Hockey star Hilary Knight's road to Olympic gold included a whistle stop or two in Stamford with a "beer league."

 The winter Olympics cannot pass without my mentioning a microscopic Stamford link to the victorious U.S. women's ice hockey team.

U.S. women's team captain Hilary Knight played a couple of games about a decade ago in the north rink at Chelsea Piers athletic complex in our city’s Cove neighborhood. Her road to Olympic gold culminated  Thursday (Feb. 19) when the Americans defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime of the final game of the women's hockey tournament before a worldwide audience in Milan Cortina, Italy. Ms. Knight scored the goal that sent the game into overtime.

Hilary performed on a smaller stage before she ascended to the apex of women's hockey. A couple of hundred fans and I saw Ms. Knight and her Boston Pride play in December 2015 against the then-Stamford-based Connecticut Whale at Chelsea Piers. The teams were among the four founding members of the defunct National Women’s Hockey League, which claimed to be the first professional women’s hockey league in North America to pay its players. 

The Whale battled the Pride a couple of more times in 2016 at Chelsea Piers during the NWHL’s inaugural season. The financially troubled league folded in 2023 as the seven-team Premier Hockey Federation. Hilary called her now former employer a “glorified beer league” while some of her colleagues refused to play in the PHF and demanded a new, fiscally solid league. 

They got what they asked for. About three years ago, the Professional Women’s Hockey League swallowed the Pride, the Whale and the rest of the PHF by purchasing the league and its intellectual properties, thereby sinking it. My beloved Whale and the  pod squad, cetacean generation and beluga brigade puns that the team mascot spawned now lie in the Davy Jones locker of hockey obscurity. The PWHL, meanwhile, has grown from six teams in its first season (2024-25) to eight in Canada and the United States in 2025-26.

In addition to the Olympic team, Hilary plays for the Seattle Torrent of the PWHL. The league’s New York Sirens played a couple of games in Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport and maintained a practice facility at Chelsea Piers in their first season. The Sirens currently play home games in Newark, N.J.

That’s all I’ve got for a local angle for this year’s winter Olympics. Sports writer Roger Cleaveland of the Waterbury Republican American had a bigger and better Connecticut connection to Ms. Knight. Mr. Cleaveland told us about Hilary playing girls hockey at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford. She scored 53 goals during her senior year in 2006-07. This will be the fifth and final Olympics for the 36-year-old Ms. Knight, according to Roger’s Feb. 1 story in the Republican American, Stamford Advocate and other Hearst Connecticut newspapers. 

Here’s an epilogue. During the end-of-game handshake Thursday between the Americans and Canadians, some Canadian players could tell their fellow North Americans they don't want to become our 51st state, as President Trump has proposed. No, Canada! Annex your beautiful country to Greenland and Denmark instead.

What fun sports media would have every time they cover a college or professional event above the 49th parallel. “The Canadiens are trailing the Rangers 5-1 on their home ice, Marv. Something is rotten in the state Denmark.”

                                      —  Let me quit while I’m ahead —

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Who is going to win Super Bowl LX? I rounded up XV of the usual suspects to get some unique answers.

 



Hello, folks. Thanks for tuning in, just in time for my inaugural Super Bowl predictions post.

The post’s format and theme are based on the annual Super Bowl prognostication column that the late Bob Kennedy had written in the Stamford Advocate for more than 30 years. 

I remember watching Bob in the 1960s, covering high school football, basketball and baseball games with his pen, clipboard, blue plaid Madras shirt and perennial smile.

Little did I know I would be working with him in the Advocate newsroom for about 25 years while he was sports editor. 

After Bob retired from the Advocate in the early 2000s, he wrote the Super Bowl column for the Hey, Stamford! Blog, which his son, PJ Kennedy operates. Bob passed away in 2021 after a long battle with Parkinson's and Alzheimer’s. PJ now writes the big game prediction post in his blog, along with stories about Super Bowl events and caterers.

He honors his father’s legacy and promotes local happenings and businesses quite well. Let’s see if his unofficial 73-year-old apprentice comes anywhere close. 

First, we need background basics. The Seattle Seahawks of the NFL's National Football Conference (NFC) take on New England Patriots of the league’s American Football Conference (AFC) in Super Bowl LX (60) at 6:30 PM Eastern Standard Time Sunday at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. The projected starting quarterbacks are Sam Darnold for the Seahawks and Drake May for the Patriots from Foxborough, Mass.

Here's the opening kickoff, so to speak.

Rich Lee, community volunteer and former business editor of the Stamford Advocate:

I'll go with the Seahawks, 31-20. They have a more explosive offense, plus, Maye might have an injured shoulder. Our church pastor is hosting a game watch party, and he is a big Seahawks fan.

Jerry Zezima, nationally syndicated humor columnist and author of eight books, none of which have made the New York Times bestseller list:

I am standing pat on the Pats, not just because my hometown of Stamford is in New England, but because I want to replace Tom Brady as the G.O.A.T., the Geezer Of All Time.

Paul Scutti, hometown Stamford:

Both teams have very good defense and quarterbacks. Patriots are getting 4 1/2 points. Seahawks win but do not cover the point spread. If you bet, take the Patriots and the points.
Whoever makes the most mistakes: Penalties, interceptions, fumbles, will lose a tight game.

I am not a gambler. So I hope my readers understand the science of betting.

David Ruden, director of operations for the Ruden Report sports website. 

The Patriots have had a magical rebound season and they offer up one more surprise. Patriots 21, Seahawks 17.

Jamie Heenehan, retired environmental lawyer; graduate of the former Stamford Catholic High School:

 I am writing this from the greater Philadelphia area - home to the reigning Super Bowl champs, the Philadelphia Eagles (something I can still say for the next 80+ hours). While both the Seahawks and Patriots have a good D, Seattle has the better offense - especially with the Pats' QB, Drake Maye recovering from an injury in the AFC title game. So I think Seattle will win.
But I'll be rooting for New England, as my sister lives in Easton and her whole family are Patriots fans. Indeed, my niece lives in Boston. However, our friend and classmate, (former Stamford resident) Chuck Hinman, lives in the Seattle area and even got to one of the Seahawk playoff games. So if Seattle wins, that's good, too. What I most want is just a fun, exciting game. 

Mark Roche, retired Stamford firefighter; SCHS alumnus:

Got to go with Seattle with their defense. And let's not forget our classmates in the Northwest, Tim Doyle and Chuck Hinman. 

This is starting to look like an SCHS alumni newsletter. Before I switch to a Rippowam High School graduate, I need to insert more background history.
In the Spygate scandal, the NFL levied several hundred thousand dollars in fines against the Patriots and then-head coach Bill Belichick for videotaping New York Jets’ defensive coaches’ signals from an unauthorized location  during a game in 2007.

In Deflategate, the NFL accused then-Patriots quarterback 
Tom Brady of deflating footballs to make them easier to catch during the Patriots’ win over the Indianapolis Colts during the AFC Championship Game on Jan. 18, 2015. As a result, the NFL suspended Brady for the first four games of the 2016 NFL season. The league fined the patriots $1 million and took two draft picks away from the team in 2016.

Tom Brady was an executive producer of the “The Roast of Tom Brady,” which aired on Netflix May 5, 2024. The live, unedited show featured celebrities telling jokes about Brady and the Patriots. Brady’s ex-wife Gisele Bundchen and former girlfriend Bridget Moynahan were angered by the jokes. Brady said he would not do another roast because the first one negatively affected his children.

I could have tossed this next respondent out of the blog and saved a lot of work. But I took one for the team. And that is pretty interesting trivia, even for non-sports fans.


Tom Healy, artist; Rippowam High School alumnus:

“Seattle is going to win. I can’t root for New England because of Spygate and Deflategate and because Tom Brady did his own roast, then regretted it.”

This next respondent caused me to do even more work and dig up stuff from the Super Bowl archives. 

In Super Bowl XLIX on Feb. 1, 2015, the New England Patriots defeated the Seattle Seahawks 28-24 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. The game is famous for its shocking finish, where rookie cornerback Malcolm Butler intercepted a Russell Wilson pass at the goal line with 20 seconds remaining to thwart an almost certain Seattle touchdown.

In October 2019, an ESPN microphone caught Sam Darnold, then quarterback of the New York Jets, saying he saw ghosts during a 30-0 loss to the Patriots. He meant that the Patriots overwhelming defense caused him to see activity that was not really there on the field.


Brian McDermott, assistant treasurer, Senior Men’s Association of Stamford:

Pats 28 - Seahawks 24, same score as their 2015 Super Bowl encounter.  Once again the Seahawks will be 1 yard away from winning the game in the final seconds. Having learned a lesson from 2015, this time, on the final play, QB Sam Darnold attempts to hand off the ball to running back Kenneth Walker III. However, on the play, the Patriots blitz, and blitzing cornerback Christian Gonzalez pulls off his mask and reveals himself to actually be Malcolm Butler. Darnold, now certain he is again seeing ghosts, passes out and fumbles the ball, which is recovered by Butler as the game ends.   

Skyler Healy, Brooklyn resident; head of operations at an events and media company in Manhattan:

The Seahawks are going to win. They have a better all-around team and fewer weaknesses (than the Patriots) and they have the best wide receivers corps in the league. 
 

Brendan Duffy, SCHS and UConn graduate; engineer and entrepreneur: 

The Seattle Seahawks are going to win 34-10. My rationale in making this prediction is three-fold: 

1) my prediction is entirely a gut instinct based on hearsay, some of it issued by people I know and whose opinions on sports I trust.
2) (according to) 57 sports analysts at ESPN surveyed about who will win: Seattle 47, New England 10.
3) (The Patriots’) dynasty is over.
Their new, young QB has promise, but he’ll probably excel once he’s with another team.

I need some women in this blog to show I'm not sexist.


Diane Didelot, retired; graduate of SCHS and Southern Connecticut State University:

I am cheering for the Patriots and QB Drake Maye!  I saw him for the first time during the AFC Championship game against the Denver Broncos and was instantly a fan!  He is a real team player and handled the pressure of that game with incredible talent and grit. This was his rookie season and he surprised everyone!  

If the game is not very exciting, I might change the channel to Hallmark or Netflix!
Go, Pats!!!!.

I might change the channel myself, especially during the halftime show. I don't want to watch Blue Bunny, Bugs Bunny, Bad Bunny or whatever his name is.

James LoRusso, retired; former resident of Stamford: 

I’m pulling for the Pats to further prove that the guy with the raggedy sweatshirt (Bill Belichick) had nothing to do with them winning even a single Super Bowl.

Southern Connecticut residents Alan Murray, journalist and author; Lori Murray, Ph.D.; global affairs consultant and Yale graduate who once taught at the U.S. Naval Academy:


On behalf of Alan and myself - we have never and would never - miss a Super Bowl. It would be un-America to miss the greatest football match-up of the year, the best commercials of the year and the best opportunity of the year to eat food not good for you, guilt free!  

The Murrays did not speculate on the outcome of the Super Bowl. But anyone who has read this far will be more concerned about the 5 to 10 minutes of their lives that they recently lost while reading this rather than the Murrays’ prediction.

Dr. Murray taught at the Naval Academy. The midshipman or midshipwoman who graduates last in their class academically at the academy is called the anchorman or anchorwoman. 

Now, the anchorman of journalism will give his Super Bowl prognostication. 

Peter Healy, aspiring blogger; has been trying to write a book for about 43 years:

I expect the Patriots to win, 31-27. I remember them as the Boston Patriots of the old American Football League. This might pop up on a quiz show or online trivia game some day. The Boston Patriots never had their own stadium while in the AFL. They played at Fenway Park, Boston University, Boston College and at Harvard Stadium.

And the present-day Patriots have third-string quarterback Tommy DeVito, No. 16. I regard Tommy, who played for the New York Giants and lived in New Jersey, as the Rocky Balboa of professional football. 
I would love to hear a sports reporter ask Mr. DeVito, “Will you call it a career after this Super Bowl, Tommy?”
“No, Marv. I would like to stick around for another four seasons.”

Another Tommy (real name Gaetano) DeVito from New Jersey sang with The Four Seasons. Frankie Valli should sing the national anthem at Super Bowl LX. 
Yes. This is a stall tactic. But I believe the Patriots will prevail, despite what the experts say, because upsets happen. If they did not, any geek off the street could fill out a perfect March Madness basketball bracket. 
In reality, the odds of picking all 63 games correctly are about 1 in 9.22 quintillion, or slightly better than the odds of me having a date on a Saturday night in 2026. I can still remember the name of the girl I took to a quintillion at the Stamford Yacht Club in 1968. Oh. No! That’s a cotillion!

It's time to quit while I'm ahead. Enjoy the big game, folks. If you happen to enjoy it too much, call a taxi or an Uber.

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A sign of the times: 51st annual Milford Oyster Festival offers less bang for more bucks.

 Thursday, August 14, 2025

MILFORD -- The 51st annual Milford Oyster Festival that starts Friday Aug. 15 will be smaller than its predecessors and will charge an admission fee, the Connecticut Post reported this week.

#It will take place 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday at a vastly downsized site at the city’s Fowler Field. 
#Admission is $8 and free for children age 13 and under. Entry for all ages used to be free.  
#Unlike prior years, the festival will not have activities and events at Milford Green, Lisman Landing, Armory Square, Rotary Pavilion or Milford Harbor. 

Festival organizers in December said rising costs, difficulty in attracting premier musical acts and fewer volunteers caused the now-shrunken event, according to the CT Insider news service. It had been an all-day event. 

This year’s festival will feature carnival rides, food trucks, locally sourced oysters, local bands and tribute bands, according to the festival website. The site lists dozens of foods, including lobster rolls. Downtown restaurants also serve festival customers.

 
Carnival rides begin at 5 p.m. Friday and noon Saturday, according to milfordoysterfestival.com 

Musical acts start with School of Rock, Milford at 5:30 p.m. Friday, followed by Backstage Pass at 6:30 p.m. 
Saturday’s lineup will have Dave & Chrissy at 5:30 p.m., Philadelphia Freedom at 6:30 p.m. and Almost Queen at 8:30 p.m.

Parking is available at downtown streets and banks, Harborside Middle School, the Milford Senior Center, Wasson Field, Parson’s Government Center and in the 44 River Street lot. A Metro-North station is about two blocks from the festival grounds.








 

The Americans with Disabilities Act celebrates 35th anniversary.

  A common joke in the disability community is, “I’m only in this for the parking spaces.” Those blue signs with the wheelchair silhouette that signify parking spaces for people with disabilities usually are located closer to a store, movie theater, library, restaurant, park, beach or other public facility than the rest of the spaces.

The parking spaces were not always as ubiquitous as they are today. After my cervical spinal cord injury, I left a rehabilitation hospital in 1972 in my wheelchair and started riding in cars. Back then, the so-called handicap spaces were as rare as drivers today who don’t speed, honk their horns only when absolutely necessary, never look at their phones and don't toss trash out the window.

We have gained a lot more than parking spaces in those 53 years. It strains my brain to list all the accommodations we take for granted now: ramps, wide doors, elevators, curb cuts on sidewalks, Braille signs, crosswalks with the blinking yellow lights, wide stalls and lower sinks in public bathrooms. 

A couple of pieces of legislation made our lives a lot easier. The first was the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. I see it as the flip phone of disability rights. It prohibits discrimination based on disability in federal agencies and entities that receive federal funds, such as public schools.  

The second one was a life changer, for tens of  millions of Americans: The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was like the first personal computer or the smart phone of the disability movement. It changed life as we knew it for the better. 

The ADA is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in every day activities. The ADA guarantees that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as everyone else to enjoy employment opportunities and participate in state and local programs. The law affects housing, public transportation and access to private businesses such as retail stores, movie theaters, fitness centers, hotels and other facilities that are open to the public. The ADA is complex and has many components that I will cover in future posts.

Events that mark the 35th anniversary of the ADA take place this week nationwide and locally.

On Wednesday July 23 in Stamford, city officials and members of the mayor’s ADA Advisory Council will speak at a rally/walk from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the city’s Cove Island Park.

Greenwich is scheduled to host an ADA anniversary event Friday July 25 at 12:30 p.m. at the Cohen Eastern Greenwich Civic Center.

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Beaches with blankets, sunscreen, umbrellas and access for all

Hello, folks. Welcome to the blog.  This post is part of a series in which I try to report news as if I still had a paid job. In some posts, I show readers a few fundamentals of basic journalism and "how we used to do it in my day. I tell ya."

Today, my new column on issues related to disabilities makes its debut. I do not have a name for it yet and it will become separate from Stamford Ink. My journalism career began about 48 years ago when I started writing in a student newspaper about disability topics and campus accessibility at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. 

 Let us fast forward to 2025.

People with wheelchairs, crutches, canes and walkers now can traverse the sand close to the high-tide mark at Stamford's three major beaches.

In May,  the city's Department of Parks and Recreation installed heavy-duty plastic mats at Cummings, Cove and West beaches. 

West Beach and East Beach at Cove Island Park have one mat each. Cummings Beach has one mat on the left side of the rock sea wall near the pavilion. The other is on the right side of the wall. That beach's non-swimming area lies to the left of the wall and the swimming area is on the right. Lifeguards patrol only the swimming beach to the right of the wall.

 The city placed the first beach mat, which went by the brand name, Mobi-mat, in August 2017 on the left side of the Cummings sea wall. Then-Mayor David Martin, other city officials, people with disabilities and news reporters attended the unveiling. Eight years later, the city added mats at all three public beaches.

The original Mobi-mat, however, had at least one drawback. Power wheelchairs, which can weigh up to 600 pounds, sank into the sand underneath them, including mine. A couple of summers ago, several beach-goers at Cummings pushed my wheelchair back to the sidewalk after I get bogged down in the sand. 

I and other members of Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons' ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Advisory Council suggested that the Parks and Recreation Department switch to a thicker, more firm mat, such as the one at Oakland Beach in Rye, N.Y. Stamford's new mats lead to rectangular plastic platforms that can support several hundred pounds. 

Stamford is part of a local and nationwide trend. Greenwich installed a $6,000 beach mat at Tod's Point beach in 2019.  The city of Norwalk installed a $7,800, 82-foot long beach mat at Calf Pasture Beach six years ago. The Connecticut towns of Old Lyme and Westport also have beach mats. 

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Pomp and Circumstance with an Ivy garnish.

 Hello, folks. Welcome to my blog.  This post is part of a series in which I try to report news as if I still had a paid job. In some posts, I show readers a few fundamentals of basic journalism and "how we used to do it in my day. I tell ya."
Today, I am writing an item for a what used to be the college notes page in a typical newspaper. This item is about my nephew, Rhys.
 
Rhys Healy, a former resident of Stamford and Greenwich, received a bachelor of science degree on May 24, 2025, from Cornell University. 

 Rhys’ major was environmental science, with minors in economics and Native American studies. 
He is a graduate of Byram Hills High School in Armonk, N.Y., and currently resides in Maine.

The joys of reading Stamford style — in "prime" real estate.

Hello, folks. Welcome to my blog.  This post is part of a series in which I try to report news as if I still had a paid job. In some posts, I show readers a few fundamentals of basic journalism and "how we used to do it in my day. I tell ya."

By Peter Healy

Well Read Writer

I noticed a universal sign for the Stamford train station earlier this year when I drove toward the South End branch of our city's Ferguson Library. 

It featured a green silhouette of two images: the front end of a train on a track and a passenger platform next to it.

On that same trip, I saw the universal symbol for a library: a graphic that depicts a person holding a book. It was very basic. A circle at the top is supposed to be a human head.

 I called my imaginary friend in Long Island and I mentioned the library sign. He does impressions of famous people and questioned the sign's relevance.

 In a Jerry Seinfeld voice, he said, "If someone is looking FOR a library, chances are they're going there to read a book, a magazine or a newspaper. Maybe they will take home a music CD or movie on DVD. Whatever their motive, they should be able t  o READ a sign that says LIBRARY!"

The universal library sign, whether we need it or not, is invalid for a few months. That is because the Ferguson Library relocated its South End branch this past winter from the Lathon Wider Community Center at 137 Henry St. to swanky office digs with sweeping views of Stamford Harbor.

A flooded basement in the aging community center led to the library''s move to an office/retail building at 78 Southfield Ave. while the Henry Street building gets repaired.

Building and Land Technology, which redeveloped (gentrified) parts of Stamford's South End and Waterside neighborhoods, is allowing the library to stay rent free in Class A office space above the Prime restaurant until its scheduled return to Henry Street on July 1.  

I don't care how long the rehab takes. I love to gaze out the huge windows at the Long Island sand dunes and boats and barges chugging through the West Branch of Stamford Harbor while I'm solving word puzzles in the Stamford Advocate's paper edition. Other library patrons told me they too prefer the temporary home. 

Let's go back to Journalism 101. I showed you a classic example of "backing into a lead (or lede)." That phrase means I started the story with extraneous details and reported the actual news in the sixth paragraph. It also is known as burying a lead.

I am shifting into geezer gear. "Listen here, you young whippersnappers! I backed into so many leads during my journalism career, I had to turn on the backup lights on my wheelchair.  I buried more leads than an undertaker. 

I don't have to report news here. The media, including my former employer, the Stamford Advocate, reported this library news months ago. I originally intended to write this blog post as a testimonial to the joys and benefits of reading and literacy. That one will have to wait - like a return phone call from Optimum TV customer service. 

Often times, I am either the only customer at the Southfield branch or I'm among two or three others at most. More readers should take advantage of this opportunity that may never happen again in Stamford. I only can think of two other libraries with coastal views. Those are in Westport and Milford.

The Southfield Avenue branch is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Enjoy the view!

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