…On Being a Sports Girl

The commissioner of my fantasy hockey league, season ticket neighbor, fellow Upstate New Yorker, and all around good guy, Jason, has been designing and organizing the printing of Boston University hockey related fan shirts for the past few years. And while he wouldn’t take my suggestion for last year’s t-shirt (which in hindsight I understand – only people who listen to traffic reports on a regular basis would understand a “Lynnfield-Saugus Line” t-shirt), I jumped on the opportunity to purchase this year’s shirt.

The back of the Gryba Senior Shirt.

This year’s shirt honors BU senior defenseman Eric Gryba – lover of flannel, avid hunter and fisherman, and the tallest defenseman since Tom Morrow (the subject of Jason’s 2006 shirt). Gryba is a fan favorite everytime he checks an opposing player or even thinks about getting in a position to score. The BU student section responds to Gryba much like fourteen year old suburban teenagers react to Nick Jonas – there’s screaming, cheering, and the occassional sobbing.

Gryba is a stand-up defenseman who is very comfortable with his role on defense – he’s not often trying to be fancy with the puck, and he very conscientious of his duties at the blue line. He holds the program’s record for penalty minutes, set during January 2nd’s game, but he’s not necessarily a dirty player. His penalties come from his tendency to play at the boards during defensive situations – he isn’t always laying guys out, elbowing, or aiming for player’s heads. It will be interesting to see what he does after college.

Gryba may not be my favorite BU player ever, but he’s definitely a personality I have enjoyed watching progress through his collegiate hockey career. Thus, I took $15 out of my wedding fund and ordered one of these shirts from Jason.

If you too want to commemorate the personality that is Gryba by purchasing a t-shirt, find “The Hockey Shirt at Boston University” group on Facebook and chat with Jason. The shirt is only $15, which is a deal when it comes to any fan shirts. Orders are due Tuesday, February 9th.

Ahhhh, Beanpot Monday. The most wonderful time of the year.

Per usual, I’m all over the Beanpot like wanna-be rock stars up on MySpace. Catch my extensive overview of Beanpot Players to Watch on Beantown Athletic Supporters. Tonight, I’ll be live tweeting for BU Today along with several of my co-workers and students, and you’ll also be able to catch my reports direct from Twitter.

Later this week, I’ll be profiling the Charity Beanpot Challenge, a game featuring Beanpot alumni and supporting the Travis Roy and Mark Bavis Foundations.

Happy Beanpot Monday!

Late Sunday night, I was feverishly writing and researching my Beanpot preview for Beantown Athletic Supporters. I visited the official Beanpot tournament home page for a game summary from last year. Saturday night, when I looked at the site, they still had last year’s captains listed on the home page.

But tonight, they had finally changed them to this year’s captains. Or at least, who we had thought this year’s captains would be:

My screen capture of the official Beanpot website at 11:05pm, Sunday evening.

Did Brian Strait suddenly return from Wilkes-Barre Scranton to BU? Wow, he must have forgave all of those awful things Coach Parker said about him in that USCHO piece from the summer.

Maksim Mayorov (Photo: Syracuse Crunch)

Lindsay Kramer of the Syracuse Post-Standard is one of my daily must-read journalists. He is not only one of the most prolific hockey journalists in the US (he also has a regular NHL.com beat in addition to his newspaper work), but his dedication to covering minor league hockey exceeds that of many of his counterparts on NHL beats.

My favorite part of Kramer’s coverage are his Notebooks of leftover material from Syracuse Crunch games. The following was buried at the bottom of his Friday night Notebook from Syracuse’s 5-4 shootout win over San Antonio:

(Starting Crunch right wing) Maksim Mayorov’s father, Oleg, is still visiting from Moscow, although Maksim has stopped being all warm and fuzzy about it.

“I’m so tired of him already,” Max noted. “You have these problems with parents. I just want to come home, sit on the couch, relax for a couple of seconds. Sometimes he asks me some questions. But that’s OK. I think everyone has those problems.”

Isn’t this quote felt at some point in every teenager’s life?

On Beantown Athletic Supporters, I briefly discuss the Manchester Monarchs and their “Diamonds Are a Girls’ Best Friend” Contest, where women are encouraged to submit their worst breakup stories to win a diamond. While I sure have some doozys, I’ll refrain from entering right now, thanks.

Yahoo Sports Puck Daddy also featured the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers’ March promotion where their team will be dressed up in special Girl Scout jerseys.

Las Vegas's Girl Scout tribute jersey (Illustration from Puck Daddy.)

Former Girl Scout me would like to point out that that jersey is based off the Junior Girl Scout uniform, which when I was a Scout, came with the option of either the sash or the vest. In true Western New York fashion, I was forced into uniform hand-me-downs, so I wore the 1979 edition – flared paints and too-wide insignia prints! (Explains a lot, doesn’t it?)

Lastly, the ECHL Utah Grizzlies will be celebrating a pair of unique promotions over the coming days. Saturday is “Guns and Hoses” night – a charity game between local police officers and firefighters will take place Saturday afternoon, and during the Grizzlies’ evening game, the team will don special “Guns and Hoses” jerseys (picture not yet available.)  I thought the name of the promotion was quite suspect, until @QuickFacts, one of the sources of hockey knowledge I totally defer to, informed me that many teams have such games annually. You learn something new everyday. I’m still interested in seeing how the Grizzlies will include both police and firefighter imagery in the same jersey.

Monday night, the Grizzlies are hoping down-on-his-luck and recently jail sprung Utah resident Gary Colman will join the team for the ceremonial puck drop. “The organization has reached out to his agent and attorney in an attempt to bring him to the E-Center and is hopeful to have him in attendance Monday for a ceremonial first puck drop,” read a Grizzlies press release on Thursday. Adrian Denny, the team’s Vice President of Communications and Broadcasting added, “Gary has struggled a bit since his move to Utah, but we’d like to take this opportunity to introduce him to Grizzlies hockey.”

Something tells me Gary’s not going to be there…