Rain ravaged Sunday’s scheduled starting time at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The whims of the weather ensured that everyone’s dreaded the-sky-is-falling symptom — empty seats by the tens of thousands – dominated the margins on national television when NASCAR officials finally waved the green flag over the weekend’s 301-lap main event. New Hampshire was a test […]
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Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
The Hot Corner: Taking stock in the Sox brings good and bad
Ninety games into the baseball season, and the Boston Red Sox have won more than two-thirds of them. They lead the majors in batting average, runs, hits, doubles, extra base hits and a bundle of other offensive categories I don’t study because I’m old and stubborn. And if you’re anything like me, you still can’t […]
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Posted insj-web, Varsity Maine
The Hot Corner: Dirigo shows success is fleeting
Youth sports are my life. They were crucial to my own educational process, and I still believe in this profession because I honor how much student athletics mean to the development of countless others. It is with this affection for the games people play, and for that special nook of the world you all still […]
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web, Varsity Maine
The Hot Corner: Don't judge lopsided games by their final scores
What’s the right lesson to teach our kids? We re-evaluate the answer to that question more frequently than ever. It’s the reason we’ve wound up with new math, a new grading system, new frequency and urgency of social protest, and new ways for old-fashioned and newfangled folks to ridicule one another. That clash of values […]
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
The Hot Corner: Odds and ends as winter never ends
A few random Monday morning thoughts while we gaze out our respective windows, 1,100 miles apart, and wonder what nearly the entire continental United States did to infuriate Mother Nature this time around: • No matter how the other elements of the game change — players getting artificially blown up like the Michelin Man, baseballs being juiced, […]
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
The Hot Corner: Maybe UMaine will one day reach NCAA tournament
Few people have provided the University of Maine athletic program with more bulletin board material than yours truly. I’ve called frequent attention to the Black Bears’ slow, steady, across-the-board decline over the past two decades, some it for circumstances beyond their control. And no program has been an easier target than men’s basketball. It’s a […]
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
The Hot Corner: Black Bears stir up pride in Maine girls' and womens' basketball
I’m not the world’s leading apologist for my state of origin. Invariably the conversation turns to the tax burden, job market, black fly population, mathematical certainty of a crippling snowstorm in mid-March and the fact that it took y’all decades to finally get a Krispy Kreme or a Chick-Fil-A. At that point, I can only […]
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
The Hot Corner: Appreciating the unsung basketball coaches
We live in a time when our everyday heroes are more important than ever, yet we take them for granted or even downplay their importance. You know the list: Cops, clergy, paramedics, military, teachers, journalists. Sorry. Had to throw the last one in there to see if you were still paying attention. The unsung, underappreciated […]
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
The Hot Corner: Celtics are defying NBA's lazy logic
Being a New England sports fan, transplanted or otherwise, is infinitely more fun when the Boston Celtics are relevant. We’re all spoiled by the Patriots’ dominance this century. There is little drama. There’s no thrill-of-the-chase. We know what we’re going to get: Sustained excellence, and a chance to hoist the Lombardi Trophy every year. Even […]
Posted inLocal Sports, sj-web
#Oxford250: Forty-four reasons I miss being in Maine for this race
The South harbors everything I expected it would when I moved here 15 months ago. Winters are milder. There’s a joint that sells chicken and/or barbecue on every corner. People have accents much more delightful than my own. And most of the stuff people told me I’d miss, I don’t. Never really developed a crush […]