Category Archives: Headlines

Coming to America: Black Hockey

Posted in Blackhawks, Chicago, Headlines, Hockey, NHL, Sports, Uncategorized by

Sooooo … Random question:

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NHL’s first Black hockey player, Willie O’Ree

Who changes the channel during commercial breaks when you’re watching a game?

Me.

Who changes the channel when a commercial featuring an all-black cast appears during the NHL All-Star Game?

Not Me.

Sunday, a McDonalds commercial featuring only black people aired. I don’t know about you, but that commercial caught my attention. It’s been four days since I first saw it and it still has my attention. It was a typical ad that you’d see run on any network. But, it was on NBC during my favorite sport’s biggest fan-driven game and in front of millions of viewers! And, to make it even better, those same viewers watched Flyers star Wayne Simmonds win the MVP title! All of it had me wondering, is the NHL FINALLY trying to reach out to its black fans?!?!?!? If so …

YESSSS!

I feel like I did when the White Sox won the World Series back in 2005 or when the Blackhawks beat the Bruins in just 17 seconds in 2013: PURE ELATION! I remember going to my first NHL game in 2008 and my friend and I, who’s Dominican, were counting all the black and brown people we saw at the Garden. I don’t think it was more than five people. But we were thrilled to see other fans who looked like us in the stands.

Can you imagine what watching Simmonds win the MVP is doing for a kid on the South Side of Chicago or West Philadelphia or inner-city Boston?! Or, how about simply seeing P.K. Subban and Auston Matthews skate on national TV?! I hope it’s igniting something in them to not only watch hockey but play it.

I hope this is a sign of things to come! I’d love to see an NHL full of Black, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Italian, Irish, Syrian, Iraqi, Filipino, Punjabi, and Japanese players. Bleacher Report thinks so too. Just read this gem about by Evan Moore about the black all-stars and the NHL’s future. I know it won’t be easy. Willie O’Ree was spit on and called all sorts of names when he bravely broke the league’s color barrier in 1958. But his efforts weren’t in vain.

If he can do it, anyone can.

Tea recommendation: Turmeric tea … to wake you up to something new!

It’s National Signing Day, I CAN’T EVEN!

Posted in Football, Headlines, Sports, Uncategorized by

In Boston, I used to mentor teens and they always used the phrase “I can’t even.” It was their generation’s “whatever.” I never really knew when to use it until today.

It’s National Signing Day and I CAN’T EVEN!!!

signature

Fountain pen and signature

I tried to avoid it all day. But I simply couldn’t. I got a few updates on my phone this morning. Every other tweet during the day was about who signed where. And the headlines are still flooding my newsfeed at 9 o’clock at night. I’m incredibly happy for the kids but when did this become a thing?!

What’s most upsetting is the deification of these kids. Rashan Gray, the nation’s top recruit, decided to go to Michigan. Great! I hope he shines bright like a diamond. I really do. But do we need all the news coverage and interviews and highlights on national TV?! Haven’t we all read the script before? Small-town kid makes it to a big state school and turns into campus hotshot after his highlights lead SportsCenter’s A block for the 15th time in two days. He then becomes No. 1 in the nation and thus untouchable.

But then trouble comes. He busts his knee or worse gets busted by the law. The confetti falls. Then everyone starts pointing the finger.

Except not at ourselves. We didn’t do anything. We’re bowing down at the next kid.

 

American WOMAN!

Posted in Football, Headlines, Love, Soccer, Sports by
Carli Lloyd.CJMBGmAWwAAEbK2

Carli Legit.

Carli LEGEND!

Houston playing, Liverpool loving, Nike sponsoring, Hat-Trick history making, Jersey-born Scarlet Knight …

Carli Lloyd is my new Girl Crush!

Best moment too: When she gave Abby Wambach the captain’s armband! #Classy

Congrats to the US Women’s National Team on capturing our hearts like Brandi and Mia did years ago!!!

And awesome sauce job by the other crushes too: Kelley O’Hara. Hope Solo. Alex Morgan. Abby Wambach. Sydney Leroux. Megan Rapinoe. Amy Rodriguez. Becky Sauerbrunn. Heather O’Reilly. Christen Press. Christie Rampone. Alyssa Naeher. Ali Krieger. Meghan Klingenberg. Julie Johnston. Lauren Holiday. Whitney Engen. Ashlyn Harris. Tobin Heath. Shannon Boxx. Morgan Brian. Lori Chalupny.

#SheBelieves #IBelieve #CarliLloydFromTheParkingLot

One Goal. One City. One Lord Stanley Cup Win.

Posted in Blackhawks, Chicago, Headlines, Hockey, Love, NHL, Sports by

“What. Just. Happened?!”Blackhawks

I feel like I’ve been saying that all night.

WHAT. JUST. HAPPENED?!

It keeps rolling around in my brain.

The Blackhawks just won the Stanley Cup! WHAT?! My Blackhawks?!? My black & red, my Toews, my Kane, my city, my heart, my joy & pain just won the ultimate game!!!

WHAT?!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

THE BLACKHAWKS JUST WON THE STANLEY CUP!!!

It feels like it was just yesterday I was so ridiculously upset the Blackhawks lost to the LA Kings in the Western Conference Final in June 2014. And then the season began and we struggled to stay in first place. And then I was at the Garden watching them take on the Bruins in December. And then Kane’s clavicle got knocked out of place and MY HEART COMPLETELY DROPPED! And throughout it all I’m texting my two Blackhawk-fanatic besties at home after every win, loss and headline. And now the season ends … with THIS!

I still can’t comprehend it: 3 Stanley Cup wins in 6 seasons. My brain hurts.

Duncan Keith with 700+ minutes of ice time. And COREY!!!! (***shaking my head with my eyes closed like I’m at church***)

Corey Crawford went BEAST MODE!!!

I love this team. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS TEAM.

Cue the Chelsea Dagger Chicago. WE WON THE CUP!!!

24.3 Things To Do Instead of Focusing on Deflategate

Posted in Football, Headlines, Lists, Sports by
24.3

24.3

Roger Goodell. Tom Brady. Robert Kraft. Ted Wells. Wells Report. Ball Boy. Ball Boy whose name sounds like a hall-of-famer. Football. PSI. Deflategate. Deflategate. DEFLATEGATE.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

I’m still tired of it all. It’s been over a week since the Wells Report disrupted our daily lives and it’s driving me CRAZY. It’s a 243-paged dissertation and in an effort to NOT focus on it I’ve come up with 24.3 things we can do instead:

  1. Find Jimmy Hoffa … It’s been decades since his disappearance and we still don’t know where he is
  2. Find the rest of Bill Belichick’s sleeves … I imagine they’re all tucked away somewhere at Gillette
  3. Save Chicago from bankruptcy… please!
  4. Save baseball from boredom … double please!
  5. Bring baseball back to the hood! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!
  6. Repair Baltimore … Just grab a broom and dustpan and get to work
  7. Free Adnan
  8. Figure out if Serial is sponsored by “Mail Kimp” or “Mail Chimp” … It’s sad that we still don’t know how to pronounce it!
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Deflategate? More like Deflate-hate!

Posted in Deep Thinking, Football, Headlines, Sports by

FootballAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Is anyone else tired of all the Deflategate noise! It’s everywhere! It’s all over the newspapers. It’s on the radio, on TV, on street corners and on the T. And when the NFL punished Patriots QB Tom Brady on Monday, the news nearly broke Twitter! In January I was “ahhhhh-ing” because I was just tired of the wall-to-wall coverage of Deflategate. It was repetitive and annoying like the New England snow. But when the official punishments were announced on Monday my “ahhhhh-ing” grew from 5 “h’s” to 15 “h’s.” And this time I was upset at the actual punishment.

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Sir Thomas More said it best

Posted in Deep Thinking, Headlines, Love by

Sir Thomas More said it best:

“For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.” ~Sir Thomas More, Utopia

Sir Thomas More wrote this nearly 500 years ago and it’s just as evident today as it was back then. If you strategically place a group of people in low-income areas and for generations provide them with the worst resources, from dilapidated school buildings to grocery stores stocked with expired GMO’d foods, then what else is to be expected that they become a product of their environment … and get a little mad too.

Baltimore is mad. Just take a look at the NYT’s ‘Thousands of Freddie Grays’.  What an accurate depiction of what’s going on. Looking past the violence, rioting and looting, the heart of Charm’s City’s situation is anger. They want better. Better foods, better resources, better quality of living. Rioting is NOT the answer but as Dr. Martin Luther King said “A riot is the language of the unheard.” And NO ONE likes being unheard.

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