Doozies, Don’ts, and Donuts

The 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver—and Canada itself—have owned the international spotlight, so I’ve been spying on our northerly neighbor and posting my observations—from Eh to Zed—about this Olympiad at Canadianspy.blogspot.com.

Back here in Boston, I haven’t lost sight of our Bruins. While many citizens of Bruins Nation were clamoring for Ilya Kovalchuk, I anointed myself to special advisor status and posted my plea for patience—don’t sell the farm—at Hockeybarn.com.

From the Olympics and the NHL to the AMHL …A stick salute to Mike “the Eagle” Chase. February 9th marked the one-year anniversary of our AMHL friend’s death. Mikey has surely graduated from our dimly-lit arena to the bright lights of heaven, where you can play hockey whenever you want and nobody nabs the last Boston Kreme.

Happy 60th birthday to Dunkin’ Donuts. To celebrate the accomplishment, Dunkin’ Donuts has resurrected its Donut Contest. Last year’s winning entry, “Coffee for Your Toffee”, will be succeeded by…well, maybe this is the year for the Sour Cream Sunrise. Rather thin pin my hopes to one donut entry, I’m diversifying my donut portfolio and will soon divulge the names of the half dozen doozies I’m developing. Deadline for throwing my donuts into the ring is March 8th, so stay tuned for details.

For those of you who’ve followed the Humpty Dumpty (Sports) Hernia saga, I have an update: Sports hernias don’t appear on MRIs. This I learned from Dr. Brian Busconi, a former Harvard hockey player and a pioneer in diagnosing and treating what he referred to as injuries more commonly found in “mature athletes” like me. Surgery (not yet sure if it will be a deep dive or laparoscopy) is in my near future, but I hope to return to AMHL ice this summer.

Meanwhile, our little donut league is going strong. “Mighty Mike” Edwards has returned from knee surgery, and his Leafs are 6–2. On Wednesdays, Port Huron’s pride and joy, Mike Seeley—who was last seen pushing pedals in Portugal—has returned to the AMHL; the nimble defenseman took a turn in nets and earned a shutout (or so it was recorded at AMHL.com, but Seeley says by e-mail, “Someone thumbed a key when entering stats...I ain't never been between da pipes.”

Not ready for nets to not ready for the AMHL…These bears are probably not ready for the AMHL, but you don’t want to miss this grizzly spectacle.

And now back to the Olympics… I tossed my first few stones. That’s right, I curled for the first time. It was online, of course, (Bostonians who want the real deal: Visit Broomstones.com) but I still got to use a broom. I started off strong, but in the end (I only played one), I lost 0–3.

Finally, I know some readers are wondering who I’m rooting for in today’s gold medal hockey game. I can’t tell you because I don’t know. Not yet. More on that later.