Sports writer - Grant writer

Category: arenas

“We Want Cusick” Campaign: Just Say Yes to “Score!”

Days of Y’Orr is a cleverly named Boston Bruins blog who is leading a very good fight. Thursday, writer Jonathan Fucile posted his well-justified request to the Bruins organization to have longtime late announcer Fred Cusick honored by using his famous “Score!” clip after every Bruins goal.

Said Fucile:

Just imagine hearing Cusick’s voice after every Boston goal. Fans would love it. We here at Days of Y’Orr definitely feel it would add a little something after the goal. Think of the Bruins scoring a huge goal in the playoffs followed by Cusick’s “Score!” with every fan in attendance yelling the same. We can’t think of a better way to honor Fred Cusick.

I completely and wholeheartedly agree, and I wasn’t even born and bred in Boston.

To help Days of Y’orr further their cause, you can sign their petition, download a flyer to distribute, or contact the Bruins directly by phone or email (the information about the last two are on the original blog post.) It makes little sense for the Bruins not to oblige – I just hope they give Fucile and the rest of the blog’s crew the credit they deserve when they eventually do.

Dr. Pepper Makes a House Visit to the Pens

A fountain Dr. Pepper machine. (Photo: sage.kitamorn.com)

While trying to hatch up some tough college hockey related NHL playoff trivia questions for my gig managing the Rival Films Facebook page, I noticed a press release on the Pittsburgh Penguins team page regarding the beverage contract for their new arena. The Consol Energy Center will have an exclusive beverage contract with Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, which means RC Cola, Dr. Pepper, A&W Ro

ot Beer, and 7Up will be flowing out of the concession stand fountain machines, and Snapple and Fiji water bottles will be available along side them. This is the first beverage deal for the Penguins in quite a while, and is one of the first I’ve ever heard where the exclusive beverage rights were given to someone who isn’t Coca-Cola or Pepsi.

Dr. Pepper? Fountain soda Dr. Pepper? Alongside hockey? Well, wrap me up and ship me UPS to Pittsburgh.

If there is a weakness I have in life, fountain soda/pop is undeniably it. Don’t even begin to tell me how awful it is for me – I am more than fully aware. Even a year working in the Campus Center Dining Hall at Ithaca College, where I was often made to change the disgusting looking syrups for the fountain soda machines, could not dissuade me. Before I became addicted to coffee, the rare occasion I had fountain soda was my vice. Continue reading

Find of the Day: The Chuck-a-Puck Championships

Not the Binghamton Chuck-a-Puck, but I imagine it'll be similar. (Photo: Ryan Treat's blog)

What would you do for a brand new car? For one Texan, he’ll travel all the way to Binghamton, New York to compete in a Chuck-a-Puck contest.

In a press release today, the AHL Binghamton Senators announced that Michael Supulski, of a town outside of Austin, Texas, will be making the 1,700 mile trip to participate in the finals of their season long Chuck-a-Puck competition, with a brand new car at stake. Supulski won a game’s Chuck-a-Puck contest during the Senators’ New Year’s Eve game, qualifying him to face all of the other home game winner’s in their last regular season home game.

Odds are, the majority of those individual game winners are from the Triple Cities. But the odds that one of participant would be from Texas, and even be able to return to Binghamton for a random weekend in April, were much higher. When you have the chance to win a brand new car, however, I guess the outlay in plane tickets and accommodations is worth it – especially if you have excellent aim. Best of luck on Saturday, Mr. Supulski.

More Last Name Fun and Lerg Love from the Icebreaker

If you thought yesterday’s featured Icebreaker tournament player last name was fun (Ben Blood from North Dakota), may I interest you in the entire Michigan State roster?

They have a freshmen defenseman named Tim Buttery. Yep, as in the dairy product. They also have a senior forward named Tim Crowder (rhymes with chowder), a freshmen forward with the last name Warda (like how Bostonians say “water”), and their senior assistant captain’s last name is Gentile (which hockey is not.)

You may think I am a horrible person with no heart by pointing these names out. I argue otherwise. As someone whose last name is affectionately known as “The German Monstrosity,” who still sometimes has to spell it to herself after almost 27 years, I can be critical of others’ last names because we’re all buddies in the “Bad Last Name Club.” At least these guys’ names are spellable. At least they don’t have random silent vowels thrown in their last name just to make things difficult. When I got engaged last week, one of the first things people asked me (after “When are you getting married?”) was, “Are you changing your name?” I didn’t skip a beat when answering: “What, are you kidding me? You think when given the option I’d keep The German Monstrosity?” You’ve got to be serious. It’s more gone than Brett Bennett. I might not be getting married until after this economic depression is finished, but heck, let’s start the last name change now. My French-Canadian-ness gets confused often for Italian-ness, and now I’ll have an easily spellable Italian last name to go with it, instead of a way too long German word that literally translates to “rabbit killer.”

But I digress. Continue reading

The Battle of the BUs–A Senior Day In Every Sense

Today’s men’s basketball game at the Events Center was not only the last home game of the season for the men, but also senior day. And I found it fitting that the senior day game opponent was Boston University.

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention to my away messages, profiles or who haven’t spoken with me in the past…oh, year, I am currently in love with Boston University. Sure, I applied to five graduate schools, but since I decided I was going to go to grad school, Boston University has been one of my top choices. They were the first school to accept me (the letter was waiting for me two days after my birthday in my school mailbox). They might not have the best program in Higher Education, but they have tons of opportunities for internships and assistantships (especially in new facilities management–they‘re in the process of building the “Student Village,” a huge building project for athletics, residential life and student affairs, which working with would look soooo good on a resume), and they are just such a cool school in general. I walked around there in August and just couldn’t believe how much I liked it–I didn’t want to come back to Binghamton for another year. I was tempted to finish up my credits at Binghamton in the fall and start at Boston University in January, but I was talked out of it by a lot of people, seeing that I wanted to try for Harvard and Boston College as well. But the more I think about it, the more I want to go to Boston University. But I have to wait and see what happens.

So I attended today’s game and couldn’t decide who to cheer for–my current school, who I’m becoming increasingly disenchanted with knowing that there’s so much else beyond Binghamton, or what very well may be my new school. Well, seeing that I had student tickets and didn’t feel like being beat up (which could happen, as evidenced by what occurred at last week’s Nazareth/Fisher basketball game), I put my Boston University shirt away and wore the green Binghamton hoodie and went along with the “Let‘s Go Bearcats” chants.

The Terriers (Boston University) are currently #1 in the America East conference, and this game showed why. Marsha, Jamie and I were watching the warm-ups when Marsha remarked, “They just don’t miss,“ gesturing to the Terriers’ free throwing. They don’t–they only missed once that I recall during the game. While the first half was close, with Nick Billings being the whole Binghamton team as usual (it’s not that he can play, or that the others can’t, it’s just that he’s seven feet tall), the Terriers dominated in the second half, working with leads between 10-20 points most of the time. The final score was 69-53, but if our two seniors hadn’t been inspired to get in there and make the best of their last minutes on the Events Center floor, it probably would have been more like 75-50. The Bearcats turned over the ball constantly, and their shooting was way off most of the game. They couldn’t make a free throws at all in the second half, and easy points weren’t made because they were over-shooting the net. They announced that the official attendance at the game today was 4,823 at the end of the game. However, the end of the game lacked so much hope that people began to leave in droves after the 8 minute mark. I turned to Marsha. “Official attendance, 4,823. Official attendance after the 5 minute mark: 1,000.”

It had been noted all week that the Bearcat men had never defeated the Terriers since joining the America East three years ago, and I think the pressure of trying to overcome that in the new building on senior day was a bit too much for them. There are so many expectations for this team to do well so early on in their Division 1 career, seeing that we just built them this new venue, and we moved into a conference that caused us to eliminate one of our traditional sports (wrestling). They’re growing well, but to expect them to have beat the number one team in the conference right now wasn’t really feasible.

On another note, the Events Center is a bit…small? I was disappointed somewhat, and I don’t know why. I imagined an arena…which to me congers up mental images of the Blue Cross Arena up in Rochester. This was on a much smaller scale–the BCA holds 12,000 for concerts and the Events Center, when completed, will seat 8,000. Right now a sell out for basketball in the Events Center is 4,823. The Center is pretty sterile right now, more than likely due to the fact that they’re not really done with it. I fear that it’ll become out of date quickly, but I could also see how it could be easily renovated if that did happen. I don’t know. Did I expect more? Yes. Do we need more as a mid-major D1 school with more student apathy than the Yankees have money? No. On a semi-side note, one of my biggest fears as I leave Binghamton is that the backlash from students and faculty about the alleged “overspending on athletics” is going to deter any more growth in that area–we need more athletic opportunities because unlike what most Binghamton students think, athletes do possess brains. Also, with the local community being as stubborn as it is, I think athletics is going to be the school’s only way to make its point that we are now the economic center of the Broome County area, and therefore, should be accommodated as such.

As the crowds left the Events Center this afternoon, I felt like this was the beginning of the end. It was Senior Day for the two graduating players, but it was Senior Day for me as well–watching my last Binghamton basketball game, having what could be my new school defeat my current school. The next time I’ll be in the Events Center will more than likely be 77 days from now for Commencement. Binghamton may have been where I spent the last two years, but I’m ready to move on.

**********

Random Notes:

–The Barenaked Ladies concert at the Broome County Arena last week was awesome. If you have never seen them live, you need to, regardless of your taste in music. You’ll understand why I have been to nine concerts and on my way to my tenth on Wednesday. They exude enjoyment–they perform because they like each other and they like to perform. You’d have a feeling they’d still do this if they made no money from it. I also realized how incredibly lucky I am to have my favourite band be as accessible as they are–many of my friends have never gotten to see their favourite bands live because they rarely tour, or play only big markets if they do. I can pretty much count on if there is a Barenaked Ladies tour, there will be at least one stop in Upstate New York, usually Rochester. Luckily for me, the band’s other most regular tour stop is Boston. They’ve played there…hmm, I think three times in the past year? Four? I love it.

–I am angry at the 49ers. They cut Garrison Hearst, the only player on the team I really liked anymore. Now, maybe I’m off, but I don’t think Eddie DeBartalo and Carmen Policy would of let him go. Maybe they would–he has suffered devastating injuries that could come back to haunt him at any time. But as a team, if you’ve stood by a guy during rehabilitation periods twice, saving him a spot on your roster because not only is that the nice thing to do, but because you know the guy will come back and be one of your best players, why do you cut him? I mean, I know, salary cap stuff, they’re trying to negotiate with Garcia, whatever, but…there’s a level of courtesy that wasn’t extended. From what end, I don’t know. I think Hearst should be willing to work with the Niners to stay, and vise versa. And I think under different management, the Niners would of found a way to keep Hearst. And Derrick Deese, for that matter. I just don’t understand what the Niners are doing anymore, and I don’t know if I care to. I think they can redeem themselves in my eyes if they waive Garcia tomorrow. The Niners have never accepted behavior such as Garcia’s recent DWI arrest, and they shouldn’t start now. Montana and Young never did such stuff, and if you’re going to hold the guy to those two’s standards on the field, you should off as well.

–Scrunchie Girl, aka Chellsie Memmel, keeps proving my gymnastic prediction skills right. In case you’ve never heard the story, my sister and I attended the 1999 U.S. Classic in Rochester, and were way impressed with this girl. She was 10 at the time, and competing child elite. Her scrunchie was as big as her head, and thus the nickname, but she was fearless and right on the whole night. I turned to Megan and said, “That girl is going to be huge someday. She’s going to be a World Champion or something.” Well, what did the girl win last fall? The World Championships. Yesterday she competed at the American Cup, which I got to watch on tv while doing work, and the girl has amazing security on the beam. Just amazing. She finished third, and she seems to be in a good position to make the Olympic Team. And I SO called it five years ago.

Quote of the Week: Mike Heimerdinger, Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator, on why he hasn’t been a candidate for a head coaching job: “They’re looking for big names, not long names.” -Sports Illustrated.

That guy’s last name is three letters longer than my own. I do not envy him. Not one bit.

© 2024 Kat Cornetta

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑