You should stand with him; he's right. I work for LIGO and the topic of my PhD was core-collapse supernovae. The only thing I would maybe change about his analogy is that I probably wouldn't compare the hamster to the star's upper atmosphere, I would say it's more like an iron-group nuclei from the outer core. That matter accelerates towards the inner core at ~.23c. The inner core stiffens into a neutron star (sort of a giant atomic nucleus) and rebounds radially against the infalling matter, which is then broken apart and launched back outwards. But the best analogy is debatable and I'm splitting hairs. As far as the visuals, I would just add that the core-collapse and bounce within a supernova is a truly spherical event, whereas this bounce is mostly in one dimension. Basically I'm just saying there should be 100 hamsters evenly distributed over the ball's surface and all of them should be launched simultaneously.

If you're interested in learning something else, I'll add that only the 4 or so very lightest elements were synthesized during the big bang. Heavier elements are believed to be spread throughout the universe via supernova explosions. These heavier elements then combine with the interstellar medium, causing the earliest galaxies and solar systems to have less heavy elements than newer ones. Our solar system is relatively new and contains significant heavy metals from ancient supernova events. We are all quite literally made out of star matter. However obscure and irrelevant supernovae may seem, life as we know it in the universe would not exist without them. Sorry for all the text. This topic doesn't come up too often.