What kind of person lies about their playing accomplishments

[O-townClown]

Maybe it is easier for people to get away with a lie about hockey in Florida. Maybe it is something people did in the past never thinking the Information Age would put archives at everyone's fingertips.

* A guy has told me for years that he played at Harvard. He's around 70 now. He knows the names of all the guys that did. You can pull up the Media Guide at the Crimson website and it has a list of the all-time letterwinners. He's not on it.

* Another guy probably in his mid-50s considers himself one of the most knowledgeable hockey minds in Florida. (Kind of like being the best athlete in the Gates family.) He's quick to talk down about the coaching and hockey programs in our area. His credentials? He played at BC. I'm impressed. Or at least I was until there is no record of him ever earning a letter for the Eagles.

* Just this weekend a guy was telling me he played hockey at Michigan State. My first clue he might be forgetting that he didn't is when he said they won the NCAA in 1987. Hmmm, I remember Ed Belfour, Tony Hrkac, and Bob Joyce taking the title. (A quick check shows the Spartans actually won in 1986. Not the kind of detail you'd forget if you were on the team.) "3rd line winger" I was told. My second clue was that I pulled out my Blackberry in front of him and punched his name into HockeyDB and it yielded no result. Most CCHA teams are in there from the Eighties, but certainly there is a chance nobody logged in the Spartans. Third strike? No record in the list of all-time Michigan State letterwinners.

I'm honest. I DIDN'T play in college. (However, I did earn an 'A' in an Ice Hockey PE class at the U of M while a two-time Olympian got a 'B'!! True story.) I DIDN'T even play on our HS team. In fact, I WASN'T even close!! I could have played at most high schools, but not mine. My glory days were in Mites and Squirts and it was all downhill from there!!

I love hockey and have nothing but fond memories. Why would someone lie about whether or not they played in college? I don't get it. They look far worse when someone finds out they are full of it than they could look impressive from putting one over on people.

Most importantly, is this all harmless embellishment, or do you see this as evidence of a bigger character flaw?

[elliott70]

The guy in his 70's, humor him, he does not have much tme left, records may have been mis-entered, maybe played for a while and did not letter, whatever, he is older than me (by a little) give him a break.

The guy in his 50's, keep your ocnversations short.

The guy in his 40's, why are you even talking to him, he's from Michigan.

Probably best advice, move back to Minnesota.

[grindiangrad-80]

[blainebengalhockey10]

lol they have ice hockey pe classes at the u

[tomASS]

The guy in his 70's, humor him, he does not have much time left

I know you don't but I'm pulling for you anyway since we are all in this together

[council member retired]

J. Caspar ?

[O-townClown]

lol they have ice hockey pe classes at the u

I took:

ice hockey
bowling
racquetball
volleyball
golf
...and...
football coaching.

B in the last one. It actually was graded pretty hard. Leo Lewis was my instructor.

[tomASS]

yeah that's the TICKET!

[goldy313]

I wouldn't put too much stock on anything I got off the internet, especially something regarding something that happend 50 years ago. Records from that far back often aren't complete or accurate.

Even the rest, who really cares, these guys aren't running for office or getting promoted over you because of it so what's the big deal? I guess it's not a battle worth fighting.

[O-townClown]

Tom, good recall! These guys stories are like Lovitz. "Yeah...and I dated....MORGAN FAIRCHILD....!!! Yeah, that's the ticket."

[O-townClown]

From Wikipedia:

The page for Morgan Fairchild actually has this...

In the early 1980s she appeared in off-Broadway plays such as Geniuses and garnered rave reviews from Time magazine and The New York Times. Tommy Flanagan, Jon Lovitz's popular recurring character on Saturday Night Live in the mid-1980s, was a pathological liar (catchphrase: "Yeah, that's the ticket") who often claimed to be married to Fairchild ("....with my wife, Morgan Fairchild, whom I've seen naked.")


Also, they show Ricky Hatton as having lost to Mayweather. It was probably updated by the time he hit the canvas. Not only did Wikipedia report Chris Benoit's death before even Benoit knew he was dead, the Tubby Smith page was updated to show him as the coach of Minnesota before/as it was announced.

[tomASS]

Yeah did I tell you about the winning goal I scored in the 1980 olympics? Yeah I made a miraculous save on one end and and my teammates were making an all in one line change so I skated down the ice, banked it of the side board to myself and deked the goalie. Yeah that's right I got a goal and an assist on the play



Yeah that's the ticket and then Morgan Fairchild and I made sweet passionate love at center ice with the flag draped over my shoulders as i shouted "where's my daddy? where's my daddy?

Yeah that's just how it happened.


Yeah and Wikipedia, yeah that's my invention, that's right I own Wikipedia and Al Gore only helped me a little when I invented the interweb. That's the ticket!

[O-townClown]

I wouldn't put too much stock on anything I got off the internet, especially something regarding something that happend 50 years ago. Records from that far back often aren't complete or accurate.

Even the rest, who really cares, these guys aren't running for office or getting promoted over you because of it so what's the big deal? I guess it's not a battle worth fighting.

Goldy, teams' media guides seem to be quite accurate for everyone else going back much further than that. I can see your argument for HockeyDB, but not for the media guides of Harvard, Boston College, and Michigan State.

[EREmpireStrikesBack]

lol they have ice hockey pe classes at the u

Easy to tell you haven't even thought about college yet.