Woos, A Whoa, and Ha-Has: Insights on the Bruins and Donuts (and a Quiz)

Woo! Woo! Woo!

And so on…ten Bruins goals against the New York Rangers on Saturday January 10, 2026.

Not sure if there were more woos! Or CarShield commercials featuring Ric Flair.

How many of the ten goals did David Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie score? (see answer below)

It’s the first time two Bruins scored hat tricks in a home game (Pavel Zacha and Marat Khusnutdinov) since 1964 when Andy Hebenton and Dean Prentice tripled down on the goal production. Woo!

You may be wondering: Why the long lapse in posts on this wicked entertaining and hockey (and donut) blog?

A few dozen of you have a renewed or perhaps brand-new appetite for this kind of writing. So I've semi-un-retired. Woo! 

So let’s get to the donuts.

How many donuts from Atkins Farms did I finish? (see answers below)

When I wasn’t watching hockey or eating donuts, I was doing research on Milan Lucic.

Any guess where he’s playing these days? (see answers below)

Luc’s stats:

12 Games Played

4 Goals

4 Assists

-3 Rating

Not bad. But whoa, the Fifes have won seven of thirty-four games while Luc’s former Boston Bruins are on a roll.

Aside from woos and whoa, some hand-clapping and ha-ha moments for the Bruins:

Zdeno Chara’s #33 number joining the other dozen Bruins.

Can you name them all? (see answers below)

As an MC, Andrew Ference was funny, humble, and insightful.

Not as hilarious as Unobstructive Views with Andrew Raycroft, Tuukka Rask, and Patrice Bergeron or or Bergy’s imitation of Pasta of Brad Marchand.

Until next time (woo knows when that'll be), the answers to the quiz:

🏒Pasta and Geekie combined for zero goals but assisted on a few

🍩I didn’t finish any donuts but assisted on a few

🏒Milan Lucic has been playing for the Fife Flyers of the UK Elite Ice Hockey League.

🏒Bruins whose numbers have been retired

#2 - Eddie Shore

#3 - Lionel Hitchman

#4 - Bobby Orr

#5 - Dit Clapper

#7 - Phil Esposito

#8 - Cam Neely

#9 - Johnny Bucyk

#15 - Milt Schmidt

#16 - Rick Middleton

#22 - Willie O'Ree

#24 - Terry O'Reilly

#33 - Zdeno Chara

#77 - Ray Bourque 

            

Portland, Oregon: Top Twelve

The AMHL Photographer and I visited Portland, Oregon for the first time last week. We knew about Portland’s most famous donut establishment but were too busy discovering the magic of Portland’s Alphabet District/Nob Hill and West Side, or exploring Northwest Oregon/Southwest Washington, to do the Voo Doo.

I present, then, the Top Twelve reasons to visit Portland:

1.    Salt & Straw: This establishment serves products from Delicious Donuts, but the Salt & Straw’s main draw is ice cream, many of the flavors concocted with bizarre, but complementary ingredients and flavors. I recommend the Goat Cheese/Marionberry/Habanero and Grandma Malek’s Almond Brittle with Salted Ganache. Hockey fans will find at least one employee who knows the Bruins lost Game Six against the Black Hawks and who knows that the local junior team, the Winterhawks, won the 2013 Western Hockey League championship.

2.    Former Bruin Andrew Ference played for the Winter Hawks (the team changed its name from Winter Hawks to Winterhawks in 2009). Other alumni include Joe Morrow, Cam Neely, Glen Wesley, Brad Isbister and Byron Dafoe.

3.   Portland tends to be Eco/Ference-friendly.

4.    Blue Star Donuts: Gaining popularity in the West Side, there are still too many Portlanders who haven’t yet heard of this shop. A dedicated pastry chef (from New England) combines local and organic ingredients and a French brioche recipe to produce donuts like the Blackberry Compote & Peanut Butter Powder.

5.   Inclined to walk off the calories? Portland is home to steep geography. Climb the Southwest Hills.

6.    Or walk from Blue Star Donuts to Lardo—and then order the Mixed Greens Salad: local greens, rainbow carrots, radishes, fennel and honey champagne vinaigrette.

7.    Drive to Cannon Beach, seventy-five miles northwest of Portland. Park at the Tolovana State Recreation site. We arrived shortly after sunrise on a Tuesday morning, the smoke from burning driftwood lingering but the beach almost all too ourselves. Haystack Rock jutting from the ocean floor and Pigeon Guillemots flocking to the pine-clad cliffs, Cannon Beach didn’t disappoint my wife, the photographer. Drive back to Portland via Route 30 and gaze at Mount St. Helens.

8.    Corylus avellana. Oregon doesn’t have the climate to grow coffee beans, but the state produces Gretzky-like numbers (99% of the U.S. crop) if you’re talking hazelnuts.

9.    Astoria, OR: Get your fill of hazelnuts in the salad named Oregon Hazelnut, prepared at the Wet Dog Cafe. Then consider climbing the Astoria Column—or at least discover the Lewis and Clark influence on this area.

10.  Portland nicknames: The Rose City, Stumptown, Beervana, Bridgetown, PDX

11.  More non-donut food favorites: Savor the empanada (grilled corn, sweet potato & Manchego filling, arugula, fried chickpeas, cilantro-lime crème fraîche) at Serrato, the tacos (best black beans I can recall tasting) at Santa Fe Taqueria, and the build-your-own pizza (pepperoni and pineapple) at Pizzicato Pizza on 23^rd Street.

12.  Back to Blue Star, where this writing is on the wall: “Keep Calm and Eat Donuts.” The Blueberry, Bourbon & Basil is the best-selling. 

The Bruins Test

“Congratulations! You are most similar to:

Milan Lucic

Left Wing

You're easy-going but physically imposing when challenged, and pressure situations never faze you.”

That’s the message I saw at Boston.com, after I took the “Which Bruins player are you” quiz. My wife administered the ten-question, multiple-choice assessment minutes after the B’s dispatched the Black Hawks, 2–1 in OT of Game Two of the Stanley Cup Final.

It was close. With a little more luck, Chicago might have won; with a little more thought on the questions, I might have selected different answers to questions such as these: What’s your favorite Boston neighborhood? What do you think of Justin Bieber? How do you answer questions about Tim Thomas? What’s your favorite city to visit? What do you do for lunch? What’s your source for Bruins news?

I tend to bring my lunch to work AND snack lightly throughout the day. And I get my Bruins news from multiple sources. But the quiz allows you to pick but one answer.

No offense to Number 17, but I’m not a punch-you-in-the-mouth, run-you-over type guy. Power to the people, not power forward. So I waited a day or two and took the test again.

In most cases, I made the same choices. Different answers on two questions, though, yielded a different result:

“Congratulations! You are most similar to:

Andrew Ference

Defenseman

You're a selfless free-thinker who believes small gestures can add up to great achievements.”

I bring home my plastic recyclables from work and flatten my Kashi cereal boxes so that they too can be recycled. I’m a defense-first sort of dude that loves the North End.

I don’t live in that neighborhood, but enjoying breakfast with my wife at Boston Common or a few slices at Regina Pizzeria—where Number 21 brought the Cup in 2011—liberates me from my worries and infuses me with purpose. Love life and help others. Support the Bruins, win or lose.

Winning at least one more game in Chicago will be a test. I trust that Lucic and Ference, and all of us like them, will prevail.