Page 2 of 88

The Two Greg Zuerleins

2 February, 2019 / Kat

You’re getting ready for Super Bowl Sunday. You’re familiarizing yourself with the rosters of both the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams. You see Greg Zuerlein, the Rams’ kicker, and head to YouTube to watch a few of his past field goals.

And instead of field goals, you find figure skating.

No, the Rams’ “Greg The Leg” didn’t have a past life as a figure skater. He just happens to share a name with a former World Junior Champion skater whose former partner is a two-time Olympian.

Greg Zuerlein was the 2009 World Junior Champion in ice dance with Madison Chock. If Chock’s name sounds familiar, it’s because she has represented the U.S. at both the 2014 and 2018 Olympics with current partner Evan Bates (a three-time Olympian in his own right.) Chock and Zuerlein competed from 2006-11, winning not only that World Junior title, but a National junior title, a bronze on the senior level at Nationals and a top ten finish at the World Championships.

The name “Greg Zuerlein” isn’t exactly like the name “John Smith.” What are the odds that two high-level athletes would share the exact same name? I don’t know if the two happen to be related, though I’m sure it would have come up in skating circles prior to Super Bowl Weekend if they were.

A Guide to the TD Garden for the U.S Gymnastics Championships

13 August, 2018 / Kat

So you’re headed to Boston for the U.S. Gymnastics Championships. Welcome!

I am in the TD Garden five days a week. My commuter rail train to work comes through the lower level of the Garden (called North Station,) meaning I’m there at least once a day, usually twice. That makes me uniquely qualified to give you some tips and tricks for navigating the Championships and the area surrounding it. And trust me – you need them.

Warning: The TD Garden is a construction zone. – The Garden is in the midst of a multi-million dollar project to build a retail, restaurant and hotel complex in front of it. Massive skeletons of buildings now block the view of the Garden itself, making it a little confusing to navigate the area if you are not familiar with it.

Construction in front of the TD Garden in 2018 — Where did the Garden go? It’s behind this building.

Therefore, follow the signage for the Garden and don’t necessarily look for a giant building that says “TD Garden.” Two of the three entrances to the building itself have wooden plank covered walkways that can get very crowded before an event or at rush hour.

One of the walkways to the TD Garden and North Station.
An entrance to the TD Garden and North Station.

Leave some extra time to enter the arena. Some of the entrances to the arena itself (from the concourse) are closed due to the construction. Depending on the size of the crowd, they may open some doors in the stairways to facilitate quicker entrances. If they don’t, you will walk through the North Station concourse towards the ticket office in the middle. Right next to that will be an entrance to the arena itself. (Don’t worry – there are signs.)

Now, for the important stuff: food and coffee.

Coffee

Coffee status: excellent. – Do you like to drink coffee? Well, there might not be any better place in the country to hold this meet. (Except Seattle, of course.)

There are five coffee shops within steps of the arena, including two inside the North Station concourse (which you have to go into to enter the arena.) Okay, so four of them are Dunkin’ Donuts. Boston is obsessed with Dunkin’ Donuts, thus they are on every street corner. There are also Dunkin Donuts in the actual arena as well, bringing this count up to six.

The Canal Street Dunkin’ Donuts, the best in the North Station area.

The best Dunkin’ Donuts in the area is on Canal Street, so I recommend hitting up that location for your quality coffee needs. They also offer on-the-go ordering via the Dunkin’ Donuts app, which is key if you intend on getting your coffee in the early morning. Because that Dunkin’ is so good and well run, it often has long lines filled with construction workers ordering for their entire crew, making on-the-go ordering very helpful to those of us who just want to grab an iced coffee and run. That Dunkin’ closes at 6pm or 7pm every night, so that location will be able to carry you up through the evening sessions.

Boston Common Coffee Company near North Station

Don’t like Dunkin’? Don’t fret. One of my favorite independent coffee shops in all of Boston is also a stone’s throw from the Garden. Boston Common Coffee is expensive, but if you truly love coffee and good pastries, it is worth every single penny. They also have the BEST yogurt parfaits on the globe. It tastes like the most decadent dessert you’ve ever eaten, but it is actually good for you, with high quality Greek yogurt, house made granola and fruit. I think they run $5 a pop, but if you can splurge, I recommend it. They have a large seating area with wifi, so if your trip to the Championships has to be a working vacation, Boston Common Coffee will be your go-to. It was a favorite for many fans and skaters during the World Figure Skating Championships in 2016, and it will definitely gain a ton of fans during gymnastics as well.

Food & Drink

Bodega Canal (57 Canal Street) makes a heck of a margarita. The Mexican restaurant took the place of a favorite pre-game hangout of my friends, the Grand Canal, and really improved the interior, creating great seating areas for small and large groups. When it’s nice, they open the huge nearly floor-to-ceiling windows which creates such a cool scene on an otherwise dull part of Canal Street. I’ve heard amazing things about their food as well.

If you like beer, you have to at least try Boston Beer Works (112 Canal Street). It’s been a favorite of mine since I moved to Boston 14 years ago. It has multiple locations throughout the Boston area, and I think I may have tried them all except for Lowell at this point. They make all of their own beer, and can get very creative with flavors. During the summer, they sometimes have a Watermelon Beer that is one of my favorite beers of all time. It’s more tangy than sweet, and is really refreshing if the weather is hot. The standard Fenway Pale Ale is a solid choice. If you are a fan of French fries, as I am, their sour cream and chive fries are wonderful, amazing and addicting.

Need a slice of pizza? One of the most famous pizza places in all of Boston is Halftime Pizza, which is right on Causeway Street. It’s a no frills spot that will fill your pizza, pop and beer needs. Its hours vary and it’s not often open post-event, but for a quick bite pre-event or in-between sessions, you can’t go wrong.

Honorable mentions: The Fours, which has been posting some intriguing specials all summer – we’re talking nice dinner salads and some unique sandwich combos; Tasty Burger, which is brand new and adjacent to one of the Garden entrances (this is a perfect place if you have youngsters in tow) and Qdoba, not the best food in the world, but quick and (if you make the right choices) healthy-ish.

A throwback to David Quinn’s first season as Boston University head coach

23 May, 2018 / Kat

On Wednesday afternoon, the New York Rangers announced that Boston University men’s hockey head coach David Quinn would become their next head coach. I went back into my archives and found a draft of a profile of Quinn I wrote for the Boston University men’s hockey program back when he took over in 2013. A tightened and cleaned up version of this appeared in the Terriers’ program in the fall of 2013.
————-
Embed from Getty Images

Kevin Shattenkirk’s freshman year was not going exactly as planned.

The blueliner was struggling through the first games of his Boston University career in the fall of 2007. He was playing every game, but he and his entire team were floundering at the blue line, dropping four of their first five regular season games in and letting up 21 goals in the process.

Then David Quinn, then in his fourth year as the associate head coach of the Terriers, intervened.

“A month into my freshman season, I was doing poorly,” recalls Shattenkirk, now a fourth year NHL defenseman with the St. Louis Blues. “Coach Quinn pulled me aside and told me that I could do better, and that I would get better and he knew how to do it, but that it was not going to be easy.

“He told me he was going to push me, but he wasn’t going to baby me. It was then that I realized that I needed to grow up and handle hockey and school differently. He got me playing at a higher level.”

Quinn’s ability to motivate and mentor high talent players like Shattenkirk are what made him an ideal choice to succeed Jack Parker as the 11th head coach of the Terriers. The Cranston, Rhode Island native and College of Arts and Sciences graduate has demonstrated the ability to coach and develop players at a variety of levels bringing experiences from across USA Hockey, Division I hockey, the American Hockey League and the National Hockey League to his first Division I head coaching job.

Through all of his experiences, it was Quinn’s time as a member of the Terriers defensive corps from 1984-88 that shaped how he would approach leading young hockey players. He realized how much his own coach influenced him when Parker brought him on board as an associate coach in 2004.

“It really struck me how similar our coaching styles were,” explains Quinn. “I knew I had learned a lot from playing here, but I really realized how much I learned from him when I started coaching with him. So much of my coaching philosophy was shaped by playing for him.”

What Parker imparted on an young Quinn was that coaching student-athletes is a lesson in shaping the entire player. Being a supportive ear during the tumultuous times of young adulthood is as much of the position as setting up lines of forwards. Quinn did not realize this completely until his junior year, when he was diagnosed with Christmas disease, a blood clotting disorder that made playing hockey, especially at one of the most physical positions, defense, extremely dangerous. His playing career came to an end years before he expected it to.

“My career ended so abruptly after my junior year, so I kind of was a lost 20 year old,” admits Quinn. “I was trying to figure out what I was going to do because I had anticipated I was going to be playing hockey for the next 15 years. I wasn’t thinking about anything else, but after going through a difficult time, I knew I wanted to stay in the game in some way, shape or form.

“Because I think of what my personal experience was, if Jack Parker only cared of me as a player, God knows what I would be doing today.”

Quinn caught the coaching bug from his first coaching opportunity. The chance came in 1994 from the man who recruited him to play on Commonwealth Avenue, former BU assistant and Olympic Team coach Ben Smith. Smith had moved on to serve as head coach of a familiar foe: Northeastern.

“Ben lost his assistant coach in August. By luck and friendship, he offered me the assistant coaching job, which was an incredible opportunity,” recalls Quinn. “And from that point on, I knew it was something I loved. I knew in my life how impactful my coaches had been for me, and I wanted to do the same for others.”

After two years on Huntington Avenue, Quinn moved on to help build the Division I program at University of Nebraska-Omaha from the ground up as the top assistant coach. Unlike many in similar positions, he never had a chance to cut his coaching teeth on a non-Division I program – he was thrown into the college hockey elite immediately.

Looking back, Quinn notes that there may have been a bit of a learning curve.

“There was a lot of uncertainty. When you’ve never coached, and all of a sudden you’re coaching a Division 1 team, it can be a little overwhelming and intimidating,” says Quinn. “I always thought to myself, ‘It’s hockey, and I’m dealing with people.’ If you can stick to that and don’t get distracted by the other stuff, no matter what level you’re coaching at, you are good.”

Quinn soon found himself leading the USA Hockey’s Under 17 developmental program in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and found himself with what was his biggest coaching challenge to that date: the unique perspectives of 16 year olds.

“That was my first head coaching experience. The two things I knew I improved on dramatically were my patience level and my communications skills,” chuckles Quinn. “I was amazed at how little 16 year olds knew.”

The teenagers gave him perspective that would serve him well when leading hockey players a decade older.

“The thing I took from that experience that I’ve tried to apply to the higher levels is that you have to be patient,” explains Quinn. “You have a vision of how you want your team to play, the perfect way you want them to do things, but you can’t hold them to that standard every day. You have to think to yourself, ‘Well if my team made 20 mistakes on Monday, and 19 mistakes on Tuesday, that was a good day.’ You have to consume yourself with the progress instead of consuming yourself with the finished product. “

Quinn’s increased patience paid off and his Under-17 squads succeeded under his tenure. He lifted them to a 10-3 record internationally. Domestically, his team was finally a playoff contender among other teams in the North American Hockey League, many of which were made up of players an age group older.

Soon, another former college coach of Quinn’s came calling: Parker. He became associate coach and lead recruiter for the Terriers. His touches were seen especially on defense, where he coached several of the program’s recent professional defensmen: 2009 Hobey Baker winner Matt Gilroy, Brian Strait and Shattenkirk.

Quinn’s ability to mold student-athletes into solid pro prospects and solid people caught the eye of Craig Billington, the Assistant General Manager of the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche. He was keeping an eye on his team’s draftees on for the Terriers, including ‘07 pick Shattenkirk, and was impressed by Quinn’s tutelage.

“I found a man who was passionate for developing players, about communication skills and passionate for the game of hockey,” recalls Billington. “His read on people and his ability to communicate creates a good environment for the young men in his program.”

Shattenkirk credits Quinn’s environment for preparing him to play pro hockey. “I think what was so important to us was how detailed he was,” says Shattenkirk of his time at BU. “At practice everyday, he never accepted less than our best. If you were having a bad day, you had to put that aside. That is definitely how it is in the pro game.”

The level of detail Quinn imparts he sees as the key to coaching hockey players at the top of their games.

“The older the player you coach, the more thorough you have to be in your explanation,” explains Quinn. “The days of just telling someone to do something is over. There needs to be a reason behind it, and they have to understand why it needs to be done. It can’t just be I’m telling them to do it. If they understand why to do it, then they will do it again. They are going to have to do it instinctively because I can’t always be there, telling them what to do.”

Quinn’s work with BU’s Avalanche prospects earned him a head coaching opportunity with their AHL affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio, the Lake Erie Monsters. His developmental coaching philosophy led to success on that level as well, with the team amassing a 115-94-20 record over his three seasons. In 2012, Quinn was tapped to become fellow BU alum Joe Sacco’s assistant coach with the home club.

But college coaching, and the chance to succeed a man who came through for him when he needed it most, drew him back to Boston after just a year in the big leagues. Quinn enjoys being there for young men during a time when they are trying to figure out exactly how hockey is going to fit into the bigger picture of their lives.

“There are a lot of things going on in their lives,” says Someone might be having a girlfriend problem, which – people may laugh at that, but hey, they’re kids,” says Quinn. “They are emotional, they are probably having the first serious relationship of their lives. Or something may be going on with their family. Or they might be struggling with school. So when they are struggling or not grasping what you’re telling them, you have to do a little digging and see what’s going on.”

Quinn’s sincerity and experience will serve him well as he steps into a head coaching role that it seems like his entire career has been building towards. While his goal is to maintain the strong tradition of BU’s hockey success, he also hopes to create successful men off the ice.

“I would love them to love me when they’re here, but if they don’t, they love me a lot more when they’re 25, and then I think we’ve done a good job.”

2018 US Figure Skating Championships: Who to follow and who will win

3 January, 2018 / Kat

Embed from Getty Images

This week’s US Figure Skating Championships are taking place in what might be the only warm place in the lower 48 at the moment: San Jose, California. Oh, the irony: an event focused on ice taking place in the only state where it’s not blistering cold.

I was blessed to cover two US Championships (2014 and 2015) and wish I could be there in San Jose this week. However, since having my son, I’ve had to cut back on my writing travel, so I’m watching this week’s action from afar. If you’re looking for a great writer reporting from the event, follow my neighbor Claire Cloutier (@clairecloutier), who will be covering the event for Figure Skaters Online (@fsonline.) You also can’t go wrong reading Christine Brennan’s work for USA Today, Jackie Wong’s work for Rocker Skating and IceNetwork, and Lynn Rutherford also of IceNetwork (who I wish I got to know better when I did cover Nationals – she’s a skating writing machine.)

If I were a betting woman in Vegas, I’d feel safest betting on the men’s, ice dance and pairs events this week. I would stay away from the ladies because….well, read through my predictions and notes to see why.

Senior Men

Nathan Chen
Adam Rippon
Vincent Zhou
Jason Brown
Alex Krasnozhon

To watch: I am stepping out on a limb placing Alex Krasnozhon (Junior Grand Prix champion) so high. I feel like he is going to make a huge splash here. I think the highest judges will possibly put him is fifth, but he will skate better than at least one of the skaters above him. When he is on, he is quite impressive. Starting this fall, he will be one of the nation’s top men on the international scene…Boston’s Ross Miner competes in what he is calling his final National Championships. He tends to do very well in the short program at Nationals, and I expect that again this week. He will not make the Olympic team, but if he can skate to his full potential in the long program, he’ll make the Four Continents team.

Senior Ice Dance

Shibutani/Shibutani
Hubbell/Donahue
Chock/Bates
McNamara/Carpenter
Hawayek/Baker

To watch: The two and three spots will be interesting to watch. To be honest, I like Chock/Bates’ free dance more than Hubbell/Donahue’s, and I think it will be very close between the two. Chock and Bates may not have the most difficult elements, and Hubbell and Donahue are the entire package, but can make poorly timed mistakes…Do you follow the absolutely hysterical @JoeJohnsonIce on Twitter? He competes in this event, and should finish in the top ten. He has one of the best Twitter accounts of 2017…I am expecting a good week for Hawayek and Baker, namely because 2018 is apparently the Year of the Buffaloian (Hawayek is from East Aurora.) BUFFALO’S HAPPENING NOW, WE’RE ON THE MOVE NOW.

Senior Pairs

Scimeca Knierim/Knierim
Cain/LeDuc
Catelli/Tran
Denney/Frazier
Liu/Johnson

To watch: The only lock is Scimeca Knierim/Knierim, who on a great day are a complete joy to watch. She has an incredible story, undergoing a few serious abdominal surgeries in 2016 and making it back to compete late last season at Four Continents and the World Championships. (From experience, I can tell you that once those muscles are cut through, it takes a while to get back to the point where you don’t feel like you’ve been sawed in half. Kudos to her for returning as fast as she did.) … As usual, there is a strong New England contingent in the pairs event, with Rhode Island’s Marissa Castelli hoping to land another national medal with Mervin Tran, and Allison Timlen/Justin Highgate-Brutman, who train in Boxborough, MA. Their side-by-side jumps are looking magnificent on social media.

Senior Ladies

Mirai Nagasu
Ashley Wagner
Bradie Tennell
Karen Chen
Angela Wang
Emmy Ma

To watch: This event is totally up in the air. Many of these skaters have been inconsistent through the fall international season. Nagasu, who was controversially left off the Olympic team in a decision made in the back rooms of the TD Garden four years ago, is the current buzz of practices in San Jose. She has a triple Axel and a lot of crowd support …. Tennell had one of the best performances of a US woman in years at November’s Skate America, and also is skating well in official practices. I do fear that the hype could get to Tennell, who has struggled with injuries in previous years….Wagner seems a lock to make the Olympic team – she secured that spot with a silver medal at the 2016 World Championships in Boston. She won’t win here, though, due to pesky underrotation calls….Defending national champion Chen is so inconsistent. She could win the whole thing, or she could place fifth. She could skate lights out, or fall on two or three jumps. Seeking confidence, Chen has switched back to the programs that landed her last year’s title….My dark horse is Newton, MA’s Emmy Ma. If former ABC commentators Dick Button and Peggy Fleming were still in the announcing booth, I am sure Button would proclaim Ma, “Very nice” and Fleming would say, “She skates with an ethereal quality.” Ma, along with Tennell and Starr Andrews (another skater who could be a huge surprise this week), will make up many future US squads.

But first, coffee: How a coffee shop set the table for the NWHL

27 December, 2017 / Kat

In mid-December 2012, I was in a bind. As the women’s hockey columnist for New England Hockey Journal, I had to find a lead for my holiday break column that didn’t involve me interviewing a student-athlete.

Somehow – I’m not exactly sure where – I came across the story of a former Northeastern player who had just opened a coffee shop in New York City. I emailed for an interview, and she called me from her store within minutes. It was a great chat, making the story an absolute pleasure to write.

Embed from Getty Images Fast forward five years. That player was Dani Rylan, now commissioner of the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL), the first women’s hockey league to pay players. As of last week, the four team league has two agreements in place with NHL teams, and even has a corporate coffee sponsor in Dunkin’ Donuts. (I am sensing a caffeinated theme here…) The NWHL has had its stumbles, and I don’t necessarily agree with everything it has done, but I can’t deny that it has had a lasting impact on women’s hockey.

New England Hockey Journal has since purged its online archives, but I still have the version of the story on Rylan I sent to my editor on December 19, 2012. Enjoy!

———————

It’s 6:15pm, and former Northeastern University women’s hockey player Dani Rylan has been at work for just about fourteen hours. But she sounds as enthusiastic as ever.

“I’ve been here since 4:30am,” she explains, the till of a reconciling cash register ringing in the background. “And I have a hockey game at 8:30pm tonight. It’ll be my first hockey game since opening the shop. I don’t think my teammates will like my backcheck tonight.”

“The shop” Rylan speaks of is Rise and Grind, a coffee shop she opened December 17th in East Harlem, New York. The former forward for the Huskies found herself in the coffee business unexpectedly just months after graduating from Northeastern. The former GoNU.com reporter had one of her dream opportunities working for NHL Network placed on hold because of the pesky lockout, and found herself looking for work.

“I had moved to New York City to work for the NHL Network. My brother lives in New York City too, working as a coffee distributor. He had a storefront he wasn’t using, so we worked out a business deal. I got the storefront and a coffee distributor and opened up a shop.”

But unlike her hockey playing days, running coffee shop ownership is not exactly a team effort. “I am a one man band,” Rylan laughed. “I can’t afford to hire anyone else until I pay off my business loans, so it’s just me.”

Rylan isn’t just running the shop solo – she renovated the 200 square foot, eight foot space by herself as well. “My friend designed the shop, but I had to do all of the renovation work. I ended up laying tile and all of that.

“I compared (the renovations) to preseason. I was pulling twenty hour days to to get the shop ready. It was just like working incredibly hard in the preseason with the hope that it pays off during the season. I feel the same way about this.”

It may seem like Rylan is up against incredible odds, but odds have never stopped her before. Rylan played undergraduate hockey on the men’s ACHA club team at Metro State in Colorado after playing high school hockey with Assabet Valley and and ISL’s St. Mark’s. When it was time for graduate school, she found herself in the sports leadership program at Northeastern, which allowed her two years to play for the Huskies. Despite the brief length of her tenure, she made an impact. She tallied six goals and 14 assists in 70 games played for the Huskies. Rylan was named a tri-captain for 2011-12 and had assists on game-winners in some of the biggest games of the year, including Northeastern’s Beanpot championship.

“The Beanpot championship allowed us to be rockstars on campus for a little bit,” recalls Rylan. “We were wearing our 2012 Beanpot championship gear around campus for a few weeks.”

One of those pieces of Beanpot memorabilia has made it into Rise and Grind.

“I donate five cents of each cup of coffee I sell to Ice Hockey in Harlem,” explained Rylan. “I physically put the five cents in a stainless steel style mug we all got that says 2012 Beanpot champions on it. I keep it next to the register. It’s not a lot of money, but I hope it makes a difference.”

Even though she finds herself practically living at the shop, Rylan finds the time to keep up with this season’s Northeastern squad. “I talk to a lot of them still, and I keep up on GoNU. I just loved being on the team. I think they all got sick of my telling them how much I loved them all when I was captain.”

Rylan considers this week her shop’s soft opening “to get the kinks out,” but will have her grand opening on January 2nd. It was not exactly what she had in mind when she thought of life after college hockey, but it is turning out to be something that excites her as much as hockey – and that’s not her coffee talking.

“My brother came by this afternoon when no one was in the shop and he caught me dancing behind the counter,” she laughed. “I told him I’m having fun! I wouldn’t be having as much fun if I were working for someone else’s coffee shop. It’s a lot more fun when you are doing things for yourself.”

Kat Cornetta