Category: Boston MA (Page 11 of 13)

2008 Visa US Championships – Seniors Overall Review

9 June, 2008 / Kat

I don’t have as great of notes for the seniors as I did for the juniors – for both senior sessions, I sat with friends, and didn’t have the time to take detailed notes. The seniors were amazing to watch, mostly due to the sheer excitement of the crowd – it’s rarely that loud even for hockey games. Hundreds of little girls watching their heroines will do that.

Again, I am not the world’s greatest gymnastics writer, but I was there and know just enough about the sport to understand what’s going on. To review the senior competition, I’ll borrow a device from one of my favorite sports writers, Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, that I haven’t used in a while: Ten Things I Think I Think. Continue reading

2008 Visa US Championships, Juniors – Day 2

7 June, 2008 / Kat

Yep, I’m still working on my thoughts from Seniors Day 1 – the Celtics and the Red Sox distracted me (I had Sox tickets last night, and was distracted by watching the Paul Pierce-drama filled Celtics-Lakers game after Seniors ended on Thursday night, and had work early in the morning on Friday…a timely post on Seniors was just not happening.)

The Junior Championships just completed, with Jordyn Wieber taking it handily. She really distanced herself from Samantha Shapiro at the end of Rotation 2, with nearly a 3 point lead in the all-around. I game late, and I don’t know what happened to Shapiro in rotation 1 (she was first up on floor exercise), but she was either marked down because she was first, or something went wrong. I walked in as Wieber began her floor, and she was on – it was a statement performance. No one was going to take the title away from her this afternoon. The following are my thoughts on the rest of the session before I head back to see the seniors. Continue reading

2008 Women’s Visa Championships – Day 1 Juniors

5 June, 2008 / Kat

I’m back from Day 1 of the Juniors competition at the US Gymnastics Championships. Before I head back to the arena for the Seniors at 7pm, here are some notes from this afternoon. Continue reading

The Giant Garden Sleepover Party

4 May, 2008 / Kat

(Or The Skating Monk takes on Semi-Threatening Underrated Cat-Like-Animals)

When I was a Brownie Girl Scout, my troop partook in the Strasenberg Planetarium Sleepover. The name of this program pretty much explains it – roughly 50 Girl Scouts take over the planetarium for an overnight and stay up late watching every show in the planetarium’s rotation. You then get two hours of sleep in the planetarium lobby, where they then wake you up at an ungodly hour by blasting “Here Comes the Sun” and handing you a Wegmans donut and orange juice before forcing you out so they can open for a more profitable event. As you can tell, it was the highlight of the year, especially when your troop eschews camping, like mine did. (We didn’t like getting dirty. Or ticks. Or dampness.)

On a late March Friday evening, I took part in the Great Garden Sleepover Party, or as everyone else knows it as, the Hockey East Semifinals. I was there from 5:15pm – five minutes into the first semifinal game between the University of New Hampshire and Boston College – until the bitter end of the Boston University versus Vermont game – with a final whistle at 1:05am. Such an evening epitomized college hockey for me – spirited, crazy, and a true sports fans dream.

Obviously, Massachusetts Schools Neglect to Teach Geography of Areas outside of New England (or No, Western New Yorkers are not Yankees Fans.)

5 November, 2007 / Kat

MEMORANDUM

TO: The Collective Population of New England (especially the Citizens of Massachusetts)

FROM: A Disgruntled Western New Yorker Turned Bostonian

RE: Geography of New York State and the Sports Fandom it Dictates

DATE: November 2, 2007

I feel it prudent at this time to provide you with a refresher geography lesson of New York State (or for those of you who did not pay attention in social studies, a first lesson.) This lesson was spurred on by the absolutely drunk (and I believe underage) Bruins fan and native New Englander who sat in front of me during Thursday evening’s Bruins-Sabres game. This fan proceeded to taunt all the Sabres fans (of which there were many, including myself) by telling us that the “Yankees suck,” and that A-Rod does several unrepeatable acts of a sexual nature. He then decided to mention that “Look, who won the World Series this year – the Red Sox, not your stupid (insert-bad-word-here) Yankees.” Continue reading