Good Guys Boston Bruins

Too often the public hears about the negative elements connected to sports, either the athletes themselves committing crimes or the teams/management screwing over the players and fans. The public rarely hears about the positive decisions that are made daily.

 

Each year the Boston Bruins make a trip to Boston’s Children’s Hospital to visit kids and bring a little cheer to their lives. People may not realize but events like this brighten the day of the children as well as their parents. To add some cheer the Bruins players dressed up as characters from Disney’s Frozen, though quite peculiar versions of the characters. They even sung "Let It Go" at times.

 

I know what these families are going through, when my son was young he spent weeks at a time in Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma and when he was 7 months old the Seattle Seahawks cheerleaders came to visit for Halloween. It is these types of visits that help families, some may even say it is therapeutic, at least to ease the mind.

 

The players; Kevin Miller (Kristoff), Dougie Hamilton (Elsa), Matt Fraser (Anna), Seth Griffith (Hans), Matt Bartkowski (Sven) and Torrey Krug (Olaf)

Good Guy Bengals

Today’s post is in regards to a positive decision by the Cincinnati Bengals in regards to their player Devon Still.

Still was a 2012 second round pick by the Bengals. He has played 18 games for the team and has 7 tackles, 14 assisted tackles and ½ a sack. But during the 2014 preseason it appeared as if Still had lost his drive and the DT was cut in the final round before the season started. It was later that the team found out that Still’s 4-year old daughter Leah is battling cancer, obviously his concern for his daughter’s health was the reason for his lack of focus during practice.

 

Instead of washing their hands to the whole situation and moving on the Cincinnati Bengals signed Devon Still to their practice squad so he would continue to receive a pay check and be covered by the league’s health care system. Additionally they decided to sell Still’s jersey through their website with 100% of the proceeds from the sale of his jerseys going to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

 

In a world where most owners/team management are worried about making money while mitigating losses the Cincinnati Bengals went above and beyond for one of their own and put a player’s needs and concerns above the all mighty dollar.

 

According to his agent, and confirmed by the Bengals this morning, Still is being signed to the Bengal’s active roster and will make his first appearance of the season on Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons.

Fond Memories

My son grabbed a couple of packs of WWE Wrestling cards today while we were out and he busted them on the way home. It is fun to watch kids rip packs because they are so excited about each and every card, it is not all about hits and how much they can make on each card, it is collecting at its most purist point.

When we got home he wanted to show me what he got. The first card he pulled out to show me was a Rey Mysterio Allen & Ginters mini. This card took me back to a younger day for me, late 1998 to be exact... well … as exact as I can remember. This was back in the day, single and with disposable income, I took off with some friends to Las Vegas to catch a Monday Night Nitro at the MGM Grand.

After an entertaining evening we left the arena and found ourselves walking side by side with none other then the man himself. He was unmasked, this was at a time when he was never seen without his mask, but the Sun tattoo on his right shoulder and limping on a knee that he injured that night we knew who he was. Rey Mysterio was a nice guy, not what you would expect from a “star” really. He was polite and willing to talk and while I hoped to get an autograph I felt it was an imposition since he was injured and probably wanted to just get back to his room. Really an overall nice guy.

It is funny how a single piece of cardboard can bring back such vivid memories.