Puck You, Look at Some of My Puckin' Collection...

Tonight was the last Skating for Hope committee meeting before things kick off Saturday morning. I tried to concentrate as much as I could, but I really have been getting stressed, excited, pumped, and worried all at once these past few days. I know it’s the first year of Skating for Hope, but I want it to go well enough so people will want to come back next year. I know it won’t be perfect and will be a learning experience, but it’s hard to tell that to yourself when it seems like you have 94 thoughts in your head all at once. Once I get going on Saturday, I’m hoping the stress will slowly leave. I know once I feel the puck on my stick for the first game, I should be A-O-K.

Some notes on these pucks:

I think the Celebrity Hat Trick puck was a stocking stuffer one Christmas.

I ran down the aisle at warm-ups of a Hockey East championship game one year, and grabbed the HE puck…I think we may use this one on Saturday.

Info on the 2005 Hockey Hall of Fame inductees is here.

Here’s my blog about the “Gahden’s” Last Hurrah.

On October 21^st, 2007, the Worcester Sharks had a “Pink at the Rink” game, and I got to drop this puck for the ceremonial face-off (those guys just look a little bigger than me!). In addition to this game, their goalie wore a pink mask for all of October that was auctioned off for a $5000 donation to Hope Lodge.

The Boston College Hockey was the first of my favorite teams to win a championship, when they did in OT on April 7, 2001.

In case you didn’t know, I love the Boston Bruins and they won The Cup this year.

Boston Globe Picture of Cam Neely (3/29/93)

I have a lot of people in my life I call my heroes. Some of them are family and friends, and some of them are celebrities and athletes.

Everyone in my immediate family is a hero of mine. My parents are my heroes because they have shown me nothing but unconditional love and support my whole life. They provided me with an education, both in and out of a classroom, including putting me through college. They are also the two biggest hockey and Bruins fans that I know, and have taken me to countless games. My older brother is my hero because he was a great role model growing up, is a great role model now, is a great writer, and an awesome father to my nephews and niece. My older sister is my hero because of her amazing artistic talent, unbelievable support, and courage with Diabetes. My younger brother is my hero because he minimizes the technology in his life, has a job that makes a difference, and is a person I often call for trivia answers (he knows a lot about a lot of things!). My younger sister is my hero because of her awesome acting, great sense of humor, and views on social justice. Each and every time I have struggled with life, my family has been right by my side. They, along with the rest of my relatives, are a constant source of inspiration and make me want to do whatever I can to make the most out of my life.

I also have friends that are my heroes. My girlfriend is my hero because she’s always making fun of me, inspires me to read and write, supports everything I do, and is a person I can talk to about anything. I have friends that have been there for my through all of my life challenges. I have a friend that gave me his iPhone, MacBook, snowboard, and other things when he moved away. I have a friend that has provided me with countless legal advice and help when I needed it. I had a lot of friends help me make it to 365 t-shirts last year. Every night at work, I get to see the heroic courage of the Hope Lodge guests.

Outside of my personal life, I have celebrity and athlete heroes that I aspire to be more like. My top 5 right now are Cam Neely, Eddie Vedder, Denis Leary, Jon Stewart, and Tim Thomas.

I mentioned Eddie Vedder a bit yesterday, and his music and lyrics really speak for themselves. Not only does his work in Pearl Jam amaze and inspire me, his two solo albums have shown why he is such an important part of the band.

Denis Leary has been making me laugh for over twenty years, starting when I saw him on MTV’s half hour comedy shows and Remote Control. I memorized his No Cure for Cancer album and won a lip sync contest my freshman year of college by performing “Asshole”. I watched his movies, went to his live shows, bought his CDs and DVDs, met him a few times, and followed his TV shows and appearances (I have a VHS of Monument Ave, do you?). Denis sealed his lifelong hero status for me by his response to the tragic fire in Worcester in 1999 that resulted in the passing of his cousin, Jerry Lucy and childhood friend Tommy Spencer. In face of this huge loss to the city and to himself personally, he started the Leary Firefighters Foundation and has since raised over $10 million to help firefighters in Worcester, Boston, and New York.

Every Monday through Thursday at 11:00, you will find me watching The Daily Show. Even though it’s a “fake news” show, Jon Stewart and his staff uncover the hypocrisy of everyone – Republicans, Democrats, and other newscasters. They show what other news shows don’t and make fun of everyone, including themselves. The world sucks, but Jon makes me laugh and keeps me up to date on what’s going on in it. Hearing his speech live at the Rally to Restore Sanity was one of the most inspiring moments of my life.

Tim Thomas’ story is enough for him to be anyone’s hero. His path the NHL, the way he plays the game, how he’s smiling no matter what the score is – “Timmy” is just a regular guy who happens to be the best goalie in the world. I keep having these visions of him hoisting The Cup over his head, wearing that huge smile. A few weeks ago, my girlfriend confessed to me that, “I’m in love with Timmy!” My response was, “Yeah, me too.” Seriously, how can you not love this guy? I’m pretty sure he’s already getting the Conn Smyth trophy, but that’s not the one he wants. Go get The Cup for him, B’s!

Speaking if B’s that deserve a Cup on their resume, Bruins president Cam Neely typified what it was to “Be a Bruin”. He played tough, with heart, and could get a “Gordie Howe hat trick” better than anyone I’ve ever watched play the game. I wrote about Cam and my “friend” Ulf Sameulsson back in January here. Much like Denis Leary, it wasn’t what Cam did on the ice that made him one of my biggest heroes. In 1986, both of Cam’s parents were diagnosed with cancer in a six-month period. They both passed from cancer (in 1987 and 1993 – his dad had a brain tumor), and what was Cam’s response? He started the Neely Foundation and opened up the Neely House. Cam played hockey the way everyone should, and responded to a personal tragedy the way a hero does. If the spirit of Cam is in every Bruins player this week, they will have no problem taking The Cup back to Boston…GO B’S!!!!!

Autographed 98.5 B-LIEVE Poster

First of all, pardon the poor quality of this scan. The poster was too big for my scanner, and I had to cut and paste 3 scans to get it all…

It wasn’t much of a decision when I heard they were letting fans see the Bruins off to Vancouver. The only question I had was which members of my family I was going to meet there. After a text message to my older sister, I left my friend Carl’s place in Quincy to meet her and my parents at the Fleet Center (again, there was only one “Gahden”).

Not surprisingly, I scored a parking spot right across the street, and met my family by the Bruins Pro Shop (which was closed today – even though it is a holiday, you’d think they’d open it for the B’s Faithful?). I put on my sunscreen (SPF 85), my parents waited by the building, and my sister and I found a spot near the gate. It was warm and humid, but well worth being a little uncomfortable to cheer a team that’s done something 20 teams before them haven’t.

After waiting for over an hour, and hearing a few words from my hero Cam Neely, the players started showing up. Tuukka Rask, Steve Kampfer, Brad Marchand, Tyler Seguin, and Dan Paille came down by us. With the exception of Paille who had some excuse why he wasn’t giving autographs, they all signed everyone’s 98.5 B-Lieve posters (I got Marchand in red and Seguin in black). Someone told Brad, “Go win The Cup”, and he replied, “I’ll try.” I had to whip out the Star Wars, and told him, “Do or do not, there is no try.” Speaking of Holy Trilogy references, Adam “Darth Quaider” McQuaid was making his way down to us, but we saw someone tell him it was time to go (I’m sure he would have kept going down the entire line signing and taking pictures with people).

The B’s then got on the busses, and took off…

After the crowd had cleared, my sister and I found our parents who were (not surprisingly) BEHIND the barriers they had put up – they know a lot of Bruins people. We were walking back to get inside, and were interviewed by a Boston Herald writer. We told him about the McGrath’s love of everything Bruin, our dog (Rest in Peace) L.B., my parents’ living room “Bruins Corner”, and all the superstitions when we watch the games. Then, my dad was interviewed by NESN and explained how awesome it would be if three generations of McGrath got to share a Bruins Stanley Cup victory.

We all B-Lieve. I hope the Bruins do, too…

Can’t wait until Wednesday…GO BRUINS!!!!!

Cheers Last Call Poster (5/20/93)

I didn’t start watching Cheers regularly until I was in junir high, but well before the last episode aired I was a huge fan. I can’t believe it was 18 years ago that I went to wait outside the Bull and Finch with my friend Mike to watch the last episode.

Before the episode started, we saw all the cast members pull up in limos and wave to everyone as they walked into the restaurant. I was especially thrilled when Cam Neely got out with Woody Harrelson.

There was a huge screen setup to watch the last episode of the hilarious, Boston-based show, and I was glad I got to be there.

Here’s some of WBZTV’s coverage:

If you’ve never seen Cheers, do yourself a favor and put it on your Netflix list. You can thank me when you’re laughing.

Off to do wedding weekend related things, more on Cheers later…

Bruins/Sharks Roster, 2/10/09

The Bruins seem to do badly when I blog about them on a game day, so I thought I’d get this one in before Boston-Detroit Part II tomorrow…

Two seasons ago, the B’s and Sharks had the best two records in the NHL. I went to the game with my friend Patrick, who always refers to the Bruins/Sharks games as the “Stanley Cup Preview”. This game came with huge hype, but was a big letdown when the Bruins fell to San Jose 5-2. And, neither team even made it to the Finals that year.

In addition to the anticipation of these NHL Powerhouses meeting, I was also interested in a certain player who had made his way onto the San Jose roster. It was #32, Claude Lemieux:

I was never a big fan of Claude. He used his stick a lot and would back down from fights if someone challenged him. Specifically, he did this to Cam Neely:
He most likely backed down because he knew Cam could do things like this:

So, for just about the entire 10 minutes and 1 second Claude was on the ice for this game, I was yelling at him. I’m not very proud of the things I yelled, but they referred to his age (43), how I thought he wasn’t “very tough”, and that he should give up playing hockey. I don’t know if most of the crowd knew why I was doing it, but I didn’t care. They were things I wanted Claude to hear.

After the game, my friend Patrick and were having dessert with my dad. Patrick (from the San Jose area) was gloating a bit, and my father was complaining about how the Bruins didn’t always play the full 60 minutes. I was in my usual post-Bruins-loss-chocolate-brownie-Sundae stupor, but was still hopeful that the B’s would go far in the playoffs.

My dad, Patrick, and I left Legends and were walking down a hallway to see if we could talk to some of the players. My father turned his head laughing and says, “Hey Dave, it’s your buddy!” To get to the waiting area, I had to say “excuse me” to Claude, the guy I had just yelled at for every second he was playing. My friend Patrick got a huge kick out of it, and joked that I should have asked him if he heard me. I didn’t say a thing, and I’m still not a fan…

Even though the B’s got destroyed last night, I still think this team is going to surprise a lot of people this year. GO B’s!!!

Cry Ulfie, Cry!

I try not to take pleasure in the misfortunes of others. But, when someone messes with one of my heroes, that all changes...

In 1991, my beloved Bruins were playing the Penguins in the Conference Finals. In game 3, Ulf Samuelsson cheap-shotted Cam Neely with a hit on his knee that would lead to Cam's career ending much too early. Although (as you can see on YouTube) Cam says the hit they show isn't the one that really did it, Samuelsson's cheap style of play against him did. Even though I hope "Ulfie" didn't intend to end Neely's career, I don't think he ever apologized to Cam. And after this hit, he also backed down every time Neely challenged him (probably something to do with the pounding he took earlier when he was on the Whalers - see clip below). Simply put, Ulf Samuelsson is not the type of player I want to see on the Bruins...ever!

Seven years later during the 1998 Olympics, my friend Ulfie was playing for his homeland Sweden. Then, they found out he had a US passport and he wasn't allowed to play for the rest of the tournament. It made him cry, and seeing this picture made me happy. So happy in fact, that I hung it over my dresser for several years.

Ironically, I now root for this goon's son Philip, who plays for the BC Eagles (Hey, it's not the kid's fault his father is bad-mouthed by every Bruins fan and many hockey fans). And don't you worry - I look for Ulf at every game I attend. It's been almost twenty years, but I would love it if I could ask him if he's ever going to apologize to Cam. Jesus, he cried over missing the Olympics. What if someone had taken away years of your NHL career, Ulfie? GO B'S!!!!