Bob Lobel: Spring Hockey Fever
Thursday, April 04, 2013
One surefire way to take the sports pulse of a city is to listen to the “fellowship of the miserable” on that city's sports radio station(s). Yes, that's plural. At last count, the Hub has 4 (four) (that's IV) going at any one time. Forget they all weigh in as sports-talk, the craziest thing that’s happened in the last three weeks has been the dominance of “hockey talk”!
It wasn’t so long ago that to find hockey talk, it would cost you the price of a 900 number. Not any more. After a prolonged lockout, the sport has jumped back with a vengeance into public consciousness. At least around here… but that’s all we care about anyway. The Bruins have jump-started the post-Tim'Thomas era and just now replaced it with the Jaromir Jagr era.
But it's more than just the NHL. Have you college hockey dudes seen the Frozen Four group? The college hockey powers. BC no. BU no. Any Denvers or Fighting Sioux out there? Harvard, UVM or UNH? Nada. We are talking UMass-Lowell, St. Cloud State, Yale and Quinnipiac. Your eventual national collegiate champion will be one of those four. We offer nothing but congratulations and simply ask, what the “hell” is going on here?
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTMaybe, since Jack Parker stepped down, the universe has moved into a tilt mode where everything has to change since it has been 40 years since BU moved from Jack Kelly to Jack Parker. Sometimes, just when you think you can't learn anything new, something comes along. Now maybe I'm out to lunch here, but I did sit down with Jack Parker this week for our New Englands Sports Legends TV show and learned something fascinating. (Ok, so maybe everyone knew this but I didn’t.)
In 1980, there were three coaches being considered to coach the US Olympic team—Herb Brooks, some guy from Minnesota, and Jack Parker of BU. The Minnesota guy dropped out, leaving Jack Parker as the guy who finished 2nd in the contest to orchestrate the “Miracle on Ice.” Fascinating. Jack Parker was the coaching equivalent of Ralph Cox of UNH, the last player cut by Herb Brooks before the Lake Placid Games. Also, Brooks called Parker about Eurizone. Someone early in the team building told Brooks that Mike was nothing but trouble and shouldn’t be taken. Obviously, there was politics aplenty for membership on that team by the western coaches. Parker told Brooks that if you decide not to keep Mike E, then make it a hockey decision and not a character one, for obvious reasons (Mike became the captain). And Parker went to bat for Dave Silk who logged more ice time than any American kid because of his ability to get the puck out of the zone and initiate an offense. Only four kids on that team came from the East. Of course, all four were from BU. Yale, Quinnipiac and Umass -Lowell were not represented.
So while this has been one strange hockey spring, it has not been the only crazy stupid human trick on talk radio’s fellowship agenda. In just 24 hours, THE Boston Red Sox have become YOUR Boston Red Sox, again! I mean the turnaround from anger and disgust to hope and love has been one for the record books. Not that it isn’t justified; it's just that it's a little quick and early to go from last place in the East to a wild card team in the hearts and minds of Red Sox Nation.... at least, in those hearts and minds of talk show callers. I thought I was listening to an alien city of love instead of our town with no pity. At this point, I need to throw in one line to finish it off. That is to say it can all change in a day or week. But, because of a possible impending relationship with the local entry in the American League east, in the interest of transparency, I am simply giving an observation of the abrupt climate change.
The words are mine. The description is mine. The attitude change belongs to others.
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