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As a lifelong hockey and Bruins fan, and someone who played the game for 15 years, it was quite a moment last night watching the Bruins hoist the Stanley Cup for the first time in 39 years.
They made it to the Finals in 1988 and 1990, but I was only 3 and 5 years old (my birthday is a month after) so I hardly remember watching them get demolished by the juggernaut that was the Edmonton Oilers back then.
Tim Thomas played absolutely out of his mind, allowing only 8 goals in 7 games and making tons of spectacular saves. Even the old man Mark Recchi played some phenomenal hockey. At the beginning of the series I was telling my dad how ridiculous it was that the 43 year old was on the power play and getting so much playing time, and then he comes through with 3 goals and 4 assists in 7 games, providing steady play and big goals. Now he gets to ride off into the sunset and then into the Hall of Fame. Not a bad way to end your career.
The greatest part is this team is comprised mostly of guys in their prime, or even a little younger! Thomas and Zdeno Chara, their best defenseman, are in their 30’s, but other than that their key players are all young. Lucic, Horton, Bergeron, Krejci, and Marchand are all 26 or younger! Tyler Seguin, the 2nd overall pick last year is only 19. They also have the 10th pick this year. Their backup goalie is excellent and only 23. They are locked and loaded to be competitive for the next several years. I am looking forward to every minute of it.
Up here in New England we have been spoiled over the past 10 years. The Patriots have 3 world championships, the Red Sox 2, the Celtics 1 and now the Bruins with 1. In many ways I savor this one the most, as hockey was my first love as a kid and for as long as I can remember the Bruins have been the red headed step child of the 4 major pro teams.
Boston used to be a hockey town, and it is great to see the Bruins thrusting themselves back into the spotlight. They can now be uttered in the same sentence as the other 3 teams with this monumental achievement. I tip my cap to them and look forward to next year!
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On Saturday, May 14 at 10pm my wife gave birth to our beautiful baby girl! Kate Sweet St. Pierre weighed in at 7lbs 11oz and measured 20.5 inches long. She is happy and healthy and I am looking at her right now as I write this!
Everyone tells you that having a child is a life-changing experience, and I can say first hand that you don’t truly understand what that means until your child is actually born. I am sure this will only continue as she grows up.
Needless to say there have been several sleepless nights and a tremendously disrupted routine. I have actually lost 7lbs due to the lack of sleep, stress and totally messed up schedule! I was able to get to the gym today though and I am definitely looking forward to more of that.
I must say it is also amazing how fast you learn to change diapers, soothe your baby and absolutely just fall in love with them. I also want to thank everyone for their congratulations and well wishes, it is all greatly appreciated.
Also in keeping with the birthday theme, Eric Cressey is celebrating his 30th birthday by having a huge sale on Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel and Perform Better, taking $50 off! If it is a product you have considered but have yet to pull the trigger on, you will never get it for a better price, and it will provide you with some tremendous results to boot.
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This has been a crazy semester thus far, and things are really about to hit the fan. I have a ton of projects/presentations as well as tests and quizzes all due over the next few weeks. On top of my data collection for my thesis several days per week.
Today I had to observe an outpatient dietitian counsel a few different patients. It was interesting to see how she went about counseling the patients, and to see where her philosophy differed from mine. Overall it was definitely a good experience.
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Unfortunately I only have time to put out a quick one today as I have class and thesis work all day. However, that doesn’t mean it won’t be awesome!
As you may know I was a rugby player in a past life, and a decent one at that. Unfortunately I have not played the wonderful sport in 3 full years. This weekend however I had an opportunity to play with a bunch of my old UMaine teammates at an indoor 7′s tournament, so I jumped at it.
BSP playing some rugby, many years ago
I have to say, that 3 year layoff definitely did not improve my skill set! While I felt pretty fit, it was definitely difficult to get my bearings and get back into the flow of the game. The instincts certainly were not where they used to be, but it was a blast none the less. They are aiming to make this an annual tournament, and I hope they do.
I think I might try to bulk up a little for it next year, as I can definitely feel the difference in play now that I am down to 195, as I play my best indoor rugby probably around 215, though I don’t ever plan on getting there again! Maybe get to 200-205, but who knows.
Anyway, it was definitely awesome to play with my old teammates again, as well to hit some people and get hit. It makes you feel so alive!
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So I know that last week was an aberration and that I only blogged twice. I am here today to tell you what I have been up to, plus to soften you up with a cute picture of my dog and cat laying together in my dog’s bed. I have had many readers ask me for more pictures and updates of Lucy, and here she is with our sweet little cat Splanchnic (Anna got her in her first year of dental school, which is basically medical school, hence the name). Well here they are, doing what they do best, being cute.
On top of that, my trusty 1999 Ford Taurus was running into some problems, and with my commute to and from UMaine (160 miles roundtrip) 2x/week and with winter looming, we decided now was the time to trade her in. It was bittersweet for me, as it was once my grandmother’s car, and was the first car I ever owned.
While it certainly was not a looker (I don’t know what Ford was thinking with that design), it certainly got me from Point A to Point B for 4 solid years. In fact, in 2009 alone I put over 41,000 miles on it just commuting to and from CP!
While I will miss that car, my wife and I were able to trade it in for a much nicer, newer and more manly looking vehicle – a 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo. Safe as can be, plenty of cargo room, decent highway gas mileage (only 1-2 mpg less than my Taurus) and more than capable in the snow, this is exactly what we were looking for.
So that is what we have been up to these last few days since returning from the FNCE conference in Boston on Tuesday night. Needless to say, I hope to be done car shopping for many years. For any of you looking for a new or used car in Maine, I can’t recommend Newcastle Chrysler Dodge Jeep enough. They were pleasant to work with and made purchasing a vehicle a fun and enjoyable, without any hassle.
Anyway, I am off to the gym to get my swole on!
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Today is the 1-year anniversary for my wife and I, and we are heading up to beautiful Camden, ME for a little getaway. We are pretty much walking out the door as I type this, so I gotta go!
I will bring some kickass content back to the blog as soon as I get home.
I hope everyone had a great weekend!
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A friend of mine, who also happens to be an Olympic hopeful in bobsled, sent me a neat little article on American bobsled gold-medalist Curt Tomasevicz.
In an email interview with Entertainment Weekly Curt asked if a jam session with Pearl Jam could be arranged. Apparently Curt also plays bass guitar and listens to Pearl Jam before every bobsled run he makes.
A family friend gave him backstage passes to a Pearl Jam concert to hang out with the band before a show. While they were preparing they were asking him a bunch of questions about bobsledding, when the great Eddie Vedder asked if Curt played bass and asked him to join them on stage to perform Yellow Ledbetter.
To those non-Pearl Jam fans, Yellow Ledbetter is perhaps their most requested live song, so to perform that with the band is a huge deal. Curt said it was the most nervous he has ever been in his life.
That story just furthers my appreciation for the Greatest American Rock Band, and makes me quite jealous of Curt (except I am tone-deaf and can’t play a singe instrument), but I guess being on the first gold-medal American four man bobsled team in 62 years has its perks I guess!
To read the full article click HERE.
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As some of you may know by now, though many don’t, I will be leaving Cressey Performance at the end of May. I have been accepted into the University of Maine Master’s and Dietetic Internship Program and will be starting the program in July. To go along with that, my wife matched her for her dental residency at the Togus VA in Augusta, ME which also starts in July, so we will be moving home!
This is a very exciting time for us as we are both Mainers at heart, and are looking forward to moving home to be close to our families and friends. At the same time it was a sad moment when I had to tell Pete, Tony and Eric the news that I would be leaving them and heading back to Maine. As happy as I am to further my dietetic career, and finally become a Registered Dietitian, I am definitely sad to leave behind my incredible time at CP.
I have been at CP almost since its inception, starting to intern only a few months after it started. I was soon hired and it has been an unbelievable experience ever since. A big part of the reason why I wanted to work there so badly, even though it was part-time in the beginning and I certainly was not there to get rich, was because I saw where the facility was heading. I knew big things were ahead for Cressey Performance and I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to learn from someone like Eric, and Tony too, to become a great strength and conditioning coach. I got all of those things and so much more. Eric and Tony taught me more about strength and conditioning, injury prevention, power development, etc etc than I ever had thought existed!
I would not be half of the nutritionist I am today if it wasn’t for Cressey Peformance, and I recognize that. The growth that place provided me was unparalleled, and I can’t imagine having worked anywhere else. I also can’t forget to mention Pete, who often gets lost in the shuffle of the online world of CP. In person, at the facility, Pete is as big a part of Cressey Performance as Eric is. He has been a tremendous boss and mentor to me on the business side of fitness, as well as being a good friend.
Cressey Performance has also graciously allowed me to fill in for Cassandra Forsythe at Alternity Healthcare while she is on maternity leave. Since I will be leaving to move back to Maine shortly, as well as it being baseball season and we are only seeing about half as many clients as usual, and we need to ease the newest CP staff member Chris Howard into my role, I have dropped from 5-6 days/week at CP to 2-3.
Allowing me to become only part-time has allowed me this tremendous opportunity to work 3 days/week at a place like Alternity Healthcare. It has exposed to me areas of medicine I knew nothing about, tests and methods of disease prevention that are fascinating, as well as getting to pick the brain of a brilliant MD like Dr. Ebanks. This is a phenomenal place, where I get to do nutrition counseling in a much more clinical setting as well as putting people through functional movements screens, postural assessments and a VO2max/Stress test. It is awesome.
I can’t thank Eric, Tony and Pete enough for all they have taught me, the exposure they have given me, and the friendship they have provided. It has all been invaluable and I hope to utilize that to someday start my own facility in southern Maine.
So while I am excited to move back to my wonderful home state of Maine, be close to family and friends, and further my dietetic career, I am certainly sad to leave the wonderful Cressey Performance, that has been more home than job. Leaving the clients might even be the hardest part of the whole process, as I have developed a close friendship with too many to count. I can’t name you all by name as there would be far too many, and I don’t want to leave anyone out, but you know who you are.
So to all that have been a part of the experience, I thank you. I would not be the strength coach, nutritionist or person that I am today without you.
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Before we really get started today I do want to quickly mention that I had the privilege of co-hosting The FitCast this past weekend. For those of you who don’t know, The FitCast is a weekly fitness and nutrition podcast hosted by former CP intern, and current MBSC employee Kevin Larrabee. It is one of the most popular fitness or nutrition podcasts out there, and has featured the likes of Eric Cressey, Alwyn Cosgrove, Dan John, Mike Boyle, Tom Venuto, John Berardi and so many more.
This weeks episode, titled Episode 161 – “The Danny Tanner” with Mike Boyle (so named because we discussed the Jersey Shore nickname generator, and that was my favorite nickname) was hosted by Kevin, the brilliant Jonathan Fass and myself. If you are interested in hearing anything I have to say, or more likely, listening to the interview with Mike Boyle, give it a listen. (I go into detail about my dairy blogs, the Iron Gym and Tony wishing he was Dr. Manhattan).
Moving on, I want to thank all of you for all of the wonderful support, interaction, questions and feedback you have given me this year. I only started this website in October of 2008, and I have watched it grow tremendously over this past year, more than doubling in readership in 2009 alone. I owe a debt of gratitude to you all for making this venture a successful one.
This blog, along with my actual job at CP, has been the greatest professional learning experience in my life. I have learned more in the past year writing blogs, researching topics and answering questions than I did in all my time as a nutrition undergrad (which to be fair was only 2 years, I was an engineering major for 3 years before that, hated it). That is a testament to the quality of information you guys demand, and I am better for it.
To steal directly from EC, with all that being said, since you, the readers, are the ones that are ultimately responsible for making this site bigger and better, I want to put the ball in your court today. What do YOU want to read in 2010?
- What are some topics, areas of discussion, myths, or issues of interest you would like to see covered?
- Would you like to see more guest interviews? (something I have not utilized much)
- Would you like to see more or less product reviews?
- Really in-depth sciencey blogs?
- General easy-to-apply immediately blogs?
- More videos?
Basically what I want to know is what do you guys like the most about what I do, what do you want me to continue, what do you maybe want to see less of, what are you interested in reading?
I highly respect and value your thoughts, opinions and suggestions, so please let me know in the comments section.
Thanks again for a wonderful 2009, and you will hear from me again in the New Year!
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Well my wife and I are back home in Maine with our families and are getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner. I just wanted to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and one of the few days you get to break all of the rules, so enjoy it!
Have a great weekend everyone.
Posted on June 16th, 2011 by Brian St. Pierre
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