This job has never been confused with “working,” but the football teams from Leavitt and Oak Hill high schools made the past three months feel like a vacation. On one hand, it is tempting to wake up the morning after the state championship tripleheader at Portland’s Fitzpatrick Stadium, consider the tingle in still-thawing fingers and […]
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The Hot Corner: Patriots under the radar? Strange but true
Never imagined that we would see this again in our lifetime, at least not while Bill Belichick and Tom Brady were coach and quarterback, respectively, of the New England Patriots. The three-time Super Bowl champions aren’t being hated, disrespected, dismissed or overlooked. They aren’t being anything-ed. Maybe that’s the impact of two straight Sundays without […]
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The Hot Corner: A Saturday afternoon 31 autumns in the making
WALES — Oak Hill hadn’t won a football championship of any kind since Rambo ruled the box office, a duet involving Joe Cocker was the No. 1 song in America, and current coach Stacen Doucette was eight years old. You didn’t think spinning history in a new direction would be easy, did you? The Raiders […]
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The Hot Corner: Refuting the jabberwocky of NFL culture
Today’s lesson, children, is about nonsense words. The longer we live, the more of them accumulate in our repertoire. “Jabberwocky,” brought to you by Lewis Carroll. “Sussudio,” presented by Phil Collins. And “locker room culture,” at least subconsciously embraced by every athlete since the beginning of time. Culture, itself, is a word that has been […]
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The Hot Corner: The best show in Maine that nobody’s watching
The state’s flagship university currently has the best football team in what has long been regarded the toughest “championship subdivision” conference in the country. Do you fully appreciate the logistics and the odds that the University of Maine has overcome in achieving that status? Do you even care? Never mind the second question. The answer […]
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The Hot Corner: If you don’t mind, Sox still matter
I probably said a lot of things in the spilled beer-scented aftermath of my personal 2004 World Series championship celebration. Some of them were mildly coherent, some dreadfully embarrassing. Others I don’t pretend to remember. One thing I’m sure that I offered in that raspy, quivering voice — if only because I repeated it in […]
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The Hot Corner: Dempsey’s devotion no surprise in these parts
While watching from the relative comfort of my recliner as another Dempsey Challenge was entered into the Lewiston-Auburn history books, I couldn’t help but think how lucky we are. Not because we receive annual, in-the-flesh visits from the affable actor. I mean, hey, Patrick seems like a true gentleman, and I guess he’s a good-looking […]
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The Hot Corner: Dreaming of the day he would be king
Last night I had a beautiful dream. I became King, High Priest and Commissioner of Sports. Lucky me. Lucky you. Don’t worry. I used this power selectively. No spectators were harmed in this semi-lucid activity, tempting as that would have been. No results were manipulated, either, because: a) I don’t work for NASCAR; and b) […]
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The Hot Corner: Set up for an October to remember
The Major League Baseball postseason is here. For the first time since 2009, the Boston Red Sox are involved. Look around and you can almost tell. I don’t sense a groundswell of expectations from the “casual fan” heading into October. Perhaps that is reason to lift hands to heaven in a prayer of thanksgiving. We […]
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The Hot Corner: Patience with Patriots will be rewarded
For every action during the first month of the NFL season, there is an immediate, irrational overreaction. It hasn’t always been this way. That’s the price of a world in which Twitter, Facebook, fantasy football and Skip Bayless are allowed to exist. We used to recognize that five months are an eternity in this most […]