On Stage(d): Former Players and Current GMs Share Views about Fighting in the NHL

Bobby Orr believes fighting belongs in hockey for the purpose of preventing pests from taking liberties on star players. He said as much in on the Sports Hub earlier this week.

Whether you or I agree with this or not (I believe that we hockey fans have yet to explore other measures for deterring such behavior) matters not. He made those comments in the context of what most people call “staged fighting,” those situations where one player, his team down by three goals, intends to spur his teammates to perform better or at least with more enthusiasm by launching his fists at an opponent’s face and underlying bone structure. On the air, Orr made no bones about ridding these altercations from the NHL.

In his new book, Orr:My Story (by my side and bookmarked to page 249), Orr says, “Of course, no one wants to see a goon in junior hockey. I applaud the graduated scale of suspensions the junior leagues have brought in to deter the chronic offenders.” He adds that suspensions are in order for any player in any league who becomes too focused on intimidation. “And as far as staged fights go,” he concludes, “I’d be in favor of an automatic ejection. There’s no room in our game for any of that stuff.”

In February, Terry O’Reilly said much the same in an interview with James Murphy: “I don’t think that kind of planned fight right after the puck is dropped serves any purpose.”

So if former players are saying this, what about current players? General managers? We know where Tampa Bay Lightning GM Steve Yzerman stands. Carolina Hurricanes GM Jim Rutherford and Pittsburgh Penguins GM Fred Shero agree. Chicago Blackhawks Senior Advisor Scotty Bowman supports these respected hockey people.

Boston Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli believes fighting has a place in the game but seems in favor of eradicating the staged stuff, too. (Listen to the end of this interview with the Sports Hub guys.)

At the very least, we’ve witnessed more agreement about the place staged fighting has in the NHL, but little action will ensue until current players speak their minds. Will the NHLPA, as Bownan has requested, poll all players?

I propose these questions be posed to the NHLPA and professional players everywhere: To what extent do you support stiffer penalties for participating in a staged fight? How open are you to discussing this topic?

AMHL Thursday Champioship: Breaking News

Thursday, August 25 2011
Concord, MA

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled coverage of (insert your East Coast natural disaster here) for this important hockey news:

While some Eastern U.S. residents perform minor clean-up after this week’s earthquake, and New Englanders prepare for a tropical storm, the AMHL Panthers and Avalanche are engaged in a scoreless tie in the championship game.

Anthony Bonfiglio, who led all Thursday AMHL goalies this season in GAA, and Dan Barros, no stranger to Koffey Cup victories, have endured surge after surge of would-be scorers. Stay tuned for updates as we return you to Barry Burbank and the meteorological maps.

The latest spaghetti diagrams indicate the most likely path—hold on, Barry, this just in:

Broadcaster turned blueliner, Ken MacLeod’s shot. From the right point, MacLeod, an award-winning journalist last seen sporting a salmon-colored tie and sitting behind a news desk, now anchors the Panther blueline corps. He has blasted a slapper past Barros. 1–0 Panthers with less than two minutes remaining in the second period. We return you to your local weather-related news coverage.

The eye of the hurricane is approaching—Sorry, Barry. More breaking news from the rink:

MacLeod has done it again. With less than a minute remaining in the second stanza, Kenny, who grew up cheering for Bobby Orr and the Bruins, charged up the right side, charmed his way into the Avalanche zone, skated left through the slot and snapped a low shot to Barros’s left. 2–0 Panthers after two periods.

And now a word from our sponsor: Advertising agency Arnold Worldwide has landed the Boston Bruins account. And marketing maven and Panther forward Paul “Whoa Nellie” Nelson can bear-ly contain his excitement.

And we’re back to the game: In the waning minutes of the third period, Nellie backhands the puck into an empty net. “Good night, Irene,” the early-morning crowd whispers to each other as they anticipate the Panthers victory and the impending Koffey Cup celebration.

The Three Stars, as voted by the media

3. Dan “Gale Force” Barros: Superb goaltending despite the loss
2. Anthony “the Eyewall” Bonfiglio: Splendid season capped with a shutout
1. Ken MacLeod: Award-winning goals (and ties)

Honorable mention:

The Bruins Bear
Weather-tracking technology
Vermont Tourism

Hockey in the Desert: "Bahrain Bill" Strikes Again, Part II

Continued from Part I, when Bill VanderClock is getting the run-around.

Each time I’ve gone to the Middle East, I’ve taken new hockey sticks with me (provided by Tricon Sports—great shop, great people, great service—in Lexington as donations to the youth hockey program in Bahrain).

I walk out of my room, and the security guard in the seat in the hallway says, “Ah sir, what’s in the bag?”

I think he was concerned about the big gear bag but no, he wants to know what was in the stick bag. He is now up on his feet, and his hand moves under his jacket toward what I can only guess is a sidearm of some sort. He recognizes my fearful expression.

“This bag?” I say, pointing to the big Easton bag at my feet.

“No, that bag,” he says with a heavy accent and pointing at the stick bag.

“Sure” I say, relieved that the contents are much easier to inspect than that all the stuff in the Easton bag. So I unzip the bag (very carefully) and remove the sticks.

He removes his hand from his jacket. No gun.

He inspects the sticks and says, “You use those with horses?”

I’m too scared to find this funny. (Looking back on it, he may have thought I was going to play polo).

“No” I reply, “these are for ice hockey. We play on the ice.”

“Like ice in a glass?” he asks, motioning as if he had a highball in his hand.

“No, sheets of ice. We play on sheets of ice,” I say as I imagine skating down an ice cube.

“You play with sheets?”

“No, no. This is hockey, Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr, Mario Lemieux…”

“Are those people you play with?”

Without explaining that those legends wouldn’t be caught dead on the ice with me, I figure out how to satisfy the still-confused sentry. I hastily open the big Easton bag to retrieve a skate. I remove the skate guard as the man stuffs his hand inside his jacket.

Then, as he glimpses the skate, his eyes flash; his hand lowers. I know he finally understands.

We both laugh. He holds the skate with one hand and, with the other, feels the edge of the blade.

“OK,” he says.

I feel like a ton had been lifted off of my shoulders. I tell him that I’m playing hockey every Tuesday and Saturday night for the next couple of weeks.

He instructs me to carry the sticks without the stick bag, and there should be no problem.

I offer him a Coke, which as always he refuses, and I then leave for my game at FunLand. Later that night (with the stick bag tucked away), I return.. He waves as I enter my room.

To this day I can’t see a glass of Scotch on the rocks without imagining little skaters—wearing white sheets—racing down the sides of the ice cubes and yelling, “Bobby…Mario…Wayne” as they go.

Hockey in the Desert: "Bahrain Bill" Strikes Again, Part I

Guest blogger “Bahrain Bill” VanderClock (pictured), who filed his first report from the desert in 2006 , shares another story (with minor edits).

Bahrain
November 2008

The outside temperature is only in the 80s, so skating in the desert isn’t as cooling an experience as in September, when the outside temperature hovers around 110. The rink, which is attached to a bowling alley (with windows in between), is about half the size of a regulation rink. Half the players are local guys and can they skate! And because the ice does not evenly butt up against the boards—the corners are like ditches—stickhandling skills are a must.

One of the goalies is a high school aged kid who pays about $20.00 each way for a taxi to get to the rink. He really wants to learn and play. The other goalie is an American woman from the U.S. Navy base. This mix of people, the unique location, and the rink size: they make the game even more interesting. Then a Saudi, who has never seen an ice rink before, enters the building. He insists on having his picture taken with me and has to try on a helmet. He looks comical in his thobe (a white shirt-dress worn by most of the men in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain) and helmet.

After hockey and then the photo shoot, we all go to an Irish bar.

Everything is great until the hotels in (Mumbai) India are attacked. I’m living in a five-star hotel and although there isn’t a problem in the Middle East, India is close enough that I keep my head down for a few days.

Three days later, as the Indian situation is calming down, security suddenly shows up at my hotel. I notice that there are guards at every vehicle entrance to my hotel. They use mirrors on sticks to examine the underside of every vehicle driving up to my hotel. And they open every trunk. I wonder what’s going on, so I ask personnel at the front desk.

“Nothing.”

Clearly something is happening, and they’ve been told not to talk about it. When I get up to my floor, six security guards—three from the hotel and three that I had never seen before—are discussing, loudly, something. I ask what’s going on.

“Nothing.”

I point out that I’ve not seen a single security person on my floor prior to this and now there are six, so something is the matter. Well, fortunately I have always made a habit of spending some time with the maids, janitors and other workers who generally get ignored by the folks who stay in five-star hotels. I’ve found that these folks are great sources of information and a little time spent really talking to them can go a long, long way. In this case I get the inside scoop that all of the hotel employees have been warned not to talk.

But it turns out that a dignitary is moving in three doors down from me and will be here for a few days. There has been no threat against the hotel or anything. But the poor security guy sitting on a chair doesn’t appear to be enthused about the situation. Every time I walk by, someone is in the chair. I start saying hello and offer the sentries a Coke or whatever. All I get is a polite “no thanks” but they get to know me, which helps out on Hockey Night in Bahrain.

Stay tuned for Part II.

On the Shelf, Part VIII: Good Stuff

Image courtesy of Joe Fletcher

The saga of my mysterious upper lower-body/middle lower-body injury continues. Physical therapy didn’t do the trick, so it’s back to the doctor for a re-evaluation tomorrow. It’s a downer not playing—and worse, the not knowing what’s wrong or when I’ll be back—but Don Cherry’s Hockey Stories and Stuff has been a pick-me-up difficult to put down.

If Gordie Howe, who will turn 81 on March 31, is Mr. Hockey®, then Don Cherry, who celebrated his 75th birthday on Thursday, is Mr. Hockey Storyteller. In his book, as told to Al Strachan, “Grapes” delivers page after page of vintage vignettes, which he draws from his vast experience as a player, coach, and commentator.

Cherry’s down-to-earth delivery transported me to wherever he ventured: on the ice, on the road, and into the announcer booth. I had figured he’d include stuff about the Bruins; that he’d share nuggets about my beloved Colorado Rockies; and that he’d take me behind the scenes of Hockey Night in Canada. Cherry didn’t disappoint.

With his trademark brashness, that blunt-force honesty—that which people tend to love or loathe—Cherry sometimes made me wince. But more often than not, I either laughed (picture this: Wayne Gretzky in long—presumably—underwear) or felt a fondness for the flashy haberdasher’s delight. Cherry admits his mistakes and becomes vulnerable. This softer side shushes his insolence.

The most endearing anecdote, for me, was not about Bobby Orr or Barry Beck, but rather about his bull terrier. “Blue and I had a favourite song,” Cherry begins the tale.

I’ll let you discover for yourself what that song is and hope that you’ll find Cherry’s yarns as engaging as I did.

Thumbs up, Grapes. Good stuff.

On the Shelf, Part VII: Hockey Player for Life

I’m no Patrice Bergeron, but when yesterday I read about how he’s dealing with his slow-healing injury, I tapped into the recovery process, from frustration to acceptance. The prevailing coping mechanism seems to be patience. So while my ailing groin, which is responding to physical therapy, keeps me on the shelf, I submit another book report.

Hockey Player for Life won me over early on when author Howard Shapiro references Vic Hadfield (one of my dad’s favorite players), Lucien Deblois (I played pond hockey with one of his throwaway sticks), and Bruce Springsteen (need I say more?). What kept me reading this fictional account of a “can’t miss” future NHLer is how the protagonist’s relationship with hockey, his teammates, and his family develop. Teenager Tom Leonard, a puck-lugging defenseman for the Magic Rats, overcomes obstacles—some of his own making—and remains loyal to the game he—and I—love most. Shapiro’s deft maneuvering from scene to scene, in which he infuses forgiveness and redemption, is akin to Bobby Orr’s grace from goal line to goal line. Order the book from Amazon, here.

AMHL Thursday Championship: Three Cups

December 18, 2003
Concord, MA

Week 15 the Championship
Do you believe in miracles?

In Rink 1, it was David vs. Goliath as the first place Red Army team cam in losers of one regulation game facing the 7–7 Panthers (Team USA) ....

…The Red Army came out overconfident and listless and the spunky Panthers made them pay early, jumping out to a 2–1 lead after one period on goals by Dean Banfield and Dave Losier.

Rob Mirakov had two goals to keep it close but Kevin Leverone’s goal with 5 minutes in the second and Losier’s second of the game in the third sealed the deal for the sequel…

-Excerpt from the AMHL Thursday Ticker

While VP AMHL Thursday Operations Kevin Reilly, who would write the content above, collects hockey sweaters to be laundered, Panther goalie Dan Barros savors the fresh-brewed victory and its spoils—the Koffey Cup—in the Panthers’ locker room.

Meanwhile, Leverone is in the donut room, where most of this morning’s combatants convene for the lavish, season-ending breakfast provided by AMHL management. Leverone tells the AMHL media that Barros is his first star of the game.

A few minutes later, Barros, in typical unassuming fashion, enters the room without any fanfare. But the media recognizes a star when it sees one and presses him to share his hockey story: the history leading up to this morning’s upset over the mighty “Red Army” (officially known as the Capitals), who had not lost to the Panthers.

Barros (pictured above), whose positioning and efficient technique reminds the AMHL Photographer of Martin Brodeur, is not prone to waste movement. Barros doesn't easily dispense words.

“I was nine or ten,” the soft-spoken Barros recalls about his earliest playing days, when he skated at John F. Donnelly Field in what Barros has referred to as the "People's Republic of Cambridge" (MA). Little Danny skated on the tennis courts, which, each winter, were transformed into hockey venues.

“I played a lot of street hockey, too.” Barros says. It was then, in the heyday of the Bobby Orr and the Big Bad Bruins that Dan began his tenure between the pipes. He went on to play goalie in the Cambridge Youth Hockey program and then for Matignon High School. He harbored no lofty illusions of playing college hockey, however. But at Boston College, Barros did mind to the nets, if only in the occasional pickup game.

More than twenty years after graduation, Barros is not a sporadic fill-in; he’s an AMHL regular. In his ten-year career, his 3.96 Thursday GAA is—in a league that has more hangers than Burlington Coat Factory—is right up there with the leaders. And he’s appreciated not only by teammates such as Leverone but also by the “Red Army’s” Coach Dwyerkov (a distant cousin of Victor Tikhonov, who watched Team USA perform its first miracle).

“Barros is so steady,” Dwyerkov said after he had banished his squad to the locker room. “Those first period saves he made on (Tom) Hargravov and (Doug)Wightski were stellar. Then, after Mirakov beat him on that first breakaway, I think Barros told himself no way was Mirakov going to beat him on the next. And that sure was the case. We didn’t have many chances, but when we did, Barros barred the door for them. He looked like Jim Craig out there.”

But Barros, his Koffey Cup now complemented by two containers—one containing fresh-brewed coffee, the other eggs and pancakes because there were no plates left—disregards the accolades and credits his teammates. “Today we won with great back-checking and clogging up the neutral zone. We didn’t let them play their game, and we played ours.”

Spoken like a true champion.

Three Stars, as voted by the AMHL Media

3. Rob “Mirakov”: Normally the master of the empty-net goal, he put two past Barros.

2. “Losierone”: A product of Kevin Reilly’s imagination, Losier and Leverone are a formidable opponent (and the AMHL’s equivalent of a celebrity combined name).

1. Danny “Bar the Door” Barros

Honorable Mention:

Kevin Reilly: His rich ticker commentary inspired this story.
Dean Banfield: His circus stick tipped in his team’s first goal.
Kenny Tarrov: His great saves kept the "Red Army" close.

AMHL Thursday, Part II: Great Expectations

"Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations."

-Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

Last week, the first installment of our AMHL saga ended with the underdog Bruins trailing the bourgeoisie, 0–1. But the B’s have not lost faith. Nay. Despite the team’s losing record, they aspire to greatness; as Dickens’ protagonist Pip sought to transform himself from a blacksmith to gentleman, the Bruins seek an escape from the forge of sub-mediocrity.

The King of the Capitals, who would be joining the battle had it not been for a lower body injury, has been surprised by the Bruins doggedness and, at the first intermission, informs his minions of the statistics: twelve shots on goal for the Bruins, four for his own team. Not good enough.

Angered by the uprising, the Capitals—skating right to left across your classic literature—wage an assault on goalie Steve Scansaroli. The brawny backstop’s defense seems to have given up the cause and offers only token support. Scansaroli is under siege. A pad save here, a glove save there, Scans holds his own until the Caps score off a rebound. Later in the second period, Cap center Brent “Scooter” Delehey displays Orr-like presence: Scooter carries the puck into Bruin territory and then confuses his opponents by pretending to fall. As his opponents wonder how to respond, Scooter—his twisted torso serving as a Zamboni—passes the puck left, to John Field, who beats Scansaroli.

The Bruins counterstrike on gatekeeper Ken Tarr, who has been alert and agile. But when his own defense is not able to reach a rebound, Tarr is helpless to stop a grateful Bruin.

However, the Capitals respond by pouncing on yet another rebound and then beat an abandoned Scansaroli.

After two periods, the king is content with his underlings’ offensive outburst: eighteen shots on goal. But the AMHL’s upper class allowed nine shots. His majesty knows that a 4–1 lead in this league is not insurmountable. And the Bruins (several of whom may have read Great Expectations in junior high school) still have high hopes.

The rebels regroup and then attack. Scott “A-Train” Arnold, once an apprentice blacksmith, chugs in on a breakaway. But Kenny Tarr, who traded in his smithing tools for a regal robe and a fine facemask, drops a metaphorical anvil in front of Arnold.

The king is pleased, even when the revolutionaries score on their sixth shot (another rebound) this period. The insurrection is about to be suppressed for good when, late in the game, Rob “Mr. Open Net” Mirak has a clear shot at the vacated goal. His teammates have been chiding him—all in good fun—about his penchant for scoring goals after the opponent’s netminder has been yanked for an extra skater. So Mirak passes to teammate Mike Hansen who, with his sixth goal this season, sticks a stake in the once buoyant Bruins.

Shots on Goal
Bruins: 10
Capitals: 12

The game over and their battle gear returned to malodorous hockey bags, the players turn their attention to the donut pantheon. What sort of sweets will Adam “Donut Meister Meister Donut” Berger have procured for this morning’s participants? Will there be a sprinkled donut for Chad Mikkelson? How about a Boston Kreme for Scansaroli? A Munchkin for the king?

Now, what I have to relate about these old fellows is that they have great expectations.

Canadian Espionage: Pirates and the Play-offs

The authorities couldn’t deter me from completing my mission: survey New Brunswickians about their hockey allegiances. The federal agencies tracking my whereabouts did manage to dupe the AMHL Photographer and me into boarding a barge bound from Grand Manan to the mainland. But the four-hour ride across the Passamaquoddy Bay—a trip the regular ferry completed in less than two hours—and the barge pirates did not prevent me from delivering the results of the informal poll of eleven random Canadians, from St. Andrews to St. John.

-Canadiens’ fans: 5
-Bruins’ fans: 2
-Other: 4

These numbers don’t tell the whole story.

“Habs in four,” said one male when asked what team he wanted to win the quarterfinal match-up pitting the Montreal Canadiens against my beloved Bruins.

He and his friend, interviewed at a SportChek in St. John, may as well have had their faces painted in les couleurs de les habitants.

Other “fans” of les bleu, blanc et rouge weren’t so enthusiastic. “H-h-habs,” admitted one denizen at the Red Herring Pub in St. Andrews. He was barely able name the enemy of Leafs Nation. Even though the hospitable patron said he has “a soft spot for the Bruins,” his loyalties lay with Canadian teams. “Go Calgary!” he added.

Mr. Hospitality was not alone in begrudgingly embracing the Canadiens. Back at the SportChek, a man about my age was decked out in an Orange and Black sweater. A Flyers’ fan since the 70s, he said he’d root for the Canadiens, but only if they were the only Canadian team left in the play-offs and only if they weren’t facing the Broad Street Bullies.

“I like the Oilers,” someone said at the Canadian Tire (where I bought a Sher-Wood PMP 7000 with a 5.5 lie for $14.99). She didn’t care much for the Habs or the Bruins. The fellow behind me in the checkout line wasn’t too thrilled to talk to the guy taking notes and declined to comment.

But most were eager to voice their opinions, including Norm, god love him, at the Red Herring. Norm, who owns the Great Canadian Dollar Store franchise in St. Andrews, was not wearing the Black and Gold but immediately piped up when he learned there were Bruins’ fans in the house. A fan since the glory days of Orr, Norm talked hockey with my wife and me well into the night as the Senators succumbed to the Penguins on Hockey Night in New Brunswick.

AMHL Thursday: Obeying Orders

Thursday February 21, 2008

"No talking to the media," Dave "Mr. Hockey" Losier tells us after our 7–4 victory over the Bruins.

Our captain doesn’t want our egos to inflate as we tell the hockey world about the Avalanche’s 6–1–1 record. With five games remaining in the regular season, we lead the Panthers by three points; Losier doesn’t want us to get too cocky. He doesn’t want to read about us in the paper.

“Too late,” I reply.

I spoke with a legitimate member of the media last week but not about the Avalanche per se. Melissa Reiner interviewed me and two other AMHlers—Stow’s Bobby Kilkenny and Paul Anastas—for The Stow Independent’s piece about our league.

Losier orders me to post Reiner’s story. When Mr. Hockey issues a command, I obey. Even if he contradicts himself.

So here's the text (with permission from The Stow Independent).

February 20, 2008
By Melissa Reiner

It’s 5:51 a.m. on Tuesday and Bob Kilkenny’s alarm clock is sounding. He’s been awake for awhile, thinking about the cup of joe he’ll enjoy after an early-morning workout at Valley Sports in Concord. It’s not that the coffee is that good. Actually, it’s average at best. But it’s the hockey that keeps him coming back.

Twice a week Kilkenny arrives at the rink just after six o’clock – sometimes still in his pajamas – and by 6:30, he and about a dozen others take to the ice for a friendly game of five-on-five. Members of the A.M. (as in early-morning) Hockey League, they’re part of a growing number of local hockey groupies who are willing to gather in the wee hours of the morning – and night – to play a sport they’re as addicted to as that daily jolt of caffeine.

“We’re old men… we never get primo ice time,” laughed Kilkenny, 41, one of several Stow players in the 18-and-over adult league. “The alternative is to play at 11 o’clock at night. But then again, I would do just about anything to play hockey.”

He’s not alone. The AMHL, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month, has enough players – women included – to fill 12 teams that play on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings throughout the year. (Plans for a Friday session are currently in the works.) Fairness in the league is paramount: Trades are allowed if a team is unfairly stacked with talent, and all teams make the playoffs. The champion is awarded the aptly-named “Koffey Cup” trophy.

Kilkenny, who laced up his first pair of blades as a five-year-old growing up in Maynard, skates Tuesdays and Wednesdays before heading to his day job straight from the rink. “Most guys bring their work clothes to the locker room and shower there,” he said. “We do it to get out, get some exercise and to have fun.”

But mostly they do it for the coffee, crullers and conversation that have become a morning ritual after every game. “The coffee is pretty horrible,” said Kilkenny, “but all week long I look forward to it.”

Jim Dwyer of Maynard plays every Thursday and carpools to work with his goalie. He looks forward to his post-game walnut crunch and chocolate frosted donuts almost as much as donning his Avalanche jersey each week. “I think about other things, but hockey and donuts are never far from my mind,” he said.

Dwyer, formerly of Stow, is so passionate about amateur hockey that he’s currently penning a book about his experiences. “AMHL Glory: A Passion for Morning Hockey (and Donuts)” is nearly complete and awaiting publication. “It started out being about the league,” said Dwyer, 44, “but the more I started writing, it turned into my hockey memoir.”

In the book, Dwyer reminisces about everything from lacing up his first pair of skates to bonding over Rangers’ games with his father. He says hockey is enmeshed in the culture of New England. “There are a lot of knowledgeable hockey people here,” he said, “partly because of (former Boston Bruins’ defenseman) Bobby Orr. For a lot of people, he was their favorite player growing up.”

Stow resident Paul Anastas still bleeds black and gold. “I think every kid in New England played street hockey and watched the Bruins growing up,” said Anastas, 44, who moonlights for the Wednesday morning Sabres in the AMHL.

A late-bloomer by hockey standards, Anastas was a wrestler who didn’t pick up a stick until age 26. “For me, one of the reasons I play is the camaraderie and the bond that the guys share,” he said. “But there’s also something special about the game. It’s unlike any sport I’ve ever played.”

Anastas has helped organized the first all-Stow team to participate in this spring’s Chowder Cup Adult Hockey Tournament April 23-27th in Marlboro. Their moniker? The aptly-named Stow Brewins.

Now, can somebody pass the butternut crunch donuts, please?

Book Review: The Best Boston Sports Arguments

“Who was the greatest Boston athlete ever? Russell, Bird or Brady?”

That’s one question posed on the back cover of the book by Jim Caple and the Boston Herald’s Steve Buckley.

I can’t be the only hockey fan to wonder, “What about Bobby?”

Skeptical, I opened the book to scan the table of contents. I would skip non-hockey questions like “Was Freezing Ted Williams All That Crazy? (Number 17), “Boston: Football Town or Baseball Town?” (Number 55), and “Which Celtics Player Had the Most Unique Career After Hangin’ ‘Em Up?”(Number 57)—all intriguing—and focus on more important questions.

For example, “Boston’s Greatest Hockey Myth” (Number 18) isn’t technically a question but it did compel me to investigate. So did “What Was the Greatest Non-Game Moment in Bruins History?” (Number 22), and “Who Was the Greatest Clutch Performer in Bruins History?” (Number 34).

Baseball and football questions dominated the book, but the material I read was insightful and entertaining. I didn’t agree with all the “answers,” but I learned a lot and laughed a lot. Plus, each section was no longer than three pages. And I got over the Bobby Orr slight on the back cover because Number 4ORR gets his due.

I didn’t have to buy the book, but I would have if the nice folks at Sourcebooks hadn’t sent it to me for free. Buzz on over to your local book store or buy it at Amazon!

Gotta go. Time to debate if the Red Sox are the new Yankees (Number 99).

Icebergs and Espionage: Part Two

Cont'd from Part I...

June 2, 2007

On the run since Game One, which we watched from safe house number two on Monday night, I haven’t had opportunity to write until now. Game Three starts in less than an hour.

So, before the puck drops in Ottawa—where the mayor has declared certain portions of the capital city a no duck zone (as reported by the pre-game show folks at the CBC)—I’ll relay the highlights of this “secret” mission into Canada.

From Safehouse Number One in Deer Lake, Newfoundland: At breakfast, I gained the trust of a Bobby Orr fan from way back. My source, who shall remain nameless, attended school in Sault Ste. Marie with Wayne Gretzky. In "the Soo" he and the “Great One” were in the same geography (or perhaps it was geometry—that information is confidential). More importantly, my source’s sister turned down the teenage wonder’s request for a date, an act for which my informant has not yet forgiven her…

…On a day trip from Safehouse Number Two, the photographer and I documented the presence of at least thirty icebergs along the Bonavista peninsula, where Montreal Canadien standout Michael Ryder grew up. One source, at a local restaurant within plain view of the ‘bergs in the bay, let on that the Bruins’ nemesis has a brother that's also a talented player. Seems that the Ryders—the father is a teacher, the mother a nurse—have spent a lot of time at Cabot Stadum, the local rink…

…Taking no chances on staying more than one night in each location, the photographer and I fled for the Avalon peninsula—but not before I gained access to a highly secure area of a well-known “tire company” that sells, among other things, hockey sticks. The good stuff was not on display, so a double agent allowed me into the warehouse, whose swinging double doors were clearly marked “Restricted Access.” Then I selected an inexpensive Joe Sakic Easton model, which I’ll debut on Thursday morning…

…Our case officer in St. John’s met us for dinner—we gathered at table along the wall, so I could survey the sidewalk scene for our pursuers—at an eatery on Water Street. After signing the jacket of the CD I had purchased at a well-known music establishment, he said he’d leave an envelope for us at the restaurant at which we would eat tomorrow’s lunch.

The next afternoon at the dead drop (that's what we spies call the location where confidential materials can be retrieved), the white, business-sized envelope-stuffed with vital materials. We reviewed its contents and then enjoyed the finest pizza (half cheese, half pepperoni and pineapple) available in the Fog City…

…On the eve of our penultimate day in the province, a black Dodge Nitro parked next to us as we admired an iceberg that had materialized from the fog earlier that day. The trio of operatives (they were trying far too hard to look inconspicuous, so they had to be the enemy), parked next to us—so we split the scene in a hurry, taking a detour to Safehouse Number Three. The Nitro was already in the neighborhood, but our stealth prevailed as we out-maneuvered the opposition.

Unwilling to risk blowing our cover, the photographer and I drove (she did all the driving while I scanned the Trans Canada Highway for potential secret agents and moose) the whole day to catch an overnight ferry back to the mainland.

Upon exiting our vessel in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, we drove the length of the province, which Anne Murray, Glenn Murray, and Kenny Tarr call home, entered New Brunswick (where I immediately called my contacts at the New England Hockey Journal Radio Show), and then sped to a secret seaside location not far from the Can-Am border.

Now, after a meeting with a couple of “investment brokers” at a local pub (I recommend the fish 'n' chips), where we discussed future missions, we’re holed-up in Safehouse Number Four and watching the CBC pre-game. I’ll leave you with this shocking tidbit from Timbit Nation: there are more non-hockey fans here than one might expect--some didn't even realize there was a game tonight. I'm going to report them all to the proper authorities.