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Welcome To The Swoop Zone: The Philosophy
Contact Information:
Kevin McCrumb
Email Address: kmccrumb@emich.edu 

I would just like to begin by again welcoming you to one of my most enjoyable endeavors in working on websites online, that being "The Swoop Zone." I had realized that in the three years that this site has been up, there was no section on it explaining its purpose, my own philosophies and even a little bit of information about the individual behind the madness here at The Swoop Zone.

My name is Kevin McCrumb, and I am currently a Senior at Eastern Michigan. I am majoring in Mathematics currently planning on using that major in becoming a secondary education teacher somewhere in the state of Michigan. I've never played hockey before on ice; but I have been to my share of hockey games and have read my share of information about the sport including going to several Michigan Hockey Games in the past. So no, I don't know how it feels to get constantly bombarded by checks into the boards or the elation of how great the feeling is to score a goal. But in my view, a fan's perspective is unique in its own right correct?

I came upon Eastern Michigan hockey in 1998, eight years ago in a rather unsurprising manner. My sister went to the Ann Arbor Ice Cube to go ice skating and my father and I came upon a poster talking about EMU Hockey and that they played their games at the Cube. So, we decided to go to the EMU versus West Virginia game that year and just fell in love with the style of play, the pep band and just the emotion of collegiate hockey at the Cube. It also got my family hooked, which doesn't hurt either!

The idea of a website covering the EMU Hockey team came to me about 4 years ago when I started to post up recaps on my own personal website about the hockey team. I had done work for many other websites on the web, and had an immense desire for sports and hockey that I figured, why not? I then decided in 2001 to create a full fledged site for the program in which I would just cover the hockey team in a small manner. In my opinion, it just seemed wrong that a hockey club that played so brilliant over the years and to this day had received no attention from a very knowledgeable fan base. So thus, the site was created and has been running strong since 2001.

The site currently is run by just myself, but I hope in the near future I can get some more individuals writing up recaps and opinions about the hockey club. It really is an honor for me to have a site up like this, giving me the opportunity to express my own opinions and have them actually be read and complimented about. When I received such positive response for the site early on, I worked harder to make this site as good as I could make it. So thus, you're looking at the third layout in three years. 

My recaps and writings are very subjective and very biased towards Eastern Michigan. In the past, I have also been very critical of the play of the team but it's because I full-heartedly want to see the Eagles succeed on the ice. However, as is policy for my own writings I will NEVER criticize an individual player as I feel that's just wrong, my writing for the most part focuses on the team aspect of hockey vs the individual. Although it doesn't hurt to recognize the great plays and great work of the Eagles who put so much time and effort into the program.

I would also again like to thank a few people for their support of the website that cannot go unrecognized.

The first would be to Doug and Kay Waack for reading about the website and constantly being a great help to me during the first year providing me with accurate information to report to the public and for also being highly dedicated to the EMU hockey program for the many years they spent making it what it is today.

The second would be to Coach Fassbender and his staff for providing me with information and interesting tidbits along the way to make the site more complete.

And the third would be to all of you, the fans of EMU hockey. Without you, there would be no reason to run the website.

And with that, Go Green!
-Kevin

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