Sports

  By Richard Campbell I always associated volleyball with gym class or beaches, but then in my generation the following of this sport was not what it is today. The Mizuno Volleyball Festival truly demonstrated the national and international popularity of the sport, filling the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center this past Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, with hundreds of teams playing on court after court. Teams in twenty-five divisions of multiple age groups, battled it out. Add the coaches, trainers, officials and their fans- and the attendance totalled well over 4,000 people. The whistles were blowing all over the place as balls were being served, passed, spiked, thrown, set, lobbed, bonking off spectators, and skimming across the matted floors. Besides tournament play there were clinics, [...]

by Richard Campbell The six city tour known as the Battle of the Badges of Police and Fire Hockey Clubs of Boston, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto and Montreal started this past Friday the 2nd, in Dorchester and South Boston, and continued through the weekend. SBO was there to cover teams at Murphy Rink Saturday at noon for the mixed rounds of Police and Fire teams. Sponsored in part by the Boston Bruins, the Boston Police Hockey Club and the Boston Fire Hockey Club, the event involved a lot of travel and logistics. It was running on a tight schedule, as twelve first responder teams duked it out big time. Mayor Walsh and Rob Sweeney, Executive Director of the Bruins Foundation, were on hand with [...]

by Rick Winterson Last Friday, October 13, South Boston’s Murphy Memorial Rink opened its doors for an inspection tour, prior to its opening for skaters early this week. Despite the date, it was not an unlucky day for South Boston. On the contrary, it was exactly the opposite. Basically, an informal committee of four people from our State Legislature and from the Department of Conservation & Resources (the DCR) conducted the walk-through. They viewed and inspected the new and novel characteristics of the Murphy Rink, which are quite interesting from a scientific and engineering standpoint. The four individuals were: State Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry, State Rep. Nick Collins, DCR Deputy Commissioner of Operations Nick Gove, and the DCR Director of Government & Legislative Affairs Sean [...]

South Boston Yacht Club sailors  (from left): Owen (Instructor), Mary, Erin, Matt (instructor), Jacob, Bill (Junior Sailing Committee), Dylan, Sinead (holding the winner’s cup), Ernie (SBYC Commodore), Tommy, Kiera, Jack, Jaelyn, Eddy (standing), Maeve, and Isabel. Not present: Sean (Instructor), Lydia, Colin, Duncan, Lily, and Ian. In the recent set of two races between the young sailors from the Harry McDonough Sailing Center and those from the South Boston Yacht Club Junior Sail, the South Boston Yacht Club (the SBYC) won both.  An SBYC boat also garnered a third place finish -  SBYC junior sailors ruled.  These races were held in Pleasure Bay, inside the arc formed by the Sugar Bowl and the Causeway.  Much thanks goes to SBYC Commodore Ernie Myrvang and to Bill [...]

by Rick Winterson      As you know, General Electric (GE) has opted to relocate its head office from Connecticut to South Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood.  GE has submitted preliminary designs for their new headquarters building on Fort Point Channel, and they’ve begun relocating key personnel to their temporary headquarters on Farnsworth Street.    Last spring, the Board of Directors of the National Basketball Association (the NBA) approved the use of corporate logos on the uniforms of any NBA teams that choose to do so.  The Celtics announced their desire to join forces with a reputable corporation for this purpose, preferably a corporation with strong, identifiable ties to the City of Boston.  They began to search for such a partner.    Last Wednesday, January 25, [...]

by Rick Winterson      It bears repeating that the Patriots’ defense was the target of much criticism during the 2016 regular season.  But it bears repeating only to demonstrate how senseless the boo-birds have been all season long.  This writer guesses that they got tired of criticizing the Presidential campaign, or simply got crowded out of that particular issue by all the partisan tweets.    There was a school of thought that the “Points Against” statistic, where the Pats led the entire NFL – yes, both Conferences – was somehow meaningless, because the Pats played a lot of weak teams.  Well, whether that’s true or not, the Pats’ Points Against figures demonstrate the value of their defense in both playoff games – 17 Points [...]