Jason Voorhees clearly seems to have misinterpreted the meaning of Connecticut Hammer Massacre.
Bob the Builder rampages in a local Home Depot. A hammer factory fire with no survivors. MC Hammer killing bored suburban housewives. All of these are possible explanations for what the “Connecticut Hammer Massacre” could be about and, after the jury finally makes its decision, all are incorrect.
Despite sounding like some localized destruction of tools, the Connecticut Hammer Massacre is an ultimate frisbee tournament. Shocked? So was I. However, after a few moments of pondering, I decided the only way to truly understand the logic behind the baffling name choice for this tournament was to break down the title word by word.
Let’s start with “Connecticut.” The tournament was held last Saturday and Sunday on Tempel Green. According to Ultimate Frisbee captain Jesse Moskowitz ’13, “hammer” is a kind of throw in Frisbee. Other throws include “wrench,” “screw,” “tool belt” and “plumber’s butt crack.” Ultimate frisbeemen complain about not being taken seriously. The problem with using “hammer” instead of “disc” or “frisbee” is that no one outside of the ultimate frisbee community understands the reference, thus alienating the other 99.99% of the school. Most students showed up to the green expecting a Halloween-themed lecture on the history of hammers as murder weapons, only to be disappointed when the team asked them to please vacate the field so they could continue playing.
Massacre is certainly the most alarming word in the tournament’s title. The fact that I am not a sports enthusiast led me to completely miss the fact that the word “massacre” has a double meaning. On the one hand, massacre can mean a bloody murder of a slew of people. On the other hand, it is also sports lingo for a crushing defeat. Assuming not everyone in the world understands sports lingo (hopefully it isn’t just me…), this is another confusing word choice. Just because a word has multiple meanings doesn’t mean that every meaning of the word is common knowledge. For example, think of the definition of the word groin. You think of the body part, right? Technically you’d be right, but if you were an architect, then you might think, “the curved line or edge formed by the intersection of two vaults.” So, if you were invited to the “Groin Enthusiasts Convention” you might be horrendously offended at the idea of a bunch of people congregating to discuss and inspect each other’s groins, when really it’s a simple architect convention. An invitation to a “massacre” kind of sounds like an invitation to be murdered, when really it’s an invitation to watch a bunch of college guys play with frisbees.
After the break-down of the name “Connecticut Hammer Massacre,” the reasoning behind the phrasing becomes more clear, but the fact remains that almost no one besides the ultimate frisbee team and me knew about this event because a) the event’s name is confusing and b) because ultimate frisbee is not taken seriously at Conn.
But shouldn’t it be? Like rugby and baseball, ultimate frisbee is a club sport. Our men’s ultimate team went all the way to Nationals. They have team uniforms. President Higdon invested more money into the program and bought the entire team new regulation frisbees—with his own face on them.
We should offer more support to the people who win sports glory for the school. If anyone is good with public relations and is looking for an outlet for their talents, I hear the team is looking for someone capable of promoting the team in a positive way, one that doesn’t make them sound like murderers or construction workers. •
Today, I heard this article described using the phrase, “a complete lack of journalistic integrity.”
I would agree.
I know many College Voice members who who pour their heart and soul into writing each article they submit. I feel bad for them with an article as unthoughtful and trivial as this published in their same paper, undermining all the work they have done to improve the legitimacy and standing of our college’s newspaper.
If you don’t feel like reading the following paragraphs, my comment may be summed up with the following: What. The. Fuck.
I just read The Voice articles on Dasein provided by the “Similar Stories” tab. Pretty much all of them took a perspective which seemed to say “Hmm, This is a quirky club that takes its work seriously, and a lot of Conn students probably don’t know that much about what they do. I should write an honest informative article so students can hear about this cool club.”
For some reason Franklin decided to take a perspective which clearly says “Hmm, This is a quirky club that takes its work seriously, and a lot of Conn students probably don’t know that much about what they do. I should write a mean sarcastic article that instead of trying to inform students about the club, simply makes fun of it.”
Fantastic. Get this woman a pullitzer. <–(Look, I can be mean and sarcastic too).
Hey I’ve got an idea: how about if you’re going to write an “article”, you learn something about your subject first?
First of all, “frisbeemen”? Conn has a women’s team as well. Given that you are talking about what I assume to be the men’s tournament, I would appreciate it if you specified this. If you are only talking about the men’s team, it is fine to use “frisbeemen.” However, since it appears that you are referring to the team as a whole, I would appreciate it if you used gender-neutral language.
Secondly, the frisbee team contains more than 99.99% of the student body. I guarantee it. Do the math, please. Thank you!
Thirdly, you are either implying that the name of an event should reflect its nature or at least make its nature clear to those not in the discourse. Ultimately, that seems to be your position. You are not writing against frisbee, but against incoherent publicity. Whether anyone actually cares about incoherent publicity is one matter, but since you do, I will say this:
Consider the term “Floralia.” Individuals not familiar with Conn-lingo could look it up online and learn that an “an ancient Roman festival celebrated on April 28” is held at Conn every year. I’m not quite sure that Roman festival involved BOB, wristbands, and bouncy castles… false advertising much?
Here’s the real thing though…. I honestly don’t understand why you would choose to criticize a team which already suffers from not being considered a ‘real’ sport, despite the fact that they attended NATIONALS last year. Sorry that we’re not perfect (?) but I don’t think our primary goal is to publicize, nor is our primary goal to come up with interesting names, nor is our goal to ‘sound’ appealing. I think our goal is to play frisbee…
Side note: the same name has been used at several different tournaments. This is not a one-time occurence.
Hold on, maybe i didnt read this article well enough or myabe im just dumb but i didnt see what was so offensive about it. Sure, it doesnt paint the team in the best light but its not that bad a light either its just saying think more about what you name your events…which might be valuable or ntot…obviously the team takes some pride in being quirky but anyone who does that should be prepared as well to get shit on a litle bit especially when its in such a good nature, i really didnt see how sarcastic and mean it was…my question is basically are the eighteen people who disliked this article all invested in the frisbee team somehow or was this offensive to people who have no stock in the frisbee teams status on campus? As for the frisbee team i think its a good name cause its epic as shit and thats what sports are all about but i didnt even hear about this event until this article…which doesnt totally kprove the point of the article cause im not really involved in shit at conn to begin with… But if ths was that tournament that the team played in the rain like a couple of saturdays ago then i definitely watched it from my dorm room and itwas dope keep up the good work frisbee team and may i say that i have mad respect for ur squad as both a student in the heidegger seminar and as a member of a marginalized club sport