Duck Boats, a sports movie, and other thoughts

Just thought I’d empty out my reporter’s notebook while savoring another Bruins' Winter Classic victory. The B's should play at least one game at Fenway Park every season.

It felt great to be back inside high school gymnasiums these past two weeks after what seemed like a lengthy vacation. There’s no place I’d rather be in the winter. Hearing those sneakers squeak and balls bounce on the sweaty gym floor again never gets old. It’s a toss-up as to where I’ve spent most of my life’s waking hours: the Everett Recreation Center (where I grew up) or the Lombardi Memorial Center (Fordham’s multi-basketball court fitness center). Makes me wonder how much time I spent at beautiful Rose Hill trying to get my undergraduate degree.

It was a thrill seeing Killingly’s Yianni Baribeau score his 1,000th career point. That’s not easy, folks. You almost have to play significant minutes as a freshman and then hope you don’t miss a lot of time due to injury, or for seniors now, the restricted COVID-19 season two years ago.

Of course, you also have to be one of the most talented players in your league.

“I’ve known Yianni since he was in eighth grade and coming into high school playing AAU,” Norwich Free Academy coach Dave Cornish said.  “I love that kid. And I have the utmost respect for him and his family."

It was also fun seeing the smiles on the faces of the Norwich Free Academy girls basketball team after they got their first win of the season. With seven state championships and numerous Eastern Connecticut Conference crowns, NFA is one of the state’s most storied programs. They hit some hard times last year, however, and finished 3-19, and then opened this season 0-6.

But no one has worked harder to turn things around than Wildcats coach Courtney Gomez, her staff and players. NFA has won three of their last four games.

“We have a lot of athletic kids, we just needed to get better at the basketball skill,” Gomez said.  “We just have a bunch of unselfish kids, kids that want one another to do well. No one is worried about what they get in terms of scoring, and it makes it much easier to coach and much easier to play when you’ve got unselfish kids. I just kept trying to say to them, just stay true to what we've been doing over the last two years. We play hard, we never quit, we’re defending every possession, we’re rebounding and playing together.”

*As of Friday morning, our beloved Boston Bruins had a league best won-lost mark of 32-5-4, while the Boston Celtics sported a league best record of 31-12. This might be a good time to check the gas tanks and the oil on those Boston championship parade Duck Boats. The world's most famous amphibious vehicles have been gathering dust since February 2019 when the Patriots defeated the Rams in the Super Bowl. It’s shaping up to be a fun NHL and NBA spring playoffs in Beantown.

*Speaking of the spring, have you seen the Boston Red Sox projected lineup for 2023? Before Trevor Story’s potential season-ending surgery, it looked something like this:

Masataka Yoshida, rf

Alex Verudugo, lf

Rafael Devers, 3b

Justin Turner, dh

Trevor Story, 2b

Tristan Casas, 1b

Kiki Hernandez, cf

Christian Arroyo, ss

Reese McGuire, c

That’s certainly a far cry from the World Series clinching Game 5 lineup the Red Sox battered the Dodgers with in 2018.

Mookie Betts, cf

Andrew Benintendi, lf

Steve Pearce, 1b

JD Martinez, rf

Xander Bogaerts, ss

Brock Holt, 2b

Rafael Devers, 3b

Christian Vazquez, c

I know every MLB team's lineup is vastly different from five years ago. That’s just the business of baseball, and pro sports in general. But jeez, it seems like the Red Sox could have kept two or three of those guys from their 2018 championship team instead of one (Devers), right?

*The NFL continues to be television kings. Out of the top 100 watched TV shows of the year, 80 of them were NFL games. Yet the WNBA continues to put their playoff games up against the NFL on Sundays.

*Tom Brady has played 23 seasons in the NFL and has never trotted onto the field when his team has been eliminated from the playoffs. Let that one sink in for a while. Brady begins his quest for an eighth Super Bowl ring on Monday night when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers host the Dallas Cowboys in an NFC Wild Card matchup.

*Speaking of Mr. Brady, have you seen the trailer yet for the movie “80 For Brady,” which opens in theaters in early February? It stars Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Rita Moreno. Four best friends. One wild trip to the Super Bowl. This has the potential to be the greatest sports movie of all time.

*My favorite sports movie is 1979's “The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.”

The disco-inspired fantasy basketball comedy featured Julius Erving, Jonathan Winters, Stockard Channing, Meadowlark Lemon, Jack Kehoe as “Setshot,” M. Emmet Walsh, and Michael Gazzo (Frank Pentangeli in “The Godfather Part II"). Besides Dr. J, who had the lead role as “Moses Guthrie," there were a number of NBA stars in the movie, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Connie Hawkins, Spencer Haywood, Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell, and Bob Lanier. The movie's soundtrack was produced by Philadelphia legend Thom Bell and featured The Sylvers, the Four Tops, and The Spinners, who also appeared in the movie.

*STUCK IN THE ‘70s: On Jan. 15, 1972 - John Havlicek poured in a game-high 40 points, grabbed seven rebounds and dished out seven assists to lead the Boston Celtics to a 122-106 victory over the Atlanta Hawks. Dave Cowens added 27 points and 15 rebounds for the Celts. Pete “Pistol Pete” Maravich, in his second pro season, scored nine points in 26 minutes for the Hawks. The game was played before just 6,047 fans at McCamish Pavilion on the campus of Georgia Tech. The Hawks moved to the sparkling new Omni Arena the following season.

Jimmy Zanor can be reached at jzanor@norwichbulletin.com.   

This article originally appeared on The Bulletin: Column: Duck Boats, a sports movie, and other thoughts