks, having to regain the ability to walk and speak. Still, Beilein honored his scholarship offer, and Hatch enrolled his freshman year.

“The ultimate measure of a coach — obviously a good coach wins basketball games, you can see the results that way and the impact he has on his team — but the impact he has on developing his players, these young men,” Hatch said. “I’ve definitely learned a lot, grown as a young man. I definitely will take the lessons I’ve learned from him with me the rest of my life, in my marriage, with my family and working. It’s a special bond, and it’s definitely not going to end in April.”

Saturday, four years after first

enrolling at Michigan, 15 years after the first plane crash, seven years after the second, Hatch was honored on Senior Day. He was announced with the starters, embracing each player as they lined up for introductions. As he approached freshman guard Jordan Poole, Poole gave him a hug. After he was honored at midcourt, the players mobbed him lovingly.

Beilein told his players Hatch’s story before the game one more time. For freshmen like Poole, the details of Hatch’s experience were fresh.

“Just told them, ‘I want you to put yourself as an eight-year-old,” Beilein said, fighting back tears.

“I want you to put yourself as one of the best sixteen-year-olds in the country, and lose your mom

and dad after you already lost your brother and your sister and your mom — you watched them basically die.’ ” Hatch finished his career with one point — a free throw he made in December 2014 against Coppin State. But the impact he had on his teammates can’t be measured.

“I try not to think about it too much because it’s sad, everything he’s been through,” said senior guard Muhammad-Ali AbdurRahkman. “How positive he is is truly inspiring. That’s all you can ask for.”

In two months, Hatch will graduate with a degree in Organizational Studies. Soon after, he will get married to Cole.

In July, he will be going to work full time in real estate acquisition at Domino’s.

“It’s crazy,” Hatch said. “Life’s happening, you know?”

And for Beilein, the day was a way to reflect. Reflect on where this relationship started. Reflect on where it’s come. Reflect on what Hatch means to him. Reflect on life.

“I was ready to cry. Somehow, I choked it off, but I was ready to cry,” Beilein said on seeing Hatch walk out of the tunnel Sunday.

“When the NCAA allowed me to go see him when he was finally out of the coma, and see — the last time I saw him he was one of the best sophomores in the country, without question.

He reminded me of a young Wally Sczerbiak.

He was tremendous.

He’d just played a great team and dominated them.

Now I see him and doesn’t weigh 210 now, now he weighs about 140. He can’t eat the sandwich because — he can hardly walk — he can move like six inches at a time when he walks. And when you see that and then you see this and his family and his fiance Abby, it makes your heart warm.

“If we’ve been a small part of his life, he’s been a huge part of my life and this team’s life.”

“Somehow, I choked it off, but I was ready to cry.”

SportsMonday

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

‘M’ uses physicality to top Buckeyes ETHAN WOLFE

Monday, February 19, 2018 — 3B

The only ones that matter TIEN LE

Daily Sports Editor

Daily Sports Writer

After Ohio State’s Keita BatesDiop clinked a 3-pointer off the front iron, it was a mad dash to grab the basketball.

Sophomore point guard Zavier Simpson had the quickest step and promptly lofted the ball to Moritz Wagner. The junior forward had no one in front of him as he sauntered to the hoop for the easy layup, but not before getting fouled by CJ Jackson for an and-one.

In classic Wagner fashion, he celebrated — flexing his muscles to the fans along the south baseline.

For a team that typically makes its money on offense with long jumpers and shifty layups, it was an unusual flaunting of the Michigan men’s basketball team’s hard-nosed play.

But in Sunday afternoon’s 74-62 victory over No. 8 Ohio State, Wagner’s flex symbolized exactly how the Wolverines earned their second top-ten win this season: A previously unseen physicality.

“Give Michigan credit,” said Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann. “I thought they played really physical today. They played well, putting us in difficult positions.”

On multiple occasions the two teams bumped elbows. They tangled in a number of looseball scrambles, even getting into shoving matches after jump ball calls. On one loose ball in the first half, Wagner emerged from the dogpile, beating his chest and chanting at the crowd to rile them up, even for a routine deadball play that gave the ball to the Buckeyes. The significance of Senior Day and a rivalry were clearly not lost upon Michigan, and that lit a fire for the team, according to Simpson.

It didn’t matter that Michigan could only score one run all game.

It didn’t matter that Florida State had two runners in scoring position in the bottom of the seventh in a one-run game.

It didn’t matter that with a full count, and two outs, a single mistake could make or break the game.

For the No. 20 Michigan softball team (5-4), it was all about one pitch — the one being thrown.

“I thought that in the game last night, we were really onepitch focused,” said Michigan coach Carol Hutchins. “That’s how we were just caught in our moment. One pitch — that usually equates to good softball.”

Good softball would be an understatement for the Wolverines’ selfless defense.

After shutting out Notre Dame (6-3) earlier Saturday, the team recorded its second shutout of the day with the 1-0 win against the eighth-ranked Seminoles (8-1).

In order to protect the slimmest of leads, the performances of the defense showed grit and determination that allowed Michigan to make its only run the winning run — an RBI single by senior first baseman Tera Blanco.

However, the remaining innings turned into fruitless attempts to add to the Wolverines’ lead, causing them to fall back on their only constants of the weekend trip: pitching and infield play.

Pitching in her fourth career start, freshman left-hander Meghan Beaubien had a perfect game heading into the seventh inning with seven strikeouts.

However, her hitless night came to an end quickly, as Seminole third baseman Jessica Warren hit a ball down the

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily

Junior forward Moritz Wagner and Michigan beat Ohio State with hustle.

Simpson has been the sole constant in having a physical, swarming presence, and his teammates have called him a “pitbull” because of it. Sunday was no exception. In Simpson’s 30 minutes, he limited Buckeye point guards Jackson and Andrew Dakich to three combined points, and exposed them for 13 points of his own.

“I feel like I’m the middle linebacker of the defense,” Simpson said, “just playing hard defense because my energy is contagious. Once they see me doing it, then they’ll start doing it.

“We definitely played aggressive which is good, and we’re proud of that.”

Duncan Robinson’s name hardly comes up in the discussion of stifling defenders. He is more commonly characterized as Simpson’s antithesis than his counterpart. But on Sunday, the fifth-year senior silenced critics with one of his best defensive performances of the year, combining with freshman forward Isaiah Livers to limit the Big Ten’s leading scorer in BatesDiop to a 5-for-17 performance.

The stingy defense comes just four days after Robinson stymied

“We definitely played aggressive which is good.”

Iowa’s Tyler Cook to just 10 points.

“You take a guy like Duncan Robinson and you go, ‘Oh, it’s senior night, he’s gonna hit some threes,’ ” said Michigan coach John Beilein. “No, he should be known for the job he did on (Bates-Diop).

He was absolutely terrific. He and Isaiah Livers just — Did they shut him down? No, but it changed the momentum of the game when they took the top scorer in the league and marginalized him a little bit.

It was just a great effort by him.”

While Robinson and Simpson were the standouts, the intensity coursed throughout the lineup.

The newfound defensive identity was emblematic of philosophy change for Beilein — a one-onone battle mentality that puts the glamourous aspects of basketball to the wayside.

“You get down to it, they realize all the pretty plays or all the 3-point shooting, it doesn’t win games, that you’ve gotta be able to really defend,” Beilein said. “In my earlier coaching career I was more into technique and scheme. … When you’ve got a guy, it’s a personal battle. Who’s gonna win?

I think we’ve taken that on.”

Beilein claims his team needed a little “magic in a bottle” to complete the aggressive win. But it also may just be a thinly-veiled characterization of the typical Beilein team — the Wolverines are in a nice groove at the right time, and they sure look hungry for more.

middle, narrowly escaping the grasp of freshman shortstop Natalia Rodriguez, who dove up into the air for a chance at the fly ball. The tip of her glove brushed the ball, which pushed it further from the clutches of pursuing outfielders. However, the defense regrouped to prevent any extra bases.

With a groundout to second base, Beaubien put Florida State on its last legs. Facing the highest leverage situation of her college career, she allowed another single before a wild pitch pushed the two runners to second and third base with two outs.

As Seminole designated hitter Zoe Casas walked up to the plate to bat, Beaubien found herself in a familiar situation.

In her first inning pitched for Michigan — the seventh inning of the season opener against Alabama-Birmingham, a 7-0 win — she encountered multiple runners in scoring position, two outs and mounting pressure.

However, this time, there was no seven-point cushion to act as a safety net in case of her mistakes — instead a measly one-run lead.

Yet, Beaubien took it one pitch at a time.

Four pitches, two balls, two

strikes.

On the fifth pitch, she raised a look of triumph on her face, only to be shocked at the call of a ball — loading the count.

With the potential makeor-break pitch determining whether the Seminoles would have one more go at bat, Beaubien saw the pitch at hand as she saw any other pitch.

“You have to always be onepitch focused,” Hutchins said.

“That’s all we ask for, just be in your moment. So she’s a very talented pitcher. But you still have to just stay in your moment … You have to just go out there and work hard to do your part.

“That’s all we want from Meghan. That’ll make her great.”

Now with her back against the wall, Beaubien did what she’s always known — pitch.

Throwing a rising changeup, she baited Casas to swing, sealing the game on a strikeout.

Running to the mound brimming with joy, the Wolverines didn’t care that they were forced to make a full-count pitch or could only score one run from the first play of the game.

They cared that the run and pitch that came were the only ones that mattered.

FILE PHOTO/Daily

Michigan coach Carol Hutchins said her team was one-pitch focused.

The long week ahead W hen Nicole Munger nailed a 3-pointer to put Michigan up by nine near the midway point of the third quarter last Wednesday at Minnesota, the collective stress of the program ETHAN seemed to be SEARS dissolving.

A win over the Golden Gophers would have broken a stretch of three losses in four games — all of them games the Wolverines were supposed to win. A win would have assured, once and for all, that the No. 23 Michigan women’s basketball team would be in the NCAA Tournament, no doubt about it. A win would have gotten the Wolverines out of their funk just in time for a contest against Maryland — the tenth-ranked team in the country — and the Big Ten Tournament.

Instead, over the next four minutes, a nine-point lead turned into a one-point deficit.

Michigan played tug of war with Minnesota over the ensuing minutes, then fell to the ground as the Golden Gophers pulled the rope away.

That night, the team’s flight got cancelled due to fog and bad visibility. The next day, the Wolverines managed to get off

the ground, then were diverted to Cincinnati. There, they sat for three hours with nothing to do but think, before mercifully being given the go-ahead to come back home.

“It’s super-frustrating and I think, you know, we’ve been trying to stay really positive,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico told WTKA on Wednesday.

“Because of, you know, where we are — like, we talked about, we’re a little tired. We’re the only team that really hasn’t had the bye going into the stretch and I think that schedule has been a little bit tougher than anyone else’s.”

If a lack of rest has been the issue before, it won’t be now.

The Wolverines don’t play again until Thursday, their last regular season game before another week-long break leading into the Big Ten Tournament. That might be enough time for freshman forward Hailey Brown to recover from the leg injury that kept her out Wednesday. It will certainly be enough time for the rest of the team to recover physically and do some reflecting.

Michigan is facing its own basketball mortality — a battle it lost last season and seems to be losing now. Thanks to the relative strength of the Big Ten and a resume-boosting win at Ohio State, the Wolverines will still probably make the NCAA Tournament. Probably, of course, being the operative word.

It’s never good to be falling

AARON BAKER/Daily

Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico and her team have a long week ahead.

back on the strength of a league to explain why one team from said league deserves to make it.

It’s never good to be throwing around qualifiers like “probably” when discussing what, just two weeks ago, was a certainty. It’s never good to be talking about how the schedule is harder for you than anybody else in the same league, all of the teams in which have to play the same number of games in the same number of days.

Then again, it’s never good to have lost four of five when you have a number next to your name and the other team doesn’t.

Michigan is in the type of spot that defines careers — and defines a program. And it has all the time in the world to think about what happens next.

Beating the Terrapins isn’t everything — the Wolverines would probably (there’s that word again) be fine if they lost, provided they won their first Big Ten Tournament game. Even if they lose them both, ESPN Bracketologist Charlie Creme told the Detroit News last week that it would take blowout losses to endanger their spot.

Of course, his opinion is just that — an opinion — and though it’s certainly a well-informed opinion, that doesn’t mean the selection committee will agree.

It’s just another way of saying probably.

Winning a game isn’t an unreasonable ask. Michigan will have at least two chances to do so; one of them will be against an inferior team.

But the Wolverines, mind you, were near the top-10 just a couple weeks ago. Given the talent on the roster, they shouldn’t be happy with just making the first round of the Tournament, even if that’s how they’ll be judged.

Right now though, eliminating the word “probably” should be Michigan’s only goal. It has all week to figure out how to accomplish it.

Sears can be reached at searseth@umich.edu or on Twitter @ethan_sears

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SportsMonday

4B — Monday, February 19, 2018

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Michigan sweeps No. 1 Notre Dame with 1-0 win BENJAMIN KATZ Daily Sports Writer

W it h 1 :3 4 rem a i n i ng i n t he t h i rd p er io d , t he No. 18 M ich ig a n ho ckey t ea m le d , 1- 0, a nd No. 1 Not re Da me pu l le d it s g oa lt ender.

The F ig ht i ng I r i sh (16 - 5 1-1 Big Ten , 22- 8 -2 over a l l ) f i re d a f u r y of shot s , lo ok i ng for t he a n s wer a g a i n s t s ophomore g oa lt ender H ayden Lav ig ne.

W it h a b ou nc i ng puck i n t he c rea s e, Lav ig ne fou nd h i m s el f out of p o sit ion nea r t he r ig ht p o s t a nd for wa rd A nd rew O g lev ie s t a re d at a n empt y net . O g lev ie slu ng a shot t h at sl id pa s t Lav ig ne — but r ig ht t h roug h t he c rea s e.

The ho s t Wolver i ne s (1 110 -3 -2 , 16 -1 3 -3) blo cke d fou r more shot s a nd Lav ig ne m ade fou r more d r a m at ic save s a g a i n s t t he ex t ra m a n , s ea l i ng t he 1- 0 v ic t or y a nd a s er ie s s we ep a g a i n s t t he n at ion’s b e s t t ea m .

“Cou ld n’t b e h appier for H ayden ,” sa id M ich ig a n coach Mel Pea r s on . “ He ’s g ot t en t he job done. Th at la s t 1 :3 4 t houg h , he ’s g ot s ome f r iend s s omewhere wat ch i ng over him, prot e c t i ng t h at net .”

M ich ig a n b eg a n t he g a me w it h t he sa me i nt en sit y it showe d ea rly i n F r id ay n ig ht ’s 4 -2 v ic t or y. I n t he f i r s t si x m i nut e s , t he Wolver i ne s out shot Not re Da me, 8 - 0, i nclud i ng a w r i s t er by s en ior for wa rd Tony Ca lderone t h at h it t he g oa l post.

D e spit e leav i ng qu a l it y ch a nce s on t he do or s t ep for M ich ig a n , F ig ht i ng I r i sh g oa lt ender Ca le Mor r i s re covere d w it h key save s t o s t i f le t he

Wolver i ne s ’ ea rly ch a nce s of f lo o s e reb ou nd s .

M ich ig a n s ub due d Not re Da me ’s of fen s e for t he f i r s t h a l f of t he f i r s t p er io d , w it h qu ick brea kout s f rom t he defen sive zone, h a rd fore che ck s b et we en t he bluel i ne s a nd s even blo cke d shot s . Un a ble t o mou nt a s t a ble of fen sive at t ack , t he F ig ht i ng I r i sh wou ld n’t reg i s t er a shot u nt i l a l mo s t eig ht m i nut e s i nt o t he cont e s t a nd were out shot , 1 5 -2 , t h roug h t he f irst 15 m i nut e s . “ We c a me out t o d ay, rea l ly l i m it e d t hei r ch a nce s a nd kept it t o t he out side,” Lav ig ne sa id .

“I t houg ht we playe d a whole t ea m g a me

defen sively.

We managed t he t i me much b et t er in this g a me t h a n t he prev iou s one. I t h i n k it ju s t prove d we i mprove n ig ht t o n ig ht , a nd we ’re a cont ender mov i ng for wa rd .”

However, a s t he clo ck wou nd dow n i n t he f i r s t , Not re Da me picke d up t he pace, re cord i ng si x of t he p er io d’s la s t eig ht shot s on net . W it h 22 s e cond s lef t i n t he p er io d , s ophomore

for wa rd Nick Pa s t ujov wa s c a l le d for a sla sh i ng p en a lt y a nd t he F ig ht i ng I r i sh h ad t hei r f i r s t p ower play opp or t u n it y.

But Lav ig ne stood tall b et we en t he pip e s a nd

s qu a she d t he lat e shot on slaug ht t o ke ep t he g a me s corele s s head i ng i nt o t he f i r s t i nt er m i s sion . “ Thei r g oa l ie i s rea l ly g o o d , t here ’s a rea s on why he ’s a Hob ey Ba ker

c a nd id at e,” Pea r s on sa id . “ But ou r g uy ’s pret t y g o o d , t o o.”

E nt er i ng t he s e cond p er io d , t he Wolver i ne s k i l le d t he rem a i nder of Not re Da me ’s p ower play, on ly t o f i nd t hem s elve s w it h t hei r ow n m a n adva nt a g e m i nut e s lat er. M ich ig a n wou ld n’t f i nd s ucce s s on t he p ower play, u n a ble t o acc r ue qu a l it y t i me i n t he zone a nd shot s on g oa l — on ly p o s t i ng one du r i ng t he t wo m i nut e s .

The s e cond p er io d cont i nue d w it h back-a nd-for t h play a nd a b ou nc i ng puck , w it h neit her t ea m a ble t o g a i n moment u m or shot s on t he of fen sive r u sh .

W it h le s s t h a n eig ht m i nut e s lef t i n t he f r a me, t he F ig ht i ng I r i sh h ad t hei r s e cond m a n adva nt a g e when ju n ior for wa rd Co op er M a ro dy wa s a s s e s s e d a

p en a lt y for i nt er ference.

Not re Da me h ad f ive shot s on g oa l on t he p ower play, but t i mely s t ops by Lav ig ne — even w it h heav y t r a f f ic i n t he c rea s e — kept t he s t a lem at e i nt ac t .

But w it h ju s t 38 s e cond s rem a i n i ng i n t he p er io d , t he Wolver i ne s f i n a l ly broke ont o t he s core she et .

S en ior for wa rd D ex t er Da nc s force d a t u r nover de ep i n t he F ig ht i ng I r i sh zone a nd t he puck fou nd it s way to M a ro dy ’s s t ick . The ju n ior d ropp e d a pa s s t o a t ra i l i ng Ca lderone, who s e wrist shot def le c t e d of f Mor r i s ’ g love a nd i nt o t he back of t he net for t he g a me ’s f i r s t — a nd on ly — g oa l . “ Ver y i mp or t a nt g oa l ,” Pea r s on sa id . “ I t houg ht who ever g ot t h at f i r s t g oa l cou ld’ ve b e en t he on ly one of t he g a me, ju s t t he way t he

t h i rd p er io d w it h a renewe d s en s e of ener g y, out sho ot i ng Not re Da me, 10 - 4 , t h roug h t he f i r s t h a l f of t he s t a n za .

Thoug h a s u r plu s of shot s f rom t he home t ea m , g love save s f rom Mor r i s kept t he Wolver i ne lead at one.

O n t he ot her end of t he ice, t he F ig ht i ng I r i sh s t r ug g le d to sustain pre s s u re in t he M ich ig a n zone.

Lav ig ne cont i nue d t o s t a nd on his head , m a k i ng cou nt le s s s a v e s , c o n t r o l l i n g rebounds a nd subsequent ly limit ing second cha nces.

Wit h Mor ris pulled for t he la st 90 seconds of t he contest , Not re Da me would cont inue to t h row its best at Lav ig ne. But even w it h 35 shot at tempts in just t he t hird period, t he Fight ing Irish couldn’t capita lize.

Lav ig ne would ma ke 35 saves, hold on for his t hird shutout of t he sea son a nd secure t he win — a nd sweep.

“I t hink ever ybody just took a whole new m indset t hat we had to get t his d o n e ,” Lav ig ne sa id. “ Ever ybody rea lly wa nted to w in, we k new what wa s a t s t a k e a n d p e o pl e w e r e s a c r i f i c i n g t h e i r b o d i e s .”

A d d e d C a l d e r o n e : “ We just competed w it h t he b e s t t e a m i n t h e c o u n t r y. I t hin k we ca n show t hat we c a n pl a y w i t h a n y o n e . … We have a ll t he pieces, we’re just sta r t ing to put t hem t o g e t h e r.”

“We have all the pices, we’re just starting to put them together.”

g a me wa s g oi ng .

The ch a nce s weren’t pa s si ng t he g oa lt ender s , t he puck b ou nc i ng a l l a rou nd t he net at b ot h end s . It wa s a big moment u m b o o s t .”

M ich ig a n ret u r ne d for t he

Quick starts power Wolverines to sweep of Fighting Irish JACOB SHAMES Daily Sports Writer

If Friday night’s pregame theatrics at Compton Family Ice Arena counted for anything, Notre Dame would have been up a goal before the puck even dropped.

The Fighting Irish’s home venue is the smallest in the Big Ten, but what it lacks in size, it more than makes up for in noise and intimidation.

Its 5,022 seats are densely and intimately clustered around the rink, while its lowhanging, barrel-vaulted roof allows for deafening acoustics.

On a “Whiteout” night in South Bend, these attributes were fully on display. Jim Cornelison, renowned for his performances at Chicago Blackhawks home games, delivered a thunderous rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner,” setting the sellout crowd ablaze.

As the seconds counted down until the initial faceoff, a giant blue Notre Dame f lag emerged from the raucous student section situated directly behind the Michigan net, as the Dropkick Murphys’ “I’m Shipping Up To Boston” boomed from the loudspeakers, threatening to blow over 5,000 sets of eardrums out.

Long story short: Notre Dame isn’t an easy place to play if you’re a visiting team. It doesn’t help that the Fighting Irish are quite good at hockey.

So of course, Michigan

won the opening faceoff and proceeded to pummel the nation’s No. 1 team for the next 20 minutes.

“That was maybe our best period of the year,” said Wolverines coach Mel Pearson. “We were dialed in, the guys did a great job showing up to play.”

And did they ever show up. Michigan took 17 shots in the first period. Notre Dame had just six. The Wolverines got to seemingly every loose puck and constantly put themselves in dangerous positions, while the Fighting Irish’s

attacking efforts were sparse disjointed.

and

mostly

With an NCA A Tournament bid very possibly on the line this weekend, Michigan could have imploded under the intensity of the environment or the quality of its opponent.

Instead, according to Pearson, the Wolverines took advantage of their situation, feeding off the arena’s energ y.

“Without a doubt that’s the best building other than Yost that I’ve been in this year,” Pearson said Friday. “I mean, if that doesn’t give you goosebumps, if that doesn’t excite you and get you ready for the game, I don’t know what will. … That’s a great

“That was maybe our best period of the year. We were dialed in.”

atmosphere, that’s college hockey and good for Notre Dame. You love to play in those environments, I know our guys did.”

That wa s

appa rent as f reshma n for wa rd Da kota R aabe st rea ked dow n t he right f la nk a nd t hrew a perfect centering pa ss into t he crea se, leading to a desperate save f rom Not re Da me goa ltender Ca le Morris. It wa s appa rent a s junior for wa rd Cooper Ma rody ca lmly set t he puck on a dime for senior for wa rd Tony Ca lderone, who let loose a da ngerous shot f rom t he slot.

These oppor t unities soon bega n to t urn into goa ls.

Thir teen minutes into t he ga me, f reshma n defensema n Quinn Hughes skated into t he of fensive zone a nd f ired f rom t he blue line. His shot appea red to be going w ide, but sophomore for wa rd Ada m Winborg met it w it h his stick, tipping it pa st Morris a nd into t he net.

Shor tly af ter t hat,

senior for wa rd Dexter Da ncs snuck one inside Morris’ nea r post for a n unlikely 2- 0 lead.

The noise wouldn’t come nea r its prega me levels aga in.

“The crowd wa s super loud,” sa id sophomore goa ltender Hayden Lav ig ne.

“They didn’t stop ma king noise for t he f irst 10 minutes until we put t hat second goa l in a nd we kinda put t hem to sleep, which wa s g reat because in a n at mosphere like t hat,

especia lly in college hockey, crowd plays a big role in energ y a nd moment um. So it wa s g reat to get t hat on our side t he whole night.”

Sunday saw a not her quick sta r t for t he Wolverines.

Aga in, Ma rody beat Fighting Irish for wa rd Ja ke Eva ns for t he f irst face-of f. Aga in, a n energetic, high-speed Michiga n of fense ea rned a comma nding adva ntage in puck possession a nd shots.

Nea r t he end of t he period, t he dispa rit y wa s 15-2 in t he Wolverines’ favor.

“Our g uys were ready to play … That ’s on t hem, t hat ’s on our players,” Pea rson sa id.

“A s coaches you ca n tell t hem some t hings a nd show t hem some t hings, but you’ve got to reach dow n to each indiv idua l a nd f ig ure out a way to compete. A nd compete t hey did. We had a good f irst period, we were ready to play t he ga me.”

A nd while Michiga n didn’t f ind t he net in t he f irst 20 minutes Sunday, t he cha nces it created kept t he pressure on a nd kept conf idence high. “ We showed t hat we could play w it h t hem,” Ca lderone sa id. “ We were get ting pucks deep, play ing simple a nd it wa s working out. We were ta lking in t he locker room, a s long a s we play like t hat it ’s going to come.”

Ca lderone proved himself correct late in t he second period. A f ter Da ncs forced

a t urnover in t he Fighting Irish zone, Ma rody jumped on t he puck a nd found Ca lderone a ll a lone in t he slot. 1- 0, Michiga n. “ We played w it h a lead a ll weekend,” Pea rson sa id. “ We were never behind aga inst a pret t y da rn good hockey tea m.”

For t he Wolverines to spring not only one, but t wo upsets aga inst Not re Da me, t hat wa s a necessit y. The Fighting Irish have scored f irst 21 times t his sea son.

Their record in t hose ga mes?

18-1-2.

Not re Da me ca me into t he weekend No. 1 in t he count r y for a rea son, a nd it showed why quite of ten. Morris, a Hobey Ba ker ca ndidate, made 36 saves on Sunday, ma ny of t hem highlight-reel wor t hy.

The Fighting Irish outshot t he Wolverines in t he t hird period 14-4 on Friday a nd 12-10 on Sunday. But in t he end, t hat wouldn’t mat ter, a s in bot h ga mes, Michiga n t hrew t he f irst punch.

The Wolverines didn’t a llow ra nkings, a ll-world goa ltenders or a rowdy Whiteout at mosphere to set t he tone t his weekend.

Instead, behind t wo torrid f irst periods, t hey ea rned a sea son-def ining sweep. “ We knew what wa s at sta ke. It wa s no secret t his wa s our sea son,” Ca lderone sa id. “… We knew it going into it, so ever yone got up for t he cha llenge a nd we accomplished our goa l.”

“We were never behind against a pretty good hockey team.”