The battle of Michigan?

One for the night owls… Quite a wild exchange on two blogs that aren’t mine, but I’ll do my best to recap and link.

First, there was part of an extensive interview Gann Matsuda — who writes for Hockeywood, L.A., and his own blog — did with Dean Lombardi, in which Lombardi had heavy criticism for University of Michigan hockey coach Red Berenson. Lombardi called Berenson’s program “the worst” for development and said the Kings defenseman Jack Johnson, a Michigan product, was “awful as a hockey player” at Michigan, before praising Johnson’s post-college development. Here’s that post:

Dean Lombardi: Jack Johnson Is Learning His Craft…Belatedly

So there’s that, then there is Johnson’s “irate” response to Helene Elliott of the L.A. Times, in which Johnson heavily defends Michigan, Berenson and himself and calls Lombardi’s comments “irresponsible and unprofessional.”

Kings’ Jack Johnson irate over GM Lombardi’s comments about him and Michigan

But, you know, other than that, everything is great!

From the links, you can sort it all out yourself, just as well as I can. From my perspective, since we’re talking about a college matter, I wouldn’t give either of them a passing grade. Lombardi’s comments — whether you consider them accurate or not — were relatively gratuitous, and Johnson went tit-for-tat by publicly slamming Lombardi. What do you think?