Good morning!
Hockey scheduling like everything else has been a challenge in the COVID-19 era. Broadcasters want to work and fans want to listen but most schools won’t allow visiting media into their rinks and UMass hockey analyst Brock Hines and play-by-play partner Donnie Moorhouse have adjusted accordingly.

“Every week, the deck of cards gets thrown on the floor and we see where we’ll be going,” said Hines.

The season was slated to begin at Maine three weeks ago, but visiting media wouldn’t be allowed in Alfond Arena and so, said Hines, “I was going to go down to Donnie’s, plug the broadcasting unit into the TV and we’d call the game from a raw video feed. From here to Westfield beats from here to Orono, but then the game was canceled.”

The Minutemen wound up playing UConn in Storrs, but the broadcast plan remained the same. “We called it from Donnie’s living room with a UConn-fed picture and a recorded loop of crowd noise. Road game two was at BC’s Conte Forum behind the BC bench, and road game three was from a suite at Merrimack.”

When NESN’s carrying a game, rinkside reporter Adam Frenier joins Moorhouse on WHMP and Hines partners up on the TV side. Thus far he’s worked with three different announcers, including a wet-behind-the-ears rookie who liked to say, “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before Brock…”

He probably has. Now in his 28th season, Hines weathered the lean years before coach Greg Carvel turned UMass into a top 10 program. Normally the broadcasts are scripted well in advance but now, “Different guys are scrambling to different venues” and Hines credited broadcast director Jay Burnham for keeping pace with the last-second shuffling.

The Minutemen were scheduled to play BU this weekend, but a COVID-19 outbreak has the Terriers out until January. Itching for competition, Carvel wanted to play an out-of-conference team like AIC, Holy Cross or Bentley, but word came down that UMass would have to wait until next weekend when they play four games in eight days against UMass-Lowell and Providence.

Or so the schedule says, but let’s wait to see where the cards land.

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Returning from Bradley Field recently I pulled off the interstate and onto Riverdale Road in West Springfield for a powdered cruller at Donut Dip. The store looks like it did when it opened on July 5, 1957, with its large plate glass windows and overhead neon sign.

Donut shops were a novelty in those days. The first Krispy Kreme opened in 1937, Dunkin Donuts opened in 1950 and Tim Horton’s in 1954, but it wasn’t long ago you couldn’t find a Dunkin Donuts from between Richmond and Jacksonville. I know. I looked.

Owner Dick Shields said his father’s donut shop opened for business on July 5, 1957, at 3:30 a.m., and all that’s changed in the ensuing years is that taxi cabs have been replaced by Uber drivers. “We still roll our own dough,” said Shields. “The first Dunkin’ Donuts had opened in Quincy and we couldn’t think of a name. We came up with Good Donuts, Donut Delight, Dandy Donut. Finally a salesman said how about Donut Dip?”

There’s no talking about donuts without congratulating the Billings sisters, Sidra and Sabra, for re-opening Adams Donuts in Greenfield. If they keep it going maybe someday it will be a national historic donut landmark. I can’t wait to have my first Adams Classic inside their shop.

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Baseball slugger Dick Allen died this week at age 78. Allen was a mini-version of Reggie Jackson, except Reggie played for the Yankees and Allen played for the White Sox and Phillies, and Reggie hit 563 home runs and Allen hit 351.

One of the more iconic Sports Illustrated covers to ever hit the stands showed Allen decked out in his No. 15 White Sox uniform and juggling three baseballs with a cigarette dangling from between his lips. That was June 12, 1972, and Allen would go on to be named the AL MVP, batting .308 with 37 home runs and 113 RBIs.

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It’s been a while since we heard from Mark Snyder, former Greenfield resident and erstwhile Red Sox fan who’s now holed up in the Windy City. Snyder sent a column by Jim O’Donnell who writes for a suburban Chicago newspaper called the Daily Herald.

O’Donnell led off by ripping former Cubs broadcaster Len Kasper who jumped to the White Sox. Listening to Kasper do play-by-play, wrote O’Donnell, was like “listening to an electric floor fan in the night — he has droned through Cubs games as if touched by Advil PM.”

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West County’s Mike Ryan, former head trainer of the Jacksonville Jaguars and an NBC analyst, has a new book out called Foam Rolling for Dummies. “It’s the first therapy-based roller treatment book,” Ryan said in an email.

Foam rolling is a get-on-the-floor exercise using — you guessed it — foam rolls to smooth tight muscles and alleviate muscle cramps. I tried it and it works. The book will be released on Jan. 7 and is available now online.

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SQUIBBERS: COVID-19 has claimed Boston’s most popular sports bar on the North End. The Fours opened during the era of Bobby Orr and the Big Bad Bruins and was shuttered in August. … Cleveland defensive lineman Myles Garrett was infected by COVID-19 and missed two weeks. “My parents had it, kicked their butt,” Garrett said at a Browns press conference. “I had it, kicked my butt. I was in pain. It wasn’t great.” … Garry Brown reports in his Hitting to All Fields column that the AHL is aiming for a Feb. 5 start. … The College Hockey News reports that St. Thomas University in Minnesota will become the first team in the NCAA’s modern era to jump from D-III to D-I when it joins the Western Collegiate Hockey Association in 2021-22. Insiders say AIC coach Eric Lang has the inside track on landing the coaching gig after coming oh-so-close at UVM and St. Lawrence. … Sirius-XM’s Chris Russo on college hoops: “The virus is here until the vaccine’s here. Shut it down. May Madness is not the answer.” … Tulane offensive lineman Sincere Haynesworth is not related to former NFL defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth. … I miss hardcover media guides. … During Tuesday’s Ravens-Cowboys game, the NFL Network played Howard Cosell’s staccato delivery of the John Lennon shooting as the Patriots’ John Smith was lining up for game-tying field goal in Miami: “John Lennon, outside his apartment building on the West Side of New York City. The most famous perhaps of all the Beatles. Shot twice in the back. Rushed to Roosevelt Hospital. Dead. On. Arrival.” And then John Smith missed the field goal. … Adrian Peterson chalked up his 123rd career touchdown Sunday against the Bears. Peterson’s 12th all-time and the current active leader, three TDs ahead of Arizona’s Larry Fitzgerald. … The New York media is talking up Bill Cowher to be the next Jets coach. … Vegas Raiders’ broadcaster Brent Musberger, after Derek Carr’s 46-yard touchdown pass to Henry Ruggs III beat the Jets: “Jackpot Baby! Jackpot!”

Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for four decades in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached at chipjet95@yahoo.com