Last night in the quarterfinals of the CCHA tournament my mood lifted. And it was a welcome lift, just hours after the dismal loss to Wisconsin in the Big Ten tournament. Freshman Jacob Trouba took the puck past the blue line, pump-faked a slapshot which froze both the goalie and a defender, and then blasted the puck in the net top shelf. It felt good man.
Michigan went on to win, continuing its hockey winning streak and I felt better.
How much better? A “tad” better.
I like to say that most Michigan fans would trade almost anything positive that happens off the gridiron (in anything but hoops..maybe) for a third-down conversion. I took a crack at summarizing how I feel about everything that goes on down on State Street and its corresponding impact on what I’ll call “The Mood”. Consider this the beta:
You probably have your own weights dictating how you feel as a Michigan fan, and admittedly I played around with these numbers before taking this first cut. I’m guessing some of you consider hockey part of Everything Else. I’m guessing many of you, in your heart of hearts, put less weight on basketball.
Update 3/21: A revision based on feedback and a few thoughts. While I’ll despise some of our rivals who seem to thrive on schadenfreude, it is a factor a Buddy from Stunt3 points out. And there’s undoubtedly a proximity adjustment needed. Right now the NCAA tournament is driving much of the overall mood. I love the Crowd Sourcing idea, but I think that’s Mood 2.0 as noted in the comments. Revised chart:
Related: The Hate Index (updated March 2013 thanks to Coach Crean!)
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10 Comments
Buddy Moorehouse
Greg, The Mood is inspired brilliance. It needs to be updated daily. Since it’s the beta version, allow me to offer some unsolicited feedback.
– I’m probably one of those people who would lump hockey in with Everything Else. I do think that 8 percent might be a bit high, so I’d knock that down to 5 percent.
– I’d take the 3 percent that we stole from hockey, and I’d create a new category called “The Rivals.” Like any fan base, we derive much of our pleasure when one of our rivals suffers, and we suffer whenever one of our rivals experiences pleasure. I think that contributes about 3 percent to The Mood.
– For the Rivals list, I would – of course – start with Ohio State, Michigan State and Notre Dame. We can also add the occasional Tom Crean or Duke basketball when the situation calls for it.
– So, when Notre Dame gets crushed by Bama and then humiliated by Manti Te’o’s catfish, the number goes up. When MSU loses out on Jabari Parker, the number goes up. When Tom Crean (hopefully) loses to a 16 seed, the number goes up. You get the idea.
Greg - MVictors
Buddy haha -thanks. I love your idea — I wonder if a general “Rivals Schadenfreude” factor would do the trick for us. Thanks for the feedback – consider it in there, will play around with it
Buddy Moorehouse
Thanks, Greg! I just think it’s a huge factor. I mean, just think – God forbid – what it would do to The Mood if Ohio ever won the BCS Championship. It would drop 10 points overnight.
Mike Forster
This is a great concept, Greg. Have you thought about crowd-sourcing it to measure the pulse of all Wolverine fans? I bet it would swing wildly with every win/loss/Jake Ryan injury.
Greg - MVictors
Great call – I think involving crowd sourcing has got to be Mood 2.0.