Hockey

[smc]

Originally Posted by ila

Boston is now called Toronto?

A tournament and party in Boston sounds like a great idea and that is as good a reason as any to go to Boston. If I show up early, smc, can you take me to the New Yankee Workshop and to the Silva brothers?

If I remember right, it was about a month ago that Bettman said that the league should possible look at two classic games per season with the second game in Canada. My opinion is Canada should be hosting the classic game as a matter of protocol.

Ila, I assume your first line has to do with the "hub of the universe" reference in my posting. Let me clear this up. Boston is actually known as the "hub of the universe"; the use of this phrase to describe other cities (e.g., Toronto) has been well documented as a delusion.

Oliver Wendell Holmes used the phrase first to describe our State House (he actually called it the hub of the solar system). If you go to Downtown Crossing in Boston, there is a plaque in the sidewalk in front of where the Filene's building used to be that indicates the exact center of the universe. I remember it from when I was a kid, although it's covered up now with a storage shed of some sort.

My favorite use of this phrase is the famous apocryphal Boston Globe headline we Bostonians occasionally refer to:

2 Hub men die in blast;
New York also destroyed

(Of course, this is Bostonian on another level, too ... we hate New York!)

As for your other requests: I'm not sure about New Yankee Workshop. Do you mean the PBS show with Norm Abrams? His store is actually in Essex Junction, Vermont, so you could stop on the way. Silva Bros., on the other hand, is in nearby Lexington, but I'm not sure there they have anything you can actually visit. They did build the late, lamented set for Victory Garden, but Lexington Gardens (the site), is long gone.

Back to hockey: I would love to see more outdoor games, and I am a big fan of having them in Canada or Quebec.