Rhode Island
There’s a big problem with co-op teams in the RIIL. These five programs have fixed it.
I hate co-ops in the Rhode Island Interscholastic League.
It’s not the schools. It’s not because of the players. It’s not what it represents — communities unable to fill teams themselves, so they’re forced to combine together to play as one.
It’s the names.
When I quit The Journal and run the RIIL, the first thing I’m going to do is ban the multi-school, no-nickname teams. It’s annoying. People I talk to say they can’t find a solution or can’t make a decision on what to call themselves.
If you can decide you have to join forces with another school, you can decide on an obvious solution — find a regional and unique nickname. That’s it.
Why? Marketing 101. You can build a brand, drum up interest and get people excited about playing. Are you telling me kids would rather play for the Times2/St. Patrick/Paul Cuffee girls basketball team rather than the Providence River Cats? (That was first thing that came to mind. I’m sure the kids in the program could do better. Let them — that’s how you created interest.)
Some schools — we’ll call them “the smart ones” — have realized this.
Hopefully enough administrators, coaches and players read this and realize playing under a multi-school moniker is dumb.
And my five best RIIL co-op names list shows why.
5. Cranston East/Johnston Thundercats, boys lacrosse
You had me at Thundercats.
They didn’t win a single game in Division IV this season but they earn a spot on this list because I grew up watching the cartoon and it was awesome. I don’t know if they went full Thundercats and busted out the old-school logos but the possibilities are endless. If they can figure a way to change Cranston East/Johnston into some sort of regional name it will be No. 1 next summer.
4. Blackstone Valley Knights, boys hockey
Two co-ops came together to form one and they saved everyone a mouthful by embracing the region and coming up with a new nickname instead of going by the Johnston/North Providence/North Smithfield/Providence Country Day/St. Raphael Whatevers. Not a lot of good headlines.
It’s Johnston, North Providence, North Smithfield, St. Raphael and Providence Country Day and while they’re not all in the Blackstone Valley, who cares. The name works, the nickname works and, if this contest was based on uniforms, they’d be in the top three.
3. South County Storm, girls hockey
In 2011 Narragansett, North Kingstown and South Kingstown started a girls hockey program. Working at a community paper in South Kingstown at the time, I was panicked about how I was going to fit that in a headline.
South Kingstown’s athletic director Terry Lynch solved the problem. I wish I could say he was doing it for the local media, but he, too, wasn’t a fan of how it looks with three schools in one single name and nobody knowing what to call them.
The program found early success, with runner-up finishes in 2014 and 2015 before winning the state title in 2017.
But that’s not why they’re here. As far as names go, this is perfect. Regionalized location name — when you say South County, you know the communities. A nickname that makes sense and is connected to the area. Uniforms as crisp as anyone’s in the state.
They’re the example every co-op should follow.
2. Pawtucket Bucket, girls basketball
When Shea and Tolman started co-ops in various sports, they started adopting the “Sholman” name, which was a terrific move — combining the schools’ names in a way that flowed off the tongue. What they didn’t do was adopt a universal nickname.
The baseball team elected to use “Pawtucket” instead of “Sholman,” which seems to make a lot more sense. Other teams followed in a push to bring the two city schools together.
There has been an underground push to adopt “Bucket” as a nickname. It’s a youth movement; who wants to take a word that’s had a negative connotation with the city and turn it into a positive. The community’s older — leaders are against it, but it seems like something that can be used in a way that helps restore the city’s reputation.
The girls basketball team proved as much. In their run to the Division II title, players had warm-up shirts adorned with “Bucket” on the front.
At some point the schools will come together and they shouldn’t have to do a search for a nickname.
Long live the Pawtucket Bucket.
1. Nariho Gulls, boys hockey
Narragansett and Chariho joined forces in 2015 and for a few years, did the whole “Narragansett/Chariho” thing, even creating an interlocking logo that wasn’t the most awful thing in the world.
But what they have now is the best thing going.
I couldn’t pinpoint a date, but at some point the unofficial “Nariho” title stuck and the Gulls nickname soon followed.
Nariho works brilliantly. Chariho’s school name is a combination of the region’s three towns — Charlestown, Richmond and Hopkinton. Throwing Narragansett’s N on the front gets everyone invited to the party.
Gulls is a great nickname. It works with Narragansett and Charlestown being beach communities and no other team in the state (at least at the high school and college level) have it.
To top it off, the Gulls have the best jerseys in Rhode Island. There’s no debate, no arguments to be made for anybody else. The interlocking N/C green sweaters are strong, but the white jerseys with the angry Gulls logo are the best the state’s ever seen.
If anyone wanted to send some XXL Gulls swag to 75 Fountain Street, I wouldn’t be mad about it.
HONORABLE MENTION
RMT Hurricanes, boys hockey
They’ve already won a championship, but titles don’t earn you a spot in my top five. A weather-based nickname for a coastal area is perfect, but much like their tennis brethren, this program should have embraced a regional location instead of the three towns’ initials — Rogers, Middletown, Tiverton. Love this one and wanted to put it top five, but RMT doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
LNP Wildcats, Softball
Lincoln and North Providence co-opted like a week before the season started and I loved their approach, mainly because the idea of writing “the Lincoln/North Providence softball team” was something that gives me nightmares.
Initials for the two towns was probably easiest. While they didn’t receive formal approval, Wildcats became the unofficial —but as far as I was concerned, official — nickname. They represented both programs, wearing NP unis when they played games at Notte Park and Lincoln unis for games in Lincoln.
If this co-op stays together, they need two quick fixes: a regionalized nickname, and official Wildcats uniforms.
RM Tides, Boys Tennis
Unique nicknames certainly stand out and this new co-op between Rogers and Middletown did. My only gripe is using the initials of the towns instead of using a regional name. I’m wildly unfamiliar with the area, but certainly there’s a road or location the two towns share that could have been used instead? Still, give me RM Tides over Rogers/Middletown Tides every single day of the week.
St. Ponaganset, boys tennis
OK, so nobody actually called them this except for me, but it makes perfect sense for this co-op that just finished its first — and maybe only — year in D-I tennis. Tough to regionalize a co-op of St. Raphael and Ponaganset, so St. Ponaganset works.
As far as a nickname? I’m stuck. But there’s got to be something out there they can come up with before next spring.
Rhode Island
Rhode Island DCYF discloses fatality of 18-year-old
(WJAR) — The Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth, and Families disclosed the fatality of an 18-year-old who was previously the subject of a near fatality notification on June 2.
According to the department, the 18-year-old died on Thursday and was involved with DCYF.
The Office of the Child Advocate was notified about the incident.
DCYF did not disclose additional information due to confidentiality laws.
The original incident that required the prior notification occurred on May 27, officials said.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION (1)
According to DCYF, Rhode Islanders are required by law to report known or suspected cases of child abuse or neglect within 24 hours of becoming aware of such cases and can do so by calling 1-800-742-4453.
Rhode Island
He grew up in the kitchen. Then he rewrote the menu, and the future of his parents’ restaurant – The Boston Globe
He became obsessed with driving around, searching for any local farm or fisherman on a dock and bugging them to see if they, too, wanted to help him with his vision.
His menu now, which reflects a reinvention, leans into a new way to present New England seafood for an old suburban fishing town, serving snacks like a smoked Rhode Island bluefish paté, raw New Bedford sea scallops with sesame and crispy shallots, chowder with quahogs and fermented hot sauce. He also makes his own pasta with milled local grains.
Today, Dion has largely taken over the business, although his mom can still be found in the kitchen.


“If you’ve had a piece of swordfish at S.S. Dion in the past 43 years, she’s grilled it. And she doesn’t want that to end,” said Dion. “She loves it, and wants to work forever.”
His father visits every day for an hour to keep track of “all of my numbers.”
“I do it all on a computer, and he’s got every, every penny of it on paper,” said Dion.
The reimagined version has had a lot of success, growing 300 percent over the last five years.
What to eat: Try any of the snacks to start with, but be sure to get at least one of their house-made pastas for the table to share: a black spaghetti puttanesca with fried squid, anchovies, Calabrian chilies, and braised tomato. A bowl of gemelli with house-made fish sausage, rapini, pangrattato, and aglio e olio. A roasted mushroom campanelle with sautéed leeks, Brussel sprouts, tarragon, and tender pea tendrils. A perfect bolognese. There are also comforting staples from S.S. Dion’s past life: “The chicken parmesan will be on that menu for my whole life,” said Dion. “But there’s a fermented hot sauce martini on there as well.”

“I want to have that spectrum of people who have always come into S.S. and ordered what they love and remember,” said Dion. “But also there might be something exciting for someone else in their party who is more adventurous.”
You can get three courses for just $40 per person if you order from their prix fixe menu. Your options include local crudos; a funky caesar with smoked Rhode Island bluefish and sourdough croutons, calamari from Point Judith, all sorts of scratch-made pastas, and plenty of desserts.
Dion said his fries take three days to prepare, and he makes every part of their burger from scratch (an “everything” milk bun, house bacon, crispy onions, a 21-day dry-aged burger bun from Blackbird Farm slathered in a special sauce) other than the cheddar cheese it is topped with.

“The world just seems to get more and more artificial, and there’s a really blurry line between what is human and what is manufactured,” he said. “It just feels good to be authentic to my place.”
What to drink: Start off with a bang and get the “Low Tide Hot N’ Dirty,” which uses a nori-infused Lime Rock gin, fermented green chili, yuzu, and topped with a spicy seaweed chip. Or their bacon fat-washed maple old fashioned. The beer list has a ton of local brews from around New England, while the wine list has some interesting choices for the area: a Primitivo from Puglia, an Austrian riesling, and a chenin blanc-viognier from Napa.

Don’t forget dessert: The bananas foster bread pudding is baked in a cast iron pan drizzled with rum caramel and topped with pecans and vanilla ice cream. The chocolate pot de creme uses miso caramel, beetroot meringue, salted cashew crumble, and fennel. Or you can order a basque cheesecake topped with flaky sea salt and orange zest, or a traditional affogato that’s drowned in a double shot of espresso from Borealis Coffee Company, a small-batch local specialty roaster.
Final say: S.S. Dion is one of those legacy restaurants that found further success after reinventing itself when the second generation took over. Dion has dreams of opening his own restaurant with a different concept and to potentially do it in Providence. He’s looking for locations, but isn’t ready to sign a lease yet.
“I’m really happy with where S.S. is now,” said Dion. “But what chef doesn’t have dreams of opening a dozen more restaurants?
“I’d say that’s what’s next,” he added. “I’d like to start something else soon.”
S.S. Dion, 520 Thames St., Bristol, R.I., 401-253-2884, ssdion.com. Raw bar $3.5-$165; salads $13-$18; snacks $9-$25; scratch pasta $14-$38; entrées $25-market price; Sides and sauces $1-$7.

Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.
Rhode Island
Clergy sex abuse bill passes RI Senate on unanimous vote. What’s next
Newest clergy sex abuse lawsuit bill gives victims ‘hope,’ Neronha says
A new bill gives clergy sex abuse victims a path to sue the institutions that may have been responsible for their abuse as children.
PROVIDENCE – Victims of clergy sex abuse scored a long-sought victory in the Rhode Island Senate on Wednesday, June 3.
Legislation to allow the victims to sue the Catholic Church – and any other institution that failed to protect them from molestation when they were children – won unanimous Senate approval and now goes to the House for final votes.
The fast action from Senate Judiciary Committee approval – to a full Senate vote – within an hour and a half was not unexpected after the announcement on Monday of a compromise backed by the Senate’s top-tier Democrats, including Senate President Valarie Lawson, Majority Leader Frank Ciccone and Senate Judiciary Chairman Matthew LaMountain.
If passed, as now appears likely, the legislation will allow the victims of sexual abuse by clergy to sue the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence and any other entity that knew, but failed to stop – or concealed – the abuse they suffered as children at the hands of trusted elders.
The legislation would also provide the long-ago victims – many of them now in their 60s and 70s – with a two-year window to revive claims currently barred by expired time limits.
The compromise – after years of pleas and inaction – follows the long-awaited release on March 4 of Attorney General Peter Neronha’s report detailing the systematic cover-up by the Catholic Church of the sexual abuse of more than 300 Rhode Island children.
His report laid bare, for the first time, the scope of more than a half century of alleged child sexual abuse by Rhode Island Catholic clergy and the breadth and depth of the alleged cover-up, which often included destroying key files or shuffling priests from parish to parish, where they would reoffend.
Sen. Mark McKenney, the lead Senate sponsor, told colleagues that the proposed new law not only states “this conduct unacceptable, but from now on, the institutions that have enabled it will be held accountable as well.”
As to whether the law would survive a legal challenge, McKenney said the Rhode Island Constitution “contains a provision that is somewhat unique in the United States: a victims’ rights clause. That provision has been largely overlooked in the debate that’s gone on about the constitutionality of this and … previous versions of this bill,” but retired U.S. District Judge William Smith drew attention to it when he testified.
He said Article 1, Section 23 “of our constitution provides that crime victims, including child sexual abuse victims, not only may receive compensation from perpetrators, but also, and this is a quote from the constitution, ‘Shall receive such other compensation as the state may provide,’ with that power ‘entirely committed to our authority as the General Assembly.’”
Co-sponsor Dawn Euer applauded “the victims and survivors, both the ones that we know of and the ones that we don’t, as well as the ones that we have lost. The strength and courage that it takes to go through what [these] people have gone through … is incredible.
“And then to be able to come up here and advocate …. for passage of this legislation over years [of] legislative turmoil and back again, it’s really incredible the strength and determination that you all have shown,” she said to the group of survivor-advocates in the Senate gallery.
“We get used to it,” she said of the process by which “the proverbial sausage is made. But for issues like this that have real impacts on people’s lives, it can be an additional trauma,” she said of the year after year of public hearings and testimony, followed by inaction.
On Wednesday, she said, the Senate sent the “strong signal that Rhode Island stands with survivors and victims.”
This story has been updated with new information.
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