Hockey (and Donut) Blog

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

2026-01-25T20:02:00.008-05:00

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

Hockey Memories and Books

2024-03-11T07:50:00.001-04:00

Mark Messier’s autobiography, No One Wins Alone: Read it?

I finished it in about a week, and I loved it partly because it brought back a lot of memories of my own career. Ten years in the good ol’ AMHL. (For the uninitiated, I mean the 6:30 a.m. hockey league, not the Alberta Midget Hockey League.)

Image courtesy of JC Dwyer

I think of all my teammates over the years. So much camaraderie and so many good memories at Concord Valley Sports and on the golf course. Like the time we teed up leftover powdered sugar Munchkins.

But others I’ve forgotten, like the time I imitated an ice windmill this one (August 2008). I can’t recall imitating a windmill. It sounds like me, though.

I’ve chatted with a few teammates on LinkedIn or gotten updates on others from my wife, Joy, the former AMHL photographer.

So many others I’ve lost contact because I stopped playing in 2008 and stopped going to the rink. And we moved to Greenfield, MA last year. But mostly, I’ve just been complacent, taking some things for granted.

Sorry about that.

I’m not playing anymore, but I still watch the Bruins (keep the faith Black-and-Gold fans). I’ve read a lot of hockey books. And I’m back to editing my hockey memoir and dabbling with a hockey novel on Friday mornings.

How have you been? Read any good hockey books?

White Ice: The Racism – Violence Connection

2020-06-28T10:51:00.001-04:00

The NHL. Violent. Racist. Yet evolving—quickly enough?

Whiteness, the ice a collective reflection of the players, coaches and executive leadership, pervades the NHL.

Here in North America, and in other colonized countries, racism and violence go white hand in white hand. From slavery to the 1960s to today, too many white people like me have been silent, and thus compliant with the status quo of brutality against our black sisters and brothers.

My skin is white. I’m biased. I’m prejudiced. I’ve discriminated. I’m privileged. I can change.

I’ve spoken out about the incongruity and hypocrisy of fighting in hockey. I hadn’t given any thought to the connection between on-ice violence and racism. Not until I started following the NHL’s Kim Davis, absorbed Megan Ming’s Ted Talk about the root of racial violence and started reading White Fragility.

As many in the hockey community seek answers and take action to address racism, I wonder how ready we are to accelerate the exit of violence in our game.

I’m no angel. I have used my body and stick as a weapon. I loved watching hockey fights as a kid. Even today, I sometimes see a Boston Bruin incur a cheap shot and think, get that guy and teach him a lesson.

Picture this: Rabid fans, pounding on the plexiglass as players launch their fists at each other. The definition of violence playing out in front of a crowd. Rage. Blood lust. Our children learn from us and repeat the cycle.

Just like systemic racism, white supremacy and microaggressions.

This is not about why players fight (mostly to protect teammates and sometimes just to “get the boys and the crowd going.”) This is not a rehash of “Should fighting be banned from hockey?” (It already is).

This is about a deep self-examination, a societal shift and our legacies.

How long are we going to recite “it’s part of the game” and, in the same breath, denounce black and other people of color for venting centuries of frustration with a deck that is stacked against them? For reacting to violence that white people taught and continue to teach them?

Will we continue to be part of the problem or consider other solutions?

Can we at least discuss a better way to eliminate racism and violence, on and off the white ice?

I don’t have all the answers. I’ll keep searching for them and ask that you do the same.

To promote healing, let’s keep the conversation constructive, ok? We don’t have to agree. We must listen to each other.

Hockey and Hernias, Part V: Pelvic Floors and Physiqz

2018-05-08T06:43:00.001-04:00

(continued from Part IV)

In 2010, I shared my experience with the so-called sports hernia. I had no idea then that so many people would find that story or the subsequent posts on the same topic.

Long after I thought I was done writing about this subject and figured my posts were buried on the Internet, Jon Chambers found my story. Jon is the content editor at Physiquz.com, a site dedicated to physical therapy and powerlifting. He has written many pieces about sports hernias, including the guest post that follows.

Image provided by Physiqz

by Jon Chambers

The complex sports hernia injury is largely misunderstood. In fact, the name ‘sports hernia’ is a misnomer as there is no true herniation present. On the contrary, it is actually a structural weakness that develops in the deep abdominal wall and exterior obliques. This damaged soft tissue lays the groundwork for the injury’s worst symptom: chronic groin pain that doesn’t seem to respond to traditional physical therapy methods.

Effective treatment methods are largely unknown to general practitioners, leading to difficulties in receiving an accurate, positive diagnosis. For this reason, the professional advice of an expert should become a top priority for those injured. With that said, medical understanding of the problem has expanded dramatically since first mentions made their way into research journals in the 1980s. Using these studies as a roadmap, an effective roadmap to recovery has been born.

Increasingly, evidence points to muscular imbalances as the primary culprit in developing the injury. As the adductor muscles of the inner thigh become stronger, the core is unable to compensate—resulting in tears as the abdomen is forced far beyond its limits. “One-sided” athletic activities that are repetitive in nature, such as the kick of a soccer ball or the hitting of a hockey puck, are a main contributor to this uneven development.

The solution to resolving pain lies in working to restore balance. By utilizing a full-core rehabilitation approach, those afflicted are able to restore symmetry to the muscles of the hip and groin. As the athlete regains proper movement patterns, pressure is then lifted from the area allowing for relief.

Conservative treatment should be prescribed for 6 weeks. If substantial progress is not made in that time towards lowering pain levels, however, moving forward with surgery should not be feared. At surgical success rates of 95% and higher, taking the time to find a doctor specifically trained in the treatment of sports hernias is well worth the effort.

(Jim Dwyer here again, with an update on my situation and comments on Jon's post. I'd say that I'm in the 5% category. Hard to say what may have gone wrong with the surgery or subsequent physical therapy because there are so many suspects—bones, ligaments, nerves, fascia and tendons—that reside in the pelvic floor.

Before even finding a surgeon, I recommend finding a pelvic floor therapist, someone who has performed a manual exam on hockey or soccer players.

If you're like me and learning about pelvic floor therapy after surgery, you too can benefit. After four or five visits with the pros at The Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center (Lexington, MA), the pain has decreased in frequency and duration. There is no magic fix for it, but there is relief. Even with the mysterious and maddening flare-ups, I'm hopeful that I can enjoy life more.

I don't expect to ever play organized hockey again and powerlifting is not my thing. Maybe a pick-up game or power walking. If I can do those activities with less pain, I'll consider that a victory.

Thanks to all of you have visited the site and to the people like Jon who are doing their best to help those who seek help with pelvic floor pain.)

Top Twelve: Pushing Away from the Table

2016-04-02T13:10:00.000-04:00

All but done with donut(s)

I posted one entry in 2015, a clear sign that other endeavours have wooed me away from writing about hockey (and donuts).

Oh, I have many other stories I’d like to tell here, but it’s time to say an official “see you later” with one more Top Twelve collection—this one focused on the activities, people and places that, in the last year or so, have provided relief, gratitude and even joyfulness as way to combat my often irrational fear and anxiety.

Reading

Ron Maclean’s Hockey Towns: Untold Stories from the Heart of Canada; George Henderson’s Krazy George Still Krazy After All These Cheers; and Clint Malarchuk’s A Matter of Inches, the latter of which I finished reading in Montreal.

Montreal, QC

I didn’t skate on Puckbite’s backyard rink. Way too cold. But, the Habs-loving, late-blooming hockey player and yours truly enjoyed lunch and a long philosophical discussion about hockey and the arts.

My wife and I visited several familiar places and a new donut establishment, in La Petite-Italie. Our Russian cabbie, a friendly historian who knows his way around town, delivered us to Le Trou de Beigne, where we bought these donuts, some of which we shared with the doorman at our hotel, some of which we ate, and a lot of which we had to sacrifice for art’s sake.

North Carolina

Getting Silly with "Stormy"

Another wonderful friend, much like Puckbite, lives in Charlotte. Hockey isn’t such a big deal there, so we drove north.

In Raleigh, college football outranks professional hockey, but the PNC Arena is a fantastic venue to watch a Hurricanes game. Even though the Dallas Stars beat the home team, we still enjoyed affordable seats near the player’s bench, the “Two in the Box” video segment and pulled pork.

In Durham, the hot spot is Monuts Donuts. Unique donut and coffee options contribute to the flair of this tavern that, of course, serves Sierra Nevada Tropical IPA and Irish Coffee.

Ireland

The Nutella-covered cronut at Krust Bakery was the best tasting donut in Dublin. The Boston Cream at The Natural Bakery in Donnybrook made me feel at home.

Bostonians beware: I saw lots of people sporting NY Yankees caps and not a single Dubliner wearing Red Sox merchandise.

I didn’t see a Celtics, Bruins or Sox fan in Galway either, but that’s not something I worried about while savoring the porridge at the House Hotel—in the heart of the Latin Quarter. ¡Qué bueno!

Dave Gosher and Bob Beers

Gosher calls such a great Bruins game on the radio that sometimes my wife and I turn off the TV’s sound. Three weeks ago on the Sports Hub 98.5 hockey show, Beers said it’s unrealistic to expect the Bruins to be perfect every game. Every NHL team goes through ups and downs. This kind of broadcasting is refreshing and supports my efforts to tap into gratitude, dare I say love.

Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand

I love these guys. How blessed are we here in Boston to have this duo on the same line and same penalty killing unit? Definitely an odd pairing, but what’s not to love as they demonstrate their mutual affection in this Valentine’s Day video? The only thing missing is a love song.

Nashville, TN

Some Nashville hockey fans may be tired of Tim McGraw’s “I like it, I love it” after every goal the Predators score, but my wife and I heard it five times as the hometown team defeated the St. Louis Blues. I couldn’t get enough of it.

My afternoon at the Country Music Hall of Fame rivaled the hockey game for entertainment value. The Keith Urban exhibit, which includes an autographed Quebec Nordiques T-shirt, and chatting with a visitor from Toronto in front of the cowboy music displays, made me happy.

My wife took a poolside photograph of a “100 Layer Donut” from Five Daughters Bakery as I listened to a Garth Brooks tune streaming from our hotel’s speakers.

West Point, NY

Getting to re-connect with a relative who plays for the Black Knights was extra special.

Even if you’re not a hockey fan, West Point is a beautiful place to visit. I didn’t see a donut dispenser on campus, but you’ll find outstanding soda bread and cider donuts a few miles up the road, at Jones Farm.

Writing

Most every Friday morning at the Boston Bean House, I’m working on a historical novel. If you love hockey or Canadian-American history, this book may be for you. Someday. (By the way, my hockey and donut memoir is still on the to-complete list, but it needs a wee more bit editing and time to mature.)

The AMHL

“You still got it,” Donut Boy told me while I, in my street clothes, shot the puck into the net. He was skating after the game, as he always does, and I wasn’t— but that didn’t matter. His compliment lifted my spirits.

I’ve had so much fun playing hockey with Donut Boy and all the other men and women that make the AMHL so special. As I re-read some of the stories I’ve written (and had forgotten about), I’m so glad to have been part of the league, as a player and writer, and for friends like Donut Boy.

Exercise

I haven’t skated since last fall but planks and long walks, in the cities we’ve visited and here at home in Maynard, have become my friends.

Less Pain

My groin and hip pain has decreased in frequency, intensity and duration. I’m not cured of it and there are flare-ups. But, thanks to my wife, exercise, pelvic floor therapy, my chiropractor, playing the guitar, prayer, music, meditation, my psychologist and countless others who care about me, I remain gratefully yours.

Thank you—gracias, merci, obrigado, shokran, spaciba, Go raibh maith agaibh—to all the readers over the world and to those who also shared their hockey (and/or donut) stories. Thanks for such an enlightening and magical ten-year gig.

See you on LinkedIn, email, the golf course, the rink…maybe someday here on this site again, or wherever our paths may cross again.

Update:
21 March 2017

You can now read my new blog, stories I tell about learning Spanish--in particular about pronunciation.

Fathers, Sons and Dunkin' Donuts

2015-06-21T10:18:00.002-04:00

Coupons from my father's DDU training manual

In 1974, my dad spent six weeks at Dunkin’ Donuts University (DDU) in Braintree, MA. While he learned about frying fritters and operating a franchise, my mom and we four boys went about our business in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (Mom told a lumber yard employee that her husband, Jim, had died and asked the stranger if he could help her Cub Scouts with a Pinewood Derby project.)

I was a fifth-grader at Longfellow Elementary, yet I don’t recall learning anything about Henry Wadsworth or reciting “Paul Revere’s Ride.”

After my dad returned from Boston and then moved us to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma—where he opened a Dunkin’ Donuts on Route 66—my ex-classmates wrote to me. I still have the missives written on paper reserved for grade-schoolers learning to improve their penmanship, if not their spelling and punctuation. Greg, for example, wrote, “You are lucky because your dad works in a dunkin donuts (sic) shop, when ever (sic) you want a donut you got one. Boy, you are going to live in paradise!”

Dad made cutting donuts look easy to a ten-year old. On rare occasions, he would place the chrome ringlet-maker in my right hand. I anticipated chopping the dough into perfect circles, just like my father had learned at DDU. I swung my right arm and wrist downward at the doughy blob and anticipated the impact, that flick of the wrist Dad had executed to free the soon-to-be donut from its mother ship.

Thwap. A doughy glob would get stuck in the donut-cutter. (I had latent talent that wouldn’t manifest itself for another decade or so, but that’s another story). Dad then blended the mutant’s remains into the big batch and repeated the process he had learned in Boston.

I could also watch my father through the gigantic rectangular window separating the customers from the master donut maker. He’d roll dough flat, sprinkle cinnamon on top, reshape the mass into a roll—and then with a whack, whack, whack—he’d chop off chunks that would become coffee rolls.

My dad wore splattered batter instead of blush. Cakeup, not makeup. He shouldered the burden: the long, long hours required to feed customers and to earn a living for a growing family.

Less than two years later, we moved back to Colorado—to Fort Collins, where my dad would own an automotive business for more than three dozen years and I would learn that I preferred donut grease to muffler grime.

In 2013, less than a year before Oklahoma City’s Dunkin’ Donut franchisee Misha Goli would announce the expansion of the brand there, he and I chatted about our dads and donuts. His father, Massoud, had also attended DDU and baked... and baked. Misha, a ten-year old in 1992, wanted no part of that. He was all about customer service.

He said, “I used to get the milk crates—I couldn’t reach the cash register because I was too short. So I would always get the milk crate and put that under the cash register, jump up and grab the register with one arm and use the other hand to try to push the buttons and ring the customers up as they were coming in.”

He also remembers that giant rectangular window through which customers could watch bakers in action. “The windows aren’t there anymore,” Misha said. He was quick to add that the family and community spirit is still alive, however.

His father has retired and still lives in Oklahoma. My dad passed away last October, in Fort Collins—a week before Dunkin’ Donuts opened a store there and while I was home here in Boston.

My wife and I flew back to Colorado, and in my dad’s basement she found his Dunkin’ Donuts training manual with that old school logo, letters rounded into a fuchsia-colored coffee cup.

Talk about your full circle.

On Colorado Eagles’ Wings

2014-11-23T19:55:00.000-05:00

Cape Cod, October 2009

I sang “On Eagle’s Wings” from the front pew shared with my brothers. The urn storing my father’s remains rested on a table a few feet in front of us as hundreds of his friends and customers—several wearing hockey jerseys representing Fort Collins Muffler & Automotive—sang, too.

The lyrics, displayed on a white space above the altar, reminded me of Dad’s favorite minor league hockey team, the Colorado Eagles. He had season tickets since 2003, the team’s inaugural season.

On Colorado Eagles’ Wings, I thought.

Dad didn’t attend the Eagles’ home opener on October 25 because of his rapid decline. Alzheimer’s, dementia or whatever other potential undiagnosed disease led him to slip away over the past few years, would claim him two days later. He was ready for the Next Realm, ready to join my mom.

As the service progressed, I continued to think of hockey. Dad, or “Mr. Hockey” as many of his friends referred to him, played a big role in the building of Edora Pool and Ice Center (EPIC) in Fort Collins, CO. My dad was always quick to say that he had a lot of help.

Peter Jacobs, an integral part of that EPIC success and my father's good friend, told me during the reception, “It’s the end of an era.”

Nearly a month has passed since Dad ascended to that loge section in the sky or whatever you want to call Heaven, and “On Eagle’s Wings” continues to comfort me. When it pops into my mental playlist, I think of the drives to Denver to watch the Colorado Rockies and playing with my father and brothers on Wednesday nights—that one game in 1987 as Dad scored the only goal I can recall seeing him get, a tip-in. (Dad’s favorite hockey mantra was “head for the net.”)

These joyful memories balance the sadness I feel and lead me to gratitude. I’m grateful for Dad’s visits to the Land of Ben Affleck (inside joke to those who attended the memorial service), our walks in Maynard, riding the “T” to the TD Garden to watch the Bruins, and our road trips to Lake Placid, Ottawa and Hershey.

As the Colorado Eagles are a dozen or so games into their season and Thanksgiving Day is almost upon us, I find myself grateful for a sound mind that allows me to reflect back to my father’s memorial service once again: I hugged, shook hands and laughed with my dad’s former teammates, opponents and customers; I talked hockey with a father whose son I had coached at EPIC; I chatted with a former Colorado Rockie who had become friends with my dad; I served as a conduit between people who didn’t know how much they had in common.

I wonder now if the hundreds of people singing “On Eagle’s Wings,” realize how much they have enriched my life, how their thoughts and prayers and donations to the Alzheimer’s Association have comforted me.

Thank you, Dear Reader. Whether you knew my dad as a hockey player or horseman (his other great passion), whether you knew him well, met him once or are reading about him for the first time, thank you.

Thank you, too, Father Jan Michael Joncas, for composing “On Eagle’s Wings.”

Hockey and Hernias, Part IV: Men's Pelvic Health

2014-10-19T16:13:00.000-04:00

Continued from Hockey and Hernias, Part III

“Have you ever had a pelvic exam?” my PT specialist asked.

Sure, I surmised. Doctors’ hands thumping on the region between my fifty-year-old hips, physical therapy, and surgery—all that must count for something, right?

No, this would be a different kind of probing, an internal exploration of the pelvic floor region.

Yikes. Okay.

After the test, eight sessions of myofascial release, prescribed light pelvic movements and a ton of Internet research, here’s what I’ve discovered.

Pelvic health problems apply to women and men. Just because we males don’t bear children doesn’t mean we’re exempt from chronic pelvic pain syndrome, pudendal neuralgia, pudendal nerve entrapment or a combination of these (pelvic myoneuropathy).

“Pelvic” pertains to more than what meets the hip.

The perineum supports the diaphragm, bladder and bowel and is bordered by the pelvic floor.

We have two superficial transverse perineal (STP) muscles. They stabilize the perineum. They remind me of shock absorbers. In my case, the left STP is more clenched—as if bracing itself against additional injury—than the right.

Many people, myself included, have forgotten how to breathe like a baby; stress and fatigue cause us to inhale through the chest rather than through the rib cage, thus putting unhealthy pressure on the perineum.

Everything’s connected: Abdominal bloating, pelvic floor and radiating pain come and go and vary in type intensity and duration, but guided meditation, diaphragmatic breathing, playing the guitar, walking and light exercise can deflate the symptoms and, more importantly, the negative “here-it-comes-again/what-am-I-doing-wrong/I’m-never-going-to-be-free-of-this thinking that enters my mind.

Progress will be slow and is best measured by what pain I can tolerate or how often I reach for Advil. For example, if I play golf and am not debilitated the next day or two (did that twice in the last month), then I’m on the right track.

My STP is more relaxed than it was before the eight sessions.

Dealing with healthcare insurance and the pending appeal for additional sessions is a pain in the perineum.

I have options as I await that decision and for UMASS Worcester to develop a better MRI: Restorative yoga, cold laser therapy or trigger point massage for hockey players.

I can’t say when or even if I’ll ever return to the AMHL but am grateful for the opportunity to help others with this same injury and similar conditions. I’m grateful for the proactive professionals who care about and for me and who have responded to email. I thank goodness for financial and spiritual stability, the guitar my mom and dad gave me, my wife, my hockey friends and….the list goes on as long as I want it to.

Top Twelve: The 2013-2014 Boston Bruins

2014-10-06T06:34:00.001-04:00

Patrice Bergeron’s hat trick against the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday night may be the first of special memories this year—but before the regular season commences, let’s take one longing glance at last season.

I present these Top Twelve highlights:

1. Fitness first—it’s Zdeno Chara and. Kevin Millar with 31 pull-ups each; the shuttle run and heaving diaphragms gasping for air. Who plays with Chris Kelly on the third line: Carl Soderberg? Reilly Smith? Jordan Caron? Matt Lindblad? Anthony Camara? “Coaches and management,” says Dennis Leary, “have to start thinking about who will stay and who will go.” See and hear it all on Behind the B.

2. More from Behind the B: Frisbee golf and forging friendships at the team-building retreat. Game One at the TD Garden against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Chris Kelly’s goal on a penalty shot starts the season right.

3. Same episode—about a dozen minutes in. Matt Bartkowski and Tory Krug talking donuts and listening to Rush.

4. Tough guy Torey Krug gets in to a fight and then skates to the penalty box. I can’t remember which game is was or who he fought, but I do recall Krug sitting down and then tucking his hair behind his ears.

5. Halloween Night. My wife and I dressed, like normal human beings, stroll through the North End. A giant spider dangles from the doorway at Polcari’s as adolescents amble about and parents push their bedecked wee ones in strollers. The home team’s attack is woeful against the Anaheim Ducks, but our boys win in a shootout.

6. Thanksgiving in VA. Listening to the Bruins on Internet radio. To my dismay, the Pittsburgh Penguins tie the game with .03 seconds remaining in the third period, but Krug scores the OT winner. Much merriment. Thank you.

7. A Two-s-day Night in Alberta. Two Us, two Ks…two points for the B’s as Tuukka Rask earns his second shutout of the season The Bruins beat the Calgary flames, 2–0. Jerome Iginla earns two assists. And Johnny Boychuk returns to Boston to greet the next two Bruins fans to join his family. .

8. Chief Travel Officer and Ticket Master. Johnny Bucyk, the team’s travel coordinator, carries his own luggage. As cheerful as they come, Chief fulfills ticket requests at the Game Day Breakfast.

9. The Bear and the Gang, Christmas Spectacular. Produced when leaves still cling to New England’s trees, this video is a winner. Third Star: Rene Rancourt’s magic microphone. Second star: Patrice Bergeron as the proud owner of a shiny new weed eater. First Star: the Bear.

10. Credit Card Roulette. At Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant, Jordie Caron foots the dinner bill.

11. Per Johan Axelsson; He still sports the great hair and is still a snazzy dresser. Now P. J. is a scout for the B’s, and he’s on the road with his colleagues and management watching his former team on National TV against the Chicago Blackhawks. The Black and Gold lose in a shootout. Too bad none of the current Bruins deployed the move P. J. used against the Blackhawks in 2008.

12. Frozen Yogurt Fraser. Rookie Matt Fraser’s admission that he was working off a froyo—this after he scored the OT winner in Game Three against the Canadiens—served as a sweet and serendipitous post-game interview.

Dishing Hockey and Donuts with Award-Winning Author Roland Merullo

2014-08-24T12:38:00.001-04:00

Award-winning author Roland Merullo loves hockey (and donuts) as much as I do. He wrote something to that effect to me and then signed his name in the copy of Lunch with Buddha I had purchased.

I haven’t read all of his books, such as the one with a donut on the cover, but I will buy them because I anticipate more hockey, more donut references. But it’s more than that. The magic of Merullo is his thought-provoking style of storytelling. He makes me question my own behavior and beliefs but not in a Thou-shalt, heavy-handed fashion. His fiction is unique yet real, affirming and enlightening, funny, spell-binding.

Characters in his books seem to have a thing for hockey and those halo-like treats that serve as one of this site’s hallmarks, so I asked Merullo about this connection. We traded email, and I now present these six questions and answers.

Jim Dwyer: I know you shy away from donuts now—but what donut do you equate with paradise?

Roland Merullo: Honey dipped or chocolate honey dipped, but my tastes are eclectic.

JD: When you were twenty-four, you broke your back. So hockey, as you wrote in a 2012 Facebook posting, is "off the table." But you must have played as a kid in Revere or at Phillips Exeter. What are one or two of your fondest recollections of those days?

RM: I skated at the MDC rink in Revere, and play street hockey in front of my house, but I never was on the ice with a stick until 11th grade at Exeter. I made the club all-star team, and have many great memories from those days. I also played a little club hockey at B.U. and Brown, and in a men’s league on an outdoor rink the one year we lived on Martha’s Vineyard (my wife taught at the high school). That was AFTER the broken back. Many great memories but my last goal was a tip-in on a shot from the left point. I just laid out my stick and it went into the upper right-hand corner. A good shot to retire on.

JD: One more real-life question before we move on to your books: Who was and perhaps still is your favorite hockey player?

RM: Eddie Shack, hands down. I liked his nuttiness.

(JD’s note: Eddie once owned a few donut shacks, so to speak).

JD: In Breakfast with Buddha, Otto Ringling has a hockey scar. How would Otto describe the incident that gave him that mark on his neck?

RM: He was on the wrong end of a high stick.

JD: Otto's "breakfast" companion, Volya Rinpoche, loves miniature golf, but what does he think of hockey?

RM: Well, he’s from Siberia, so we have to assume he would enjoy it. He fell asleep at a baseball game, however. I saw one game in Russia, actually the USSR, in 1977, when they still called themselves amateurs. No fighting, a little checking, but the best passing I have ever seen.

JD: If Rinpoche were to meet Jesus in an American Savior sequel, where would they meet for donuts?

RM: The donut shop where Jake meets Janet in Allston in my novel, A Little Love Story. It’s made up, based loosely on a shop in Hadley, MA, on Route 9, with a very talkative Greek owner.

Check out a Merullo novel or non-fiction book from your local library. Buy one from a real or virtual shelf and then have him sign it at one if his events.

Jesus Loves Donuts

2014-08-10T07:55:00.001-04:00

Jesus loves donuts.

I know this because I read it in a wonderful novel: American Savior, by Roland Merullo. A best-selling and award-winning author, Merullo tends to inject subtle donut and/or hockey references into his books. I read Breakfast with Buddha in 2012 and Lunch with Buddha in 2013. Both are gripping stories with believable characters. They traverse America in pursuit of food and spiritual nourishment, but neither novel features a character who loves donuts as much as Jesus.

On the campaign trail that crisscrosses the United States—Jesus is running for president—the candidate orders his modern-day disciples to stop at donut shops.

The Savior is no goalie, though, as implied in the Boston expression about Espo scoring on a rebound. But he could be a forward or defenseman, according to the narrator. A wise-cracking and skeptical TV reporter, Russ is a regular Doubting Thomas who wants to believe.

He suggests that this Jesus he’s just met could be as manly as hockey player sitting in the sin bin and a man who has not lost an ounce of his feminine kindness.

Jesus, in Merullo’s depiction, feels like a good friend. The sort of fella with whom I could discuss benevolent anarchy. The kind of guy who would sing a song by the Carpenters with me. A dude with whom I could break bread or donuts.

Hockey and Hernias, Part III: Plan B, Plan Let's See

2014-07-14T06:45:00.001-04:00

A lot of AMHlers and other hockey friends have asked me when I’ll be back playing hockey. I’m grateful for their compassion and support.

Not sure, is what I tell them, or I shrug my shoulders.

Have I retired?

No. Well, probably. At least from real competitive hockey. Maybe not, though, from pick-up activity. My return to any form of significant exercise other than walking will depend upon what magic the hockey gods might contribute to my healing. I want to alleviate the pain incurred from surgery to fix what medical professionals refer to as athletic pubalgia and/or a sports hernia.

Essentially, it’s an injury affecting the pelvic floor or inguinal canal. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, diagnosis is difficult because MRI’s usually don’t reveal the damage that we know is there and that will not heal on its own. (Any doctor who tells you to “give it time because you’re old” and who is not familiar with this conditions probably isn’t the right doctor for you.). Surgery tends to be the only recourse to find the torn tissue.

For those of you who’ve benefited from surgical repair, more power to you. I wish you continued hockey happiness.

For those whom surgery has not healed, or who too often feel even worse, you may find company at this Mayo Clinic online forum or perhaps here, where I’ll continue to share my experience.

I don’t fault my surgeons for their baffled reactions to why my pain is just as intense and more widespread than what it was before surgery in 2010; they were clear from the outset that about five percent of surgeries are unsuccessful. The reasons, from what one of my surgeons has told me, are all over the map.

The surgeon can inject steroids to the painful area and call for additional MRIs. In my case, these steroids haven’t helped, and additional MRIs (from different providers) have not shown any evidence of damage. Exploratory surgery is not something the surgeon wants to do, and I don’t blame him.

Rather than waiting for MRI technology to improve, I’ve researched options for those of us who want to get back to focusing on sports, fun, family…whatever arena that gives us purpose and contentedness.

Pelvic floor therapy. My new Plan A. This is not about “strengthening the core,” what traditional physical therapists help their clients with; this is about releasing what might be an entrapped nerve.

Trigger point massage. Probably Plan B. Larry Warnock here in the Boston area has been a terrific resource. He’s proactive in the TPM community and responsive to email. If you’re outside New England, ask a local TPM therapist about what Larry “Thejocdoc” Warnock calls a “pelvic unwind.” My insurance doesn’t cover massage, but the cost is reasonable and not prohibitive.

Cold-laser light therapy. Plan C? Proactive and responsive to email also describes acupuncturist Craig Armine. He’s based in Phoenix, AZ and tells me that it’s important for cold laser administrators, typically chiropractors and acupuncturists, to use 500 milliwatt lasers in a cluster formation at a wavelength of 810 nm.

Magnetic Resonance Neurography. Partly because MRN is a relatively new procedure, it’s much more expensive than an MRI. I’m not sure if insurance would cover it. And I hear that the MRN may not define the problem.

I’ll let you know more in August, after I visit with a pelvic floor specialist.

Please email with any questions. I’m happy to help.

Continued here.

Top Twelve: “Happy” Hockey, Happy Canada, (Happy Donuts)

2014-05-08T19:34:00.001-04:00

Last week I asked co-workers about earworms. “Happy,” someone said, but the song gets too much airplay.

AMHL Tuesday Champs: The Penguins

Never heard of it.

But now that I’ve listened to Pharrell Williams’s hit, the song has stuck itself to my psyche and has prompted my fingers to Google the heck out of “Happy,” hockey, Canada (and donuts). The investigation spawned these personal reflections about gratitude, so I present—may sound unreal what I’m ‘bout to reveal—these Top Twelve “Happy” highlights:

1. Team Italy Sledge Hockey: They could complain about their missing limbs but instead have chosen to be “Happy.”

2. Happy in Kelowna: Happy (and a hockey player) beats hate.

3. The Happy Donut: Free Fritter Friday makes me smile like the blue-eyed donut logo. Myrtle Creek, Oregon is on my to-donut list.

4. Happy Hockey in Hingham (MA): An eleven-or twelve-year old, awarded a penalty shot, juked the goalie—and himself. The goalie flopped, and the skater toppled before the latter could shoot. As the forlorn youth skated to his bench, an opponent skated behind him and offered encouragement or empathy or some “Happy” thought. At least I hope that’s what happened.

5. Happy for Can-Am Connection # 1: Our friends from PEI, attending the Hingham hockey tournament, paid for dinner. Good times talking about hockey and (lemon) donuts.

6. Bruins vs. Canadiens: I’m happy that Shawn Thornton accepted P. K. Subban’s apology.

7. Happy in Montreal: McGill students go overboard in Underground City.

8. Happy in Halifax: The patients and staff at the Nova Scotia Rehabilitation Centre find their “Happy” place. I especially enjoyed the Hula-Hoopers.

9. Happy to read about St. Andrews, NB in the Boston Globe: See you, St. Andrews—the safe house, Niger Reef and Honeybeans, in six weeks.

10. Happy Youth Hockey: Jay Atkinson’s piece in the Boston Globe Magazine highlights the need for more fun, less fighting for a scholarship.

11. Happy for Can-Am Connection #2: The AMHL Photographer and I will return to Montreal next weekend. Round Two between the Bruins and Canadiens will be over, but Puckbite and I will still be friends.

12. AMHL Championship: Happy to hear that Tim Cook won his first-ever AMHL championship as a goalie, leading his Penguins to a 3–2 victory over the Leafs.

13. (Baker’s Dozen) Happy to be writing: Not so much on this site as I’m writing offline to rebuild Seamus J. O’Sheehan’s Castle.

Why Oh Y: Scott Zolak, Vowels and The NHL Trade Deadline

2014-03-05T07:15:00.000-05:00

Scott Zolak is not a Caillou fan. What kind of father, Zolak wondered on Monday, would burden his son with a name that ends in a vowel. Zolak, a world renowned linguist, professional Scrabble player and co-host of the Gresh & Zo show on Boston’s 98.5 Sports Hub, defended his stance by deploying the oldest trick in the linguists’ playbook: referencing Greek mythology and the Boston Bruins.

Zolak was bewildered that his comments sparked more reaction from listeners more concerned about the alphabet than chatter about the Bruins trade deadline (today).

Bruins President Cam Neely was watching an episode of Caillou in his office at the TD Garden when Peter Chiarelli, a devout Gresh & Zo fan, marched into Neely’s office to relay Zolak’s logic. Neely turned off the TV and then responded to Zolak’s tirade.

“Zo, well he’s a lexical authority. Although I’m fond of Caillou, such a wonderful little bald boy, we’re going to take action on Zo's comments. You guys in the media will find out soon enough from TSN, so I may as well tell you now. We might have to trade Loui Erikkson to the St. Louis Blues for future consonants, er considerations, and two furies. Yes, that’s right I said furies. What, you think I don’t like Greek mythology?”

Why Loui?

“We have to,” Neely said. “We’re carrying too many players whose first names end with an A, E, I, O or U. And Y. As much as we love Loui, that diphthong plus one vowel really puts us over the limit. We must move these vowels.”

Eriksson, as soft spoken as a silent E, declined to comment on his status and teammates who might be on the trading block and who might raise Zolak’s ire.

Budding stars like Torey Krug or Dougie Hamilton? Valuable veterans like Patrice Bergeron or Zdeno Chara? Minor leaguers like Tommy Cross or Zane Gothberg? The Bruins roster contains seventeen players whose first names end with a vowel.

Who’s next?

“You’ll have to ask Zolak,” Neely said, shrugging his shoulders, “if he’s not watching Wheel of Fortune. He doesn’t like to be interrupted during that show.”

Tune into the Sports Hub with Gresh & Zo. Maybe Zolak will say he’s sorry? Probably not. Why? Oh boy, don’t get him started with Y.

2013 Top Twelve

2013-12-31T14:15:00.000-05:00

1. Patrice Bergeron’s game-winner for the Bruins against the Maple Leafs—hear the Dave Goucher's call or from the announcers in Finland.

2. Writing to Pope Francis, asking for his opinion about Holy Donuts in Portland, ME. (Papa Francisco: Espero su respuesta.)

3. Celebrating twenty years of marriage to the AMHL Photographer.

4. Seeing my little brother, Dennis (the one with the most hockey talent in our family and an Avalanche/Michael Jackson fan) and his youth hockey pals and other punks all grown up.

5. Blue Star Donuts in Portland, OR.

6. Publishing a piece at Puck Daddy.

7. St. Andrews, NB: Our annual visit to the safe house where the protagonist in my novel plays hockey and mentioning the sea-side town in a song I wrote.

8. Learning how to play “I Wanna Drive the Zamboni” (Gear Daddies) on the guitar (I know the basics, anyway) as well as playing tunes by Canadians Michael Bublé and Bryan Adams.

9. The Bear and the Gang Christmas Spectacular: Everything from Dave Goucher’s voice to Patrice Bergeron’s Christmas present, to Dougie Hamilton’s red nose to Rene Rancourt’s toboggan ride with the Bear. Fa la la laugh out loud.

10. Tuukka Rask—two Us, two Ks… and Zdeno Chara—two goals—shut out the Flames. This was a special game not just because Jerome Iginla’s ex-team was at the TD Garden but also because it was 80’s night: Terry O’Reilly dropped the honorary puck, and the in-game music included an a-ha moment and New Kids on the Block.

11. J.-P. Plouffe’s eccentric world where hockey, society, and art all get along (mostly).

12. Reconnecting with my AMHL friends after the Thursday Fall 2013Championship Game.

AMHL Thursday Championship: Christmas Miracles

2013-12-26T17:48:00.000-05:00

December 19, 2013

Bruins vs. Blues

Concord, MA

Two weeks ago, the odds of the Blues (4–10 regular season record) and the Bruins (6–7–1) advancing to the Final were as slim as Santa Claus in the off-season. (Little-known facts: Papa Noel spends the off-season as a park ranger in the Arctic Cordillera, Canada’s “Far North,” hiking the high peaks and reporting his research to McGill University. Just before he bulks up for Christmas, he weighs about 165 lbs.)

For more than a dozen years, the AMHL Photographer drives to the rink in hopes that everyone on each team will play. Perfect attendance would make her job easier and would increase the likelihood of capturing compelling images that she posts online and places into the prizes given to players whose teams play in the championship game. Even in final games, perfect attendance is not as regular as she would like, and this often means she must haul undistributed prizes back to her workshop.

As we join the game in progress, the Blues leading the Bruins, 1–0, she takes inventory of players she has tracked all season.

“Everybody’s here except Neal (Hesler),” she says. “It’s a Christmas miracle.”

Fall 2013 Champs

Filling in for Hesler is Steve Scansaroli. Scans cracked two ribs about a month ago. His doctor cleared him to play goalie, a position he will later say allows him to control collisions, but not to skate out as he had done for the Blues in the regular season. Maybe not full-blown miracle, but only four week’s recovery?

As many a New Englander ponders the birth of the Savior and sings along with Christmas carols played on Magic 106.7, Scans watches the Bruins—skating right to left across your IcePad. Blues defenseman Mike Moore launches a slap shot from the right point. Scans smothers the puck against his chest (and upper rib) protector.

Scans braces as Bruins forward and AMHL veteran Aaron Sherman, a right-handed shooter on s his off-wing, passes to rookie Matt Buono. He shoots glove side—ding—off the post and wide right.

Still in the second period and now leading 2–0, the Blues attack again. Tyler Spring, at the right point, shoots—ding—off the post and behind netminder Dan Barros. 3–0 Blues.

“C’mon Yellow,” a Bruins bench jockey bellows, “plenty of time now!”

He’s not talking about the five shopping days until Christmas but rather the twelve minutes remaining in the second period.

Two minutes later, Bruins forward Andrew “Kala Christougena” Zacharakis, cuts from the far boards fronting the Bruins to the slot. He wrists a shot past a defender and past Scans, the puck bulging the twine. 3–1 Blues.

The teams trade exchange presents (a Bruins player scoring on his own goalie and Scans surrendering a softie or two, and the Blues lead the Bruins, 4–3 after two periods.

Buono makes good on a rebound attempt, which Scans considers another gift, and Buono scores again less than four minutes later. Almost faster than you can say Buon Natale, the Blues have not only squandered a three-goal lead but are now down a goal.

But they still have eleven minutes to tie the game.

Blues defenseman Brian Rogers shoots from the point as oncoming traffic approaches. As the opponent blocks the shot, Rogers’s stick breaks, the blade separating from the shaft. As play continues the other way, d’Entremont reaches over the boards with his own stick to retrieve the detritus. No way is he going to pull this off—or up. d’Entremont hoists the blade up the boards and lifts the blade along the boards and then lowers his makeshift crane to retrieve the shaft. He repeats the exercise with such strength, determination and dexterity—all in the name of player safety—yanking the detached shaft upward and then over the boards.

Impossible n'est pas français.

The Bruins dominate play but have not scored as the puck is frozen along the near boards.

“Time out!”

With 2:30 on the clock, Barros poises himself for the inevitable onslaught, generated by the squandering a three-goal lead, testosterone, and the thought of unfinished Christmas shopping.

The Blues once again carry the play. Barros turns his left heel out to make a save. He rises, seemingly hurt and unsure of himself as the teams prepare for a face-off.

His Bruins clear the puck, celebrate the victory, and then pose for the team photo with the Koffey Cup. A Bruin, filled with the joy of victory and mayhap the holiday spirit, yelps his delight.

The Bruins file off the ice to the locker room to admire their personalized photo calendar prizes.

“Nice comeback, eh, Jimmy?” Bruins defenseman Mike Moore to this reporter.

Barros exits and then responds to the question about his awkward save and if he was injured.

Not an injury, he says, and then replicates the save, He turns to his left, extends his left heel outward, and then says, still bewildered, “I haven’t made a skate save in ten years.”

Maybe not Miracle-on Ice-material. But near-perfect attendance, fast-healing ribs, d’Entremont’s feat…and that last by Barros—plenty to celebrate.

Buon Natale, Feliz Natal, Kala Christougena, Joyeux Noël, Merry Christmas…and a happy and healthy New Year, everyone.

Kevin Kenny: Boston and PA Strong

2013-12-14T13:49:00.001-05:00

With all the bad blood between the Penguins and Bruins, the recovery from concussions, the potential paybacks and the pending suspension of Shawn Thornton, perhaps we can call a truce. If only for a day.

You see, Kevin Kenny, a Pennsylvania junior hockey player, suffered a spinal injury on November 16. As Boston's rally cry resounds in New England, Kevin's friends and family have remained steadfast in their support: Kenny Strong.

I believe Kevin needs us to surrender our ill will and petty resentments. As we strive to figure out the best way to minimize injuries to NHL players, let's hold Kevin in our thoughts and prayers.

If the spirit moves you, please consider sending Kevin a card or donating money to defray the costs of two surgeries and other medical costs.

Kenny Strong.

Peace, pucks, and happy holy-days.

Thinking Outside the Boxing Rink: Venting at Puck Daddy

2013-11-30T14:50:00.000-05:00

Fighting in the NHL: To ban or not to ban; that is not the question.

Let's think outside the boxing rink, okay?

I posed other questions, posted at Puck Daddy's "The Vent," that I trust will spur more meaningful discussion about fighting's place in professional hockey.

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

2013-10-20T16:39:00.000-04:00

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?

Boston Bruins Training Camp: Top Twelve

2013-09-21T12:38:00.000-04:00

Sunday September 15, 2013

TD Garden

Section 139, Row 15

Jimmy's Jottings

“What do you want to know?” my wife asks me from her seat fifteen rows from the blueline. “You don’t have your glasses.”

I can’t read the roster, but I can the see the names and numbers on the ice and scribble notes.

“Any Newfoundlanders?” I ask.

1. No Newfoundlanders. Two mainstay Maritimers, though: Brad Marchand (Halifax, NS) and Adam McQuaid (Charlottetown, PEI).

2. Four Swedes: Loui Eriksson, Alex Fallstrom, Niklas Svedberg and Carl Söderberg

3. Whenever I say Söderberg, I think of Irish soda bread.

4. There are no players representing the Republic of Ireland, but we do have a Kelly (Chris) a Shawn (Thornton) and a Reilly (Smith).

5. Dennis Seidenberg is from Germany (Schwenningen) not Quebec (Shawinigan).

6. Bruins blogger Caryn Switaj stands in the players bench area, chucks a puck at the goal…and scores. The crowd cheers as Bon Jovi’s “Have a Nice Day” blares.

7. ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man” introduces the Bruins, led by Big Zed.

8. The Bruins do not appear to have adopted my arena music proposal. (ZZ Top is Texas and Bon Jovi is oh so Jersey)

9. The new black jerseys contain too much silver and not enough gold. The Bruins look more like LA Kings than Boston hockey royalty.

10. Malcolm Subban is quick, and I don’t mean Jonathan. The new B’s backstop seems to possess explosive lateral speed.

11. Torey Krug is strong with and without the puck—dumping David Krejci into the boards, retrieving pucks behind the net, and scoring on a slap shot that causes the Causeway crowd to ooh.

12. Boos may greet Brad Marchand in opposing arenas, but here at TD Garden I like his spunk. In the skate-around before the second session, he steals the puck from an unsuspecting Patrice Bergeron, and then shoots—scoring into an empty net.

NHL Music Scene: Shake it Up

2013-08-11T18:10:00.000-04:00

Like a 2000 automobile with a vibrating steering wheel and uneven tire wear, the NHL needed to realign its divisions. The league also needs to reinvent the in– game music experience. Boston needs more Cars, and the NHL needs more of what DJ T. Campbell does in the Motor City.

Like Campbell, the marketing department at the Staples Center is on the right track; the Los Angeles Kings ask their fans to vote for the music, and they publish the playlist. So too, do the New York Rangers; the musical lineup sometimes includes Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind.”

Why don’t other teams ask their fans what they want to hear, or least consider giving “Crazy Train” (sorry, Ozzie) and Black Betty (no disrespect, Ram Jam) a rest?

To jazz things up in each of the NHL’s arenas, I propose that each home team not only provide a forum, an app or whatever to prompt fans for input but to also that they play tunes that pay homage to the locals. Kind of like the restaurant scene these days, the local farm–to–fork movement. Big name bands and lesser-known indie groups would all get airplay.

I dig the notion that music is a universal connector, so why not provide fans with alternatives, and not just alternative rock. Or jock rock. Or hair bands. Give the in–game music mavens a chance to mix their own music and collaborate with fans.

Let’s start with the Atlantic Division.

Boston Bruins: My proposition is almost as simple as A–B–C. I’m talking about Aerosmith, Boston and the aforementioned Cars. No other arena gets to play “Sweet Emotion,” “More Than a Feeling” or “Shake it Up.” Territorial rights is, I believe, a start. How about infusing the arena with what Boston–based band The Heartsleeves calls “neoeclectic soul.” Lead singer Jared Lucas Nathanson wrote a song about the New England Patriots, so I’m confident he could submit a hockey fan- friendly tune to the Bruins, if only that online opportunity was available. A song or two from Western Mass: Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, anyone? I recommend “The Bear.” Or back closer to Boston, consider Nancy Beaudette. “When the Last Whistle Blows” isn’t about referees or hockey, but it’s upbeat and her voice is “Something Beautiful.”

Buffalo Sabres: I love the Goo Goo Dolls—went to their concert in Manchester, NH a few weeks ago. Great show. But “Slide,” “Better Days” and the Buffalo band’s latest, “Rebel Beat,” should not be played in the TD Garden or anywhere else but in the First Niagara Center. How about Natalie Merchant, born in Jamestown, NY? She isn’t known for any raucous, raise-the-roof kind of music, but it would be nICE if 19,070 Sabres fans were treated to a 10,000 Maniacs song, maybe a melody from Campfire Songs? Or a sentimental song, say “Reilly,” from Attica, NY’s Penny Whiskey?

Detroit Red Wings: I’ve never been to “the Joe,” so I couldn’t tell you if “Wango Tango” or other stuff by Ted Nugent, a.k.a., “The Motor City Madman” is played. I imagine Mr. Campbell is way ahead of me here. Has Octopus Al (the Red Wings mascot) put feelers out to the local college music scene? Maybe a nascent garage band could be featured once a month.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Great job with barefoot hockey video featuring “Footloose” (and grand color commentary that includes references to Adam Foote and Toe Blake). Play your BNL and Bryan Adams, for sure, but give your fans a voice when it comes to music choice. I suggest Silvergun and Spleen or another “Band of the Day” listed at TorontoMusicScene.ca.

Florida: Tough call on who gets to play Gloria Estefan and/or the Miami Sound Machine. Maybe both the Panthers as the Lightning both call Central Florida home. Who claims Tom Petty and Sister Hazel, both with roots in Gainesville? I do know the team in Sunrise publishes its playlist. The Panthers might look southwest to its in–state rivals for guidance on in–game entertainment, however: The team in Tampa has a music man, Sean Bovelksy. I’ve not yet been to a game at the Tampa Bay Times Forum (or the BB&T Center in Sunrise), but I bet Mr. Bovelksy has a good beat on things.

Montreal Canadiens: “Shippin’ Up to Boston” or anything else by the Dropkick Murphys ought to be outlawed at le Centre Bell. Habs fans have a forum (but not a Forum) to discuss their musical tastes, but the marketing department for Les Glorieux doesn’t appear to post playlists. I like what “Stevo” at AllHabs.Net had going in 2010 but would like to see more initiative from the team. For example, the Canadiens could play Claude Cormier’s song, “Mon Hockey,” at least until Quebec City gets a team. Perhaps Puckbite (happy third anniversary, J. –P.) can offer further insight or recommend a song or artist, but I’m all for hoisting the Cranes into the musical spotlight. I believe in “Believe.”

Ottawa Senators: Not to be upstaged by DJ Campbell or Mr. Bovelsky, Alex Marchand has a good thing going in O–Town. Fans can request songs via Twitter. How many have requested Hall & Oates’s “You Make My Dreams Come True,” quite possibly the greatest get-your-groove-thing-a-going song of all time. But rules is rules. Daryl and John hail from Philly, so the Flyers would lay stake to “Private Eyes, “Wait for Me” and Sara Smile.

More on the Flyers and other teams later.

Portland, Oregon: Top Twelve

2013-07-07T13:32:00.000-04:00

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

2013-06-22T11:24:00.001-04:00

“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.

Charles Bradley: Pucks, Pets and CAN-AM Camaraderie, Part II

2013-05-25T12:16:00.001-04:00

Continued from Part I

Charles Bradley, black and blue thumbnail and all, is back in business and back in the game. At the Dunkin’ Donuts in West Concord, he’s his same old amiable self as he sits at the table next to my wife and me. Caring to the core about pets and humans like me, Charles listens to my wife describe my ongoing injury saga and makes a suggestion or two from his own experience as a hockey player and animal doctor. (You’ve probably seen the bumper sticker, “Be kind to animals. Hug a hockey player.” Right?)

Stop by Domino Veterinary Hospital (DVH), Charlie says; I’ll give you a brochure for the doctor that fixed my wrist.

He stands up to get in line for his coffee as my wife and I prepare to leave.

We run an errand and then meet Charlie at DVH in West Concord.

Paint greets our nostrils as a contractor applies color to the door leading to the reception area. We shuffle to the right and see Dr. Bradley.

Charlie rises from his chair in a side office and then leads us on an impromptu tour of the new facility. We walk from room to room, Charlie showing us machines for examining and treating dogs and cats.

If I were a patient or pet owner, I’d like the soothing, soft colors—including sage and beige—of the treatment and special procedure rooms and pharmacy that serve customers in Concord, Sudbury, Maynard and beyond. The place is bright and cheery. Just like Charlie.

He’s not about to apply for sainthood and is the first to admit the adversity he has endured in the aforesaid changing veterinary market. He left the profession, and the AMHL, a few years ago to dabble in the home renovation business, but that endeavor proved unsuccessful.

We move on, chatting about Charlie's drives through Vermont to Canada and listening to CBC Radio. Charlie asks if my wife and I are familiar with Stuart McLean.

Of course.

We agree that the Canadian storyteller-comic (born and raised in Montreal West, a few blocks away from Charlie’s Loyola High School) and McLean's The Vinyl Cafe program are akin to Garrison Keiller’s A Prairie Home Companion. (Dave and Morley, often featured on McLean's hour-long variety show, own a dog, Arthur.)

We reach the front lobby and discuss the nuances of Canadian parlance.

“He says ‘eh’ a lot less than he used to,” Dr. Bradley's assistant, sitting behind the new desk in these new veterinary digs, says.

But it’s not all about the “eh;” it’s also about the A, as in Yahoo!, Mazda and pasta. YEAH-who, MAZZ-duh, PASS-tuh, right?

“Right,” Charlie says, smiling about a Canadian’s propensity to end a sentence with an affirmative interrogative.

We change topics from linguistics to cross-border cooperation to Can-Am adventures and camaraderie, and ultimately circle back to hockey.

Are you over the devastation, my wife wonders, of the Canadiens losing in the first round? She’s not aware that Charlie told me ten years ago that he’s a Bruins fan.

“I made the conversion,” he says.

In an amped-up professional hockey environment where the lines between rivalry and rage often blur and can block us from seeing the beauty of our game, Charlie Bradley sticks out like a sore thumbnail.

“You call him Charlie?” his assistant asks.

“They’ve seen each other in garter belts,” my wife says.

Charlie explains that we hockey players assign pet names (my pun, not his) to each other, adding an –ie or –y to our first names. “Charlie, Jimmy…,” he says.

I can call him Charlie. And if I had a sick dog or cat, I’d call Dr. Bradley.

Charles Bradley: Pucks, Pets and CAN-AM Camaraderie, Part I

2013-05-12T16:33:00.000-04:00

May 11, 2013

Saturday morning

West Concord, MA

The AMHL Photographer and I sit at our usual table at Dunkin’ Donuts, discussing an upcoming doctor appointment to address my Humpty Dumpty Groin.

She notices a familiar face entering the place, and I look left to watch Charles Bradley, an AMHLer, a veterinarian and one fine Canadian, approach. Wearing a solid bold blue short-sleeved shirt and smiling, he extends his right hand to meet mine.

Half of his left thumbnail is black and blue. Looks like a hockey injury to me. Charlie raises his hands, like a begging beagle, to reenact his awkward attempt to block a shot during a 3–1 loss on Tuesday morning. He laughs at himself.

Despite his Avalanche losing to the Leafs and his bruised lunula, Charlie seems happy, like the same fellow I got to know ten years ago, when he shared his hockey (and donut) story with me.

I asked him on that Tuesday morning in March, 2003, “Given your preference, Tim Hortons or Dunkin’ Donuts?”

Just then someone opened the fire escape door, not because of an emergency but because the door was closer to his car. This triggered a fire alarm bell.

“Tim Hortons,” Charlie said.

Tim Hortons, I say, OK.

“Definitely.”

I had a feeling, but there was a pause

“Because of the bell,” he says.

I switch from donuts to hockey and learn that Charlie was born and raised in Montreal (pronounced MUN–tree–all) and started playing hockey when he was four or five years old.

“Our grade school was in Loyola Park, and we had four hockey rinks and one skating rink right behind us. The City maintained it.” Charlie said. “And in those days (1960s), we didn’t have really artificial ice, except for the (Verdun Auditorium) and Montreal Forum. Well, we played hockey every day; we played because the rinks were maintained by the City.”

These were outdoor rinks?

Charlie said, “Outdoor ice, yeah. And the guys would come out, the municipal workers would come out and flood every night. They were illuminated, and we could play all the time unless there was a thaw. It was great. That’s where we learned our skills.”

As we chat after his Tuesday morning game, comedian and AMHL mainstay Chris Howell interrupts us. “I just want to say that Charles Bradley is probably the biggest liar I’ve ever met.”

“Thanks a lot, Donut Boy,” Charlie replied, enjoying the friendly exchange.

After Donut Boy exited, I asked Bradley if he had aspirations of playing junior hockey.

Loyola High School, he said. "Pretty high-level hockey.”

The Jesuit-run school, created for English-speaking Catholics in the Côte-Des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-De-Grâce neighborhood of Montreal, resides on Rue Sherbrooke and is contained by Concordia University, a few blocks west of Parc Loyola.

Charlie wore the school’s maroon and white sweater.

“We did tournaments, and we were usually the champions or near the top in the Montreal league,” he said as the Zamboni did its thing around the Valley Sports rink. “And we had our rink, so that helped a lot. We skated every day. We skated probably about seven to ten hours a week. It was good for skills as well.”

After high school, though, hockey took a back seat to professional studies. He graduated from The University of Guelph Ontario Veterinary College and then worked at dozens of practices in the next almost twenty years, travelling from Ontario to New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

He found his way back to hockey, though. In 2000 or 2001, Charlie says that after learning of the AMHL at a Valley Sports Stick Time session on a Friday afternoon, he registered to play.

“I was really surprised at the level of hockey,” he said. “This is a nice league because, the difference to me, other than the time, is that everyone plays hockey for the fun of it. They don’t take it too seriously. That was a real put-off for me when guys were getting really really serious, competitive, and angry at each other, smashing each other and holding grudges. We don’t see that in this league. And the idea of rotating the teams through is really good. Having the time after for the CAM-uh-rah-duh-rie and fellowship, that makes it really good.”

But financial struggles—tough to earn find stability in a veterinary market where clinic ownership can change hands— took him away from his passions: taking care of cats and dogs and playing hockey. He dabbled in local home renovation, but that endeavor never took off. He and his family decided to move to Ontario in 2009.

Upon learning of the move across the 49^th Parallel, AMHLers expressed their respect for Charlie by email.

“On behalf of all the AMHL officials, we would like to extend our best wishes to Charlie and his family as they go back to the mother country. Bradley was a great competitor and statesman from Canada and will be missed,” wrote Referee Peter Bagley.

Terry Loebs: “I will remember Charles Bradley as the most accomplished backchecking defenseman in AMHL history, and the all-time leader in evoking the same question ("Is that guy playing 'D' or forward?") among AMHL newbies. Good luck, Charles (eh?)”

Mike Schneider wrote, “Nicest guy off the ice. On the ice? Tenacious, quick, strong. A beast on defense. The kind of guy you fear going towards or fear may be on your heels. If you beat Charles, you know you played your best.”

Now, Bradley is back in business and back in the game. At the Dunkin’ Donuts in West Concord, he’s his same old amiable self as he sits at the table next to my wife and me. Caring to the core about pets and humans alike, Charles Bradley listens to my wife describe my ongoing injury saga and makes a suggestion or two from his own experience as a hockey player and animal doctor. (You’ve probably seen the bumper sticker, “Be kind to animals. Hug a hockey player.” Right?)

Stop by Domino Veterinary Hospital (DVH), Charlie says, I’ll give you a brochure for the doctor that fixed my wrist.

He stands up to get in line for his coffee as my wife and I prepare to leave.

(To be continued)