Tag Archives: Boston Bruins

Boston sports fans, what ails ‘ya?

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Boston’s prominence as a sports city has been documented in various places, including here and here. It’s been said that the Hub’s sports fans are a nation onto their own; loud, boisterous, but yet knowledgeable and fair.

Jim Rome, a sports talker of national renown refers to Boston fans as “chowds,” and has often been much kinder to Boston’s fans than he usually is to other sports hubs.

Boston’s baseball fans are reputedly more  well-versed on the nuances of the national pastime than in most of the other 29 MLB cities, although former Sox closer, Jonathan Papelbon, would demur. Continue reading →

A winter without pucks

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Matt Kassian vs Darcy Hordichuk, 9/20/2011, AP Photo

Matt Kassian vs Darcy Hordichuk, 9/20/2011, AP Photo

In a country with fading memories of the triumphs of unionism and their inherent power to better the economic conditions of working people, it’s interesting that the only remaining labor issues involve round black objects–Ding Dongs and hockey pucks. Actually, the reason pucks aren’t flying around hockey rinks might have something to do with the non-snack food kind of ding dongs–people like Gary Bettman, Jeremy Jacobs, and I’ll include Donald Fehr, although adding Fehr to this list is probably a knee-jerk response typical of the union-baiting set, because it’s so much easier to blame the “greedy athletes.” (Actually, here is a really good article by Charles Pierce in Grantland on Fehr, and the economics of the NHL lockout and in the course of reading, a really good primer on what American corporate sports is all about. Read to the end of the first paragraph, the bit about Mike Illitch, billionaire pizza magnate and how he has turned an $8 million investment in 1982 into an investment now valued at $346 million, whether the team plays or not.) Continue reading →

Better than mediocre

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Self-improvement is hard work. It’s so much easier to just let things slide. Whether it’s doing something about your weight, writing a book (instead of talking about it), building a better widget, or developing a topnotch company culture or world-class organization, striving for better rather than mediocre puts you in a small, increasingly rare group of people.

We all like to point fingers at others, criticizing their lack of vision, ability to balance budgets, or throw a baseball. It’s much easier to identify the short-comings of others. Our own face in the mirror gets a free pass more than it should.

Back in 2009, June 23 to be exact, my weight was at its apex. I knew it was time to institute a strategy. Know what it was? Eat less, exercise more. No fancy diets or bizarre combination of foods. I tried to cut 500-1,000 calories from my daily intake, tracking it via a nice free online tool called FitDay. I also joined a gym and began regularly leaving the house at 4:30 to get a workout in before my workday duties made getting away impossible. You make room for what’s important in life and this had become a priority. Continue reading →