I was the victim of a hate crime

I haven't blogged for awhile simply because I was in the hospital for 10 days.



On April 17th I drove up to Montreal with 3 friends for Game 5 of the Bruins-Montreal playoffs.



The Bruins played their best game of the series and stayed alive to force a Game 6 in Boston 2 days later...a game I never got to see.



After the game we went to a well known Montreal bar which is in the heart of 'centre-ville' called the Peel Pub. The Montreal fans were in a bad mood because their team had lost but little did we know how upset some fans were.



We are all older and kept to ourselves the entire evening but when the bar closed we were accosted by 5 or 6 skinheads who were screaming at us in French. We were not wearing any Bruins gear ( but a couple of us had Red Sox hats ). I guess I made the mistake of responding in French and I was told after the fact that my response was more vulgar than I intended. I was sucker punched by one, and then as I fell I was kicked in the face and also hit the back of my head on a fire hydrant. Everything went black and I did not wake up until Sunday morning.



The fine doctors at L'Hôpital général de Montréal (Montreal General) which is part of McGill University saved my life and I can not even begin to say how grateful I am.

Because of the way medical insurance works in Quebec I will have to battle for awhile to see if my health plan in Massachusetts will be able to cover the bill. Last Tuesday the hospital did arrange for an ambulance from Vermont to pick me up and take me on a 6 hour joy ride thru the mountains feeling every bump until I finally got to Mass General.

The Montreal Police said we were simply the victims of hate towards anglophones ( English speaking persons ) and sadly Montreal is overrun by French speaking young punks.

I still have a headache and my vision is blurry and I will be going to Mass Eye and Ear tomorrow but at least I am home.

I simply do not understand hate.

RIP BostonNOW

BostonNOW bites the dust. Today was the last issue.

Statement from publisher

This healthy, growing 119,000-circulation daily is suddenly compelled to halt operations due to rapidly deteriorating economic conditions in Iceland where interest rates reached 15.5% Thursday, the krona, their currency, has declined over 20% against the dollar since January, and inflation is now at 8.7%.“The death of any newspaper is a sad thing,” stated CEO Russel Pergament, “but the death of a vibrant, flourishing newspaper because of economic turmoil thousands of miles away is beyond sad and is something we never anticipated and for which we were totally unprepared.”“ Our overseas investors are honorable people who have endeavored to fulfill all obligations to this newspaper,” he continued, “but the tumult in foreign credit markets has forced a change in our original understanding and their focus now appears to be primarily upon their core retail holdings. North American media is not even a distant second.”“This newspaper, not even a year old, is right on track for profits in Year Three, just as the business plan called for,” says Publisher Mike Schroeder, “so this decision by our overseas investors, while perhaps understandable, is deeply troubling.”BostonNOW’s editorial content, especially its strong local reporting, has been picked up dozens of times by Boston’s paid dailies and TV outlets. The Economist magazine lauded BostonNOW in January as one of the finest free dailies in the United States.Since launching April 17th last year, BostonNOW has grown from 59,000 daily circulation to a CAC audited daily circulation of 119,000. America’s top retailers have found a good partner in BostonNOW and become loyal advertisers. Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, TJX, H&M, Lord & Taylor, along with national telco and airline advertisers have been pleased by BostonNOW’s ability to connect with a dynamic young readership.Management’s primary concern right now is to help its suddenly displaced employees, who from scratch have created one of the most respected new dailies in the USA, find good newspaper and media work as soon as possible. A series of interviews, both on premises and off, are being set up with local media companies.

Boston to New York FOR FREE

Megabus is now accepting orders for their new service to New York and if you hurry the first week of trips is FREE

First date is listed as Friday May 30th

At 2 PM tomorrow we are not under attack

First at a little after 2 PM tomorrow if you see 4 F-16's zooming in formation over Cambridge heading for the Back Bay don't worry....it just means the Boston Symphony is near the end of the national anthem at Fenway Park. The boys are back in town.

A friend of mine just moved to Boston and found a nice apartment in the 1100 block of Boylston and she asked me if being that close to the ballpark is going to cause her problems parking.

That was 2 days ago and I am still laughing. She is going to learn that living next to Fenway is not fun.

What do Red Sox fans do on Opening Day? It seems they eat and drink a lot.

The Red Sox concessionaire Aramark predicts how much will be consumed at Fenway on Tuesday

• 20,600 Hot Dogs
• 5,800 Bags of Peanuts
• 4,800 Sausage and Pepper Sandwiches
• 3,500 Slices of Pizza
• 3,000 Pounds of French Fries
• 2,900 Soft Pretzels
• 1,700 Bags of Cracker Jack
• 1,500 Bags of Popcorn
• 1,300 Hamburgers
• 1,000 Orders of Chicken Tenders
• 800 Bags of Cotton Candy
• 500 Orders of Nachos
• 300 Gallons of Ice Cream
• 7,200 Bottles of Water
• 1,100 Gallons of Soda

and we can only guess how much beer.

New food items at the park include fish and chips, knishes, kosher hot dogs, Buffalo chicken sandwiches, fruit cups, garlic fries, shaker salads, hot pasta dishes and gourmet popcorn.
If you have tickets....DO NOT DRIVE.

Fenway is accessible from the Green Line (B,C, and D trains) at Kenmore Station, or by the Ruggles Shuttle bus from the Ruggles Station on the Orange Line. There is also limited commuter rail service at Yawkey Station.

The pregame celebration starts at 1 PM and it will have an Olympic feel to it. The ceremonies will commence with a parade of flags belonging to 62 nations on the warning track by the Green Monster. The nations represented by these flags either count Red Sox Nation members as its residents or have citizens who have been in touch with the Red Sox front offices via letters and emails professing their love for the Olde Towne Team.

In addition to the players receiving their World Series rings, championship banners will be unfurled on the Green Monster and the 2007 World Series pennant will be hoisted by the team on the center-field flag pole.

The Boston Symphony, the epitome of Boston’s musical culture, will be an integral part of the Opening Day ceremonies by performing the national anthem and by providing musical accompaniment to the entire ceremony.

GO SOX!!!!!

Guess who's coming to dinner?

The good news is the Bruins are in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in 4 years.

The bad news is they are playing Club de hockey Canadien who they have played 8 times this year and did not win a single game.

The Canadiens are the Yankees of hockey and usually a playoff meeting between the 2 teams does not bode well for Boston. The series will mark the 31st time Montreal and the Bruins have met in the playoffs over the course of their bitter 84-year rivalry. The Canadiens have enjoyed the upper hand, to say the least, with Montreal holding a 23-7 series edge over Boston.

The last time the teams met was 4 years ago when Montreal rallied from being down 1-3 to win the series in Game 7 at the new Garden. The series also had an ugly side to it when Montreal fans booed the United States anthem before the first 2 games in Montreal. All of Canada wondered how the Boston fans would react. It was a wonderful moment.



Just like the rivalry with the Yankees there have been some major Boston disasters but none bigger than this night in Montreal in 1979.


Coming just months after the Bucky Dent game Boston fans were jumping off the Mystic Bridge in record numbers.

Word comes this morning that Montreal fans are buying tickets like crazy for the games in Boston so expect an invasion of québécois to Boston. 4 years ago there was a major brawl at the Pour House in the Back Bay when a bunch of Montreal fans starting singing their team song loudly and taunting the heartbroken Boston fans.

"Halte là! Halte là! Halte là!
Les Canadiens, Les Canadiens!
Halte là! Halte là! Halte là!
Les Canadiens sont là!
Les Ca-Na-Diens; Les Ca-Na-Diens.... Sont... là!!!!"

Expect more of the same the next 2 weeks.

The most hated words in Boston

I can make an argument that these are the most hated words in Boston.
Ballgame over The Yankees win............THEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE YANKEES WIN!
This is John Sterling on WCBS as he says those hated words



He certainly does get excited doesn't he? Notice how Dame Edna just ignores him in the next booth

Verizon FIOS doesn't like the Bruins

The Bruins play their biggest game of the season on Friday night but if you have Verizon FIOS you will not see it.

NESN has moved the game to other channels in the area On Comcast it will be on CN8 which is actually channel 3 which begs the question why isn't it CN3.

Click here for a list of where the Bruins will be on tonight.....sorry FIOS customers

The reason for the switch is the Red Sox (oh them) who finally play a game in the Eastern time zone that normal people can watch tonight.

It appears the Bruins fans are coming back to watch the games. According to NESN, the Bruins game earned a 3.1 household rating for Wednesday night's shootout loss to the Devils in New Jersey. That rating was better than the Celtics game on CSN and ESPN combined.

Why don't we get sportscasters like that anymore?

It was announced yesterday that 30 year sports anchor and WBZ-TV will be parting ways and it is the end of an era.

Steve Buckley in the Herald gives Lobel a nice sendoff.

Bob almost got fired on his first night when he ran this brawl during a Bruins game and the Bruins back then said a station could not show fights.



I miss his old Sports Spotlight days which used to run every Thursday night on the 11 PM newscast.





He will be missed.

Also shown the door was Joyce Kulhawik the long time entertainment reporter.

Here is Joyce interviewing the then unknown Conan O'Brien before his first show on NBC in 1993


Also in 1993 she looked back at some great events she had covered for the station


and how she helped cover the last night of CHEERS on Beacon Hill along with Liz Walker