Tag: Boston (Page 2 of 5)

Good Dogs Gone Bad

6 December, 2009 / Kat

Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer.

This weekend, Agganis Arena kept running promotions for an event next weekend with Cesar Millan, the “Dog Whisperer.” (Aka, a dog behavior expert that dog owners turn to once they realize that raising a dog may, in fact, take actual work.)

My immediate thought during the first ad Friday night was, “Gosh, Jack Parker could use a Dog Whisperer. He’s got a whole roster of Terriers that keep giving him trouble.”

What would happen if during his Agganis visit next weekend, Millan spent some time analyzing the problems of this year’s Terrier team? I think it might go something like this:

Parker: I can’t believe I’m turning to you.

Millan: Oprah does.

Parker: Fine. I guess I’m desperate. As I mentioned in my post-game comments after Friday’s tie to Vermont, “my team does not know how to get ready for a hockey game.” They then went on to emphasize that point with a 4-1 loss against BC on Saturday. What changed between my 2009 national champions and this team?

Millan: If you watch my television show, you’ll know I am all about owners quitting babying their dogs. If you baby your pets, they’ll walk all over you and develop behavior problems that you’ll end up paying me thousands to fix. I see you with somewhat of the same problem – this team is walking all over you.

As hard nosed as you are, you lost a huge part of your bite when a coach’s dream of a captain, Matt Gilroy, graduated. His age and superhuman-esque determination gave you an extra coach in the locker room. And let’s not forget about John McCarthy, a quiet, but impactful leader, especially among his classmates. Then you had that whole senior class – essentially, you had five or six captains.

According to many accounts (including a close reading of Burn the Boats), Gilroy and McCarthy did a lot of your coaching for you last season. They called out guys when they got lazy. They set the tone at practices. They instilled the goal-setting mindset of the team as a whole. You also allowed them much more reign than other captains had. And with this age group, acceptance by peers can be much more powerful than by authority figures, giving your captains that much more clout. Continue reading

Dear The Sports Hub: Please, Just Hire a Woman.

14 July, 2009 / Kat

Dear 98.5 The Sports Hub,

You were quite the topic of conversation on Tuesday, appearing literally out of nowhere with the sudden morning announcement of the demise of WBCN. With your August 13th arrival, Boston will be home to four sports radio stations – fitting really, given that Boston is the capital of obsessive sport fandom.

Before you go around stealing talent from the existing three stations (which you are already rumoured to be doing), let’s talk about one aspect of Boston Sports Radio that no one ever mentions:

Where are the women?

Yes, there is a woman, Jayme Parker, who does WEEI’s Sports Flashes on occasion. And WEEI.com recently hired a recent BU grad to host it’s morning video clip segment and do brief sound bites. Yes, many of the upper administrators calling the shots on WEEI and ESPN890, like Julie Kahn (Vice President of Entercom Radio New England) and Jessamy Tang (General Manager of 890ESPN), are some strong-willed and successful females. But besides that, Boston sports radio is all male dominated.

In 2009, when one of the most consistent and coveted football analysts/hosts of the past decade is female (Suzy Kolber), and when the Red Sox beat writer for the largest newspaper in Boston is female (the Boston Globe’s Amalie Benjamin), and when our regional sports television network host is female (NESN’s Kathryn Tappen), why are females largely absent from manning the microphones in Boston’s sports radio scene?

A Brief Break from Frozen Four Mania to Watch Bruins Cut Their Hair

8 April, 2009 / Kat

My dear Twitter friend and fellow Boston hockey blogger @cameronfrye and I had the opportunity to attend and cover WBCN and Aaron Ward’s Cuts for a Cure event on Wednesday afternoon. While she is the far better photographer than I – it helps that she has the souped up, newer version of my trusty ol’ Kodak – I tried my best to snap some interesting photos myself of the Boston Bruins players who offered their locks up for shearing by the highest bidder.

The Best Television Show You’re Also Not Watching, or My Father’s Love of Discount Stores is Hereditary

21 February, 2009 / Kat

Warning: there is a little bit of an adult reference in the middle of this post. It’s pretty tame when compared to most out there these days, but I wanted to warn you all ahead of time in the event you’re the Duggar Family or something.

We all know I have a very weird taste in television programming. Last September, I devoted an entire blog post to my favorite TV show of the moment, Connect with English. Yes, ESL instructional programming. But it involved Mark Consuelos (aka Kelly Ripa’s husband)! How could I not watch?

Well, dear readers, I’ll open up another page of my personal TV Guide and introduce you to another television show that you should be watching, because it brings me great joy:

Dollar Bill’s Discount World.

Every Saturday morning, at 8am, I drag myself out of bed – despite my pure inability to stand the mornings – to watch this show on MyTV New England. It’s a program that consists of a man in his early fifties or so – Dollar Bill – literally racing through his giant warehouse of a bargain discount warehouse store in Derry, New Hampshire, telling his viewers all of the amazing deals he has that weekend. He wears a primary-colored umbrella hat with dollar bills strung from it’s ends, which dance around his head by the gale force of power he creates by running and jumping around his store, which appears to be roughly the size of a hockey arena.

Together, Again: Boston University and the Beanpot

9 February, 2009 / Kat

Enjoy the following photo slideshow of the trophy presentation and special awards ceremony from Monday evening’s Beanpot championship game. I wish I was quicker on the camera – there are a few shots I missed, including all of the seniors carrying the Beanpot and a shot I saw right as I was putting the camera away of tournament MVP Nick Bonino and the scorer of both night’s game-winning goals, Jason Lawrence, soaking up some last few moments on the Garden ice. I hope someone got that shot.

My favorite picture is of all the players picking up their equipment off the ice – I tried to get a few of these, but my camera is elderly and just isn’t getting all the shots it used to. I think it’s the last one in the slideshow.

Oh, and there is a Beanpot recap – including an inexplicable, “Your mom goes to college!” line from Scott Van Pelt – on ESPN’s Sportscenter tonight. Unlike last week, I was able to catch it on TV.

Also, if you didn’t read it while the game was ongoing, my live coverage live from the Garden is available here (select play on the Cover It Live video.)

More Beanpot recap will be forthcoming.