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RICK WORMWOOD

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Let’s recap

Balls, Pucks, and Monster Trucks
With the decade drawing to a close, it's fitting to reconsider the moments and developments of the last 10 years that forever changed sports in Portland and New England.

By RICK WORMWOOD | December 30, 2009

Don’t let your meat loaf

Balls, Pucks & Monster Trucks
If the meat loaves were going to be entered in the contest, they had to be on the judges’ table by 6:30.

By RICK WORMWOOD | December 02, 2009

Courthouse bomber to speak about social change

Censorship averted
After it was initially canceled, a controversial talk by a radical activist will go on Thursday at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Ray Luc Levasseur, who grew up in Sanford, Maine, and became a radical in part due to his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam, will talk on campus in connection with a symposium on “social change.”

By RICK WORMWOOD | November 11, 2009

Brokeback Jeter

Balls, Pucks, and Monster Trucks
The game was over, and fans were leaving Fenway.

By RICK WORMWOOD | October 28, 2009

What I saw at the Revolution

2nd Maine Militia
To signal the start of the 2nd Maine Militia’s final meeting, held recently in Parsonsfield, a small cannon was fired.

By RICK WORMWOOD | October 21, 2009

A child shall lead them

Balls, Pucks, and Monster Trucks
There's good news from Sanford: my hometown is experiencing a surfeit of leadership, and it's manifesting itself in a couple of areas.

By RICK WORMWOOD | October 07, 2009

Love is nothing

Balls, Pucks, and Monster Trucks
Here’s what I know about tennis: if you’ve got love, you’ve got nothing. From love to 15 to 30 to whatever comes between 30 and the sets and the matches, with those advantage points and tiebreakers thrown in, tennis scoring is less intuitive to me than the Cyrillic alphabet is after eight beers, so who cares? But, things change.

By RICK WORMWOOD | September 09, 2009

My first, um, cornhole

Balls, Pucks, and Monster Trucks
Last month, while at my friends Bill and Sarah Paradis’s Walton Street home for some backyard grillin’ and chillin’, Bill asked if I wanted to play cornhole. I was taken aback. Cornhole? Where I grew up, “cornhole” was a rough synonym for “anus.” I wasn’t sure how to take Bill’s offer. What was he actually asking? Imagine my relief when he explained that cornhole is a beanbag-tossing game, a derivative of horseshoes that has become pretty popular. Pheeew!

By RICK WORMWOOD | August 12, 2009

Hot Toddy

YouTube mystery to go live in Portland
The uncredited, audio-only, blank-screen video debuted on YouTube in October 2007, but didn't start getting known until the middle of last year. Its popularity has grown steadily since: the original posting still hasn't topped even 10,000 views — and yet, it seems everybody's heard it by now. Soon, you might get to see it performed live.

By RICK WORMWOOD | July 15, 2009

Thunder Road

Balls, pucks, and monster trucks
Whether young or old, sick or healthy, celebrities have been dying at a hell of a clip: David Carradine, Farrah, MJ, Karl Malden, Steve McNair, Ed McMahon, Sky Saxon, even Robert McNamara (yet, somehow, Mickey Rooney and Abe Vigoda live).

By RICK WORMWOOD | July 15, 2009

Cry me an Old Man River

Balls, Pucks, and Monster Trucks
Readers of this column over the past two years (my mom and my Aunt Theresa, mostly) know that I rabidly support my alma mater's basketball team, the University of Memphis Tigers. This past April, our head coach John Calipari relinquished the Tiger reins to take over at Kentucky.

By RICK WORMWOOD | June 17, 2009

Roller girls go down

Port shows no authority
Don't you hate missing the best example of whatever point you were making?

By RICK WORMWOOD | May 20, 2009

Ballspuck: Where's the hate?

Say it with me: Manchester totally sucks!
I think Portland sports fans should get their hate on. And who should we hate? The answer is easy and plausible: we should hate Manchester, New Hampshire.

By RICK WORMWOOD | April 22, 2009

Life on the D-list

Name that team
Last month Portland learned we'd be getting an expansion franchise in the NBA's D-League.

By RICK WORMWOOD | March 25, 2009

Bring back Maris

Balls, Pucks and Monster Trucks
Alex Rodriguez, media lightning rod and three-time American League MVP, was never my favorite, even before he wore pinstripes.

By RICK WORMWOOD | February 26, 2009

Redskin redux

Balls, Pucks, and Monster Trucks
A couple months ago, when I wrote about the fact that the Sanford and Wiscasset high schools are the last remaining Maine schools using the mascot nickname “redskins,” Sanford principal Allan Young told me that if “redskin” critics called his students racists, he would support a change.

By RICK WORMWOOD | January 26, 2009

Annus horribilis

Balls, pucks, and Monster Trucks
It’s New Year’s, a time for reckoning. With the notable exception of the Celtics, the past twelve months were tough on my teams, starting with a huge, unforgettable disaster.

By RICK WORMWOOD | December 31, 2008

Concussions

Balls, pucks, and monster trucks
Last Saturday night, fans of pulverizing hits had to choose between two options.

By RICK WORMWOOD | December 03, 2008

Last of the Redskins

What can sports mascots teach us about Native American relations today?
The Scarborough School Board changed from “Redskins” to the “Red Storm” eight years ago, at a time when high school and college teams around the country were trending away from using Native American mascots.

By RICK WORMWOOD | December 02, 2008

Sweet science Saturdays

Balls, Pucks + Monster Trucks
The trick to finding the Portland Boxing Club for the first time is not giving up right at the end, when you’re getting close.

By RICK WORMWOOD | November 05, 2008

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Today's Event Picks

[ART] “New Acquisitions 2009: In Black and White” at Portland Museum of Art