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Boston, MA
Fleet’s sold-out homecoming at TD Garden a resounding victory for women’s sports in Boston
PWHL
“I think they saw that they can play in a professional hockey league and they can sell out buildings that the men play in.”
Aerin Frankel, Alina Muller, and Megan Keller are no strangers to playing in Boston.
Frankel and Muller called Northeastern’s Matthews Arena home for four and five seasons, respectively, helping the Huskies win five Hockey East titles over that sustained stretch of dominance.
Keller anchored the BC Eagles’ blue line at Chestnut Hill for four seasons from 2014-19.
The trio’s respective hockey journeys have brought them back to Boston as franchise fixtures for the Boston Fleet — with Lowell’s Tsongas Center and BU’s Agganis Arena serving as their go-to rinks over the last two years.
But on Saturday night, a Fleet game in Boston felt different.
Perhaps it was the collective roar of nearly 18,000 that rained down on the Fleet’s stars as they braced for hockey on Causeway Street.
“I got chills,” Frankel admitted.
”We dream of playing in buildings like this, and especially in front of our fans,” Keller added.
When the Fleet — then dubbed “PWHL Boston” — first took to the ice in Lowell on January 4, 2024, the PWHL’s inaugural season felt like a collective victory for generations of women’s hockey players.
Years spent fighting for livable wages, benefits, and pro-level resources were finally rewarded with the inception of a sustainable women’s hockey league.
If that game at Tsongas stood as a testament to the potential of what professional women’s hockey could be in North America, Saturday’s sold-out game between the Fleet and Montreal Victoire felt like that dream being realized.
A week after the PWHL sold out Madison Square Garden, 17,850 fans packed into the Bruins’ home barn — with a sea of green and blue enveloping seats usually shrouded in hues of black and gold.
Even if Boston couldn’t overtake Montreal in a 1-0 defeat, Fleet head coach Kris Sparre believed that Saturday night still held plenty of weight — both for his team and the league as a whole.
“This is a big deal,” Sparre said. “You’re standing on that bench, and there are 17,000 people. They had the lights going on in the first little bit of the game. It’s so loud. The sound system here is incredible.”
“It’s a really great venue. We’re lucky to play at Tsongas, and the games we play at Agganis — those buildings rock. But this one’s three times the size, so you certainly feel that when you’re down on the bench, and I think our players did.”
The decibels didn’t lessen for most of the night on Causeway, especially for a matchup between two of the top teams in the PWHL.
Before the puck even dropped, Keller, Frankel, and the rest of their teammates had front-row seats to the rows of posters plastered up against the glass during warmups.
Some of those placards set the terms of a trade for a puck or twig, with one fan wagering a swap of their younger brother for some hockey gear. Fleet fans honored their favorite players by holding aloft signs featuring Keller and Frankel.
But it was clear what resonated the most for the Fleet among the scrapbook of banners and signs sandwiched into the glass.
One fan — her eyes barely peaking above a poster in the front row — held a small sheet above her head as Keller and Co. made their rounds.
An arrow on the board pointed down at the youngster as she watched her hockey heroes take to the Garden ice.
“Future Fleet Player”, it read.
TD Garden roared as one in approval when one fan showed off her own piece of artwork from the upper bowl.
“Now I know I can do it, too!” her message declared.
The presence of Boston sports greats like Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, and Derrick White might have added further validity to the Fleet’s standing as one of the sports teams woven into the fabric of this town.
But it was the promise rooted in those young fans’ messages that offered the greatest sign yet that the Fleet’s future in this city is only destined to shine bright in the coming years.
“It’s incredible,” Frankel, who turned aside 18 of 19 shots, said of Saturday’s atmosphere. “I think when you have the moment to look up and look in the stands and see all of the people there to support us and to support this league — it’s been a long time coming.
“Selling out this place is a huge accomplishment for women’s sports, women’s hockey, and I think seeing the impact that we have on the young girls is a really special thing.”
While sing-along ballads of Chappell Roan and Justin Bieber punctuated a joyous atmosphere at the Garden, those same pleasantries weren’t echoed between the Fleet and Victoire out on the frozen sheet.
Much like their counterparts in the NHL, Boston and Montreal traded verbal barbs, cross-checks, and shoves after just about every whistle.
A tally from Montreal forward Lina Ljungblom at 5:52 of the third period stood as the lone puck that sailed past Frankel, while Victoire netminder Ann-Renée Desbiens turned aside all 20 salvos that sailed her way.
“It’s no secret we have a rivalry with them,” Keller said of Montreal, who sit four points ahead of Boston in first place in the league. “It gets physical out there. We see them a lot, and saw them in the playoffs in year one, and we’re at the top right now, kind of battling for home ice here in the playoffs… .We wanted to come out and give the fans a game and give them some action and get them involved.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t get any in the back of the net tonight. But yeah, I think we’ll see them a few more times before the season’s over.”
A win in the standings? Perhaps not.
But a win for women’s hockey in Boston?
The cheers that never waned — from warmups until the final Fleet skater left the TD Garden ice — removed all doubt of such sentiment.
“They have something to look forward to when they’re our age,” Keller said of what younger fans could take away from Saturday’s game. “When we were growing up, we were dreaming of playing in the NHL.
“Tonight, I think they saw that they can play in a professional hockey league and they can sell out buildings that the men play in.”
Boston, MA
With Columbia Threadneedle out, Boston Triathlon director is looking for a new sponsor – The Boston Globe
Michael O’Neil is on the hunt for the next John Hancock.
As many Boston sports fans know, the insurance company first sponsored the Boston Marathon 40 years ago, helping usher in the modern professional era of the race as well as tens of millions of dollars in community fund-raising each year.
O’Neil wants to make a similar leap for the race he runs, the Boston Triathlon. This will be the first year without a naming-rights sponsor after nine years with Ameriprise Financial-owned Columbia Threadneedle Investments. O’Neil is seeking a successor that can help make an impact on the race the way Hancock once did with the marathon, a sponsorship role now played by Bank of America.
“We’re looking for that next transformational partner that wants to do something like that,” O’Neil said.
The 18-year-old triathlon draws nearly 2,500 athletes to Carson Beach in South Boston each August, for sprint and Olympic-distance triathlons, and also features free kids’ races the day before at the same location; Amazon has been a big sponsor for the “Kids Day” events.
O’Neil says he would like to extend the race beyond loops in South Boston to showcase more of the city and boost tourism; the Meet Boston tourism bureau is also among the race’s sponsors. Another hope of O’Neil’s: to continue community efforts that he and his race management firm, Ethos, undertook with support from Columbia Threadneedle, including donations to Boston Medical Center and the city’s “Swim Safe” program to provide swim lessons for kids. (O’Neil started an affiliated nonprofit to help expand this community work in 2024.)
He expects the race’s naming-rights sponsorship to cost “in the mid-six figures” annually.
“We’re over this hump now, after 18 years, we’re an institution,” O’Neil said. “We’re seeking a Boston-based company, that’s headquartered here or has a large presence here, that wants to make an impact on the community. … We know how to do that.”
This is an installment of our weekly Bold Types column about the movers and shakers on Boston’s business scene.
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.
Although it is just June 22, it’s certainly starting to seem like the Boston Red Sox could end up being sellers later on this summer when the 2026 Major League Baseball trade deadline gets here.
Boston took two out of three games from the Seattle Mariners over the weekend, but still finds itself 13 games under .500 at 31-44. Right now, Boston is six games out of an American League Wild Card spot as well. Boston needs a long winning streak to turn the tide. If not, the club will certainly trade pieces away. The conversation has gotten loud enough around the team that Red Sox starter Sonny Gray said he “would be open” to having a conversation about waiving his no-trade clause if someone from the club approached him about it to Tim Healey of The Boston Globe.
“If someone came to me from the Red Sox and made a decision that that’s the direction that this team was going to go, I would be open for a conversation,” Gray said to Healey. “Whatever happens from then, only time will tell. But I would be open for a conversation.
Could Sonny Gray Be The Next Star Out Of Boston?
“Holding veto power is ‘an earned thing’ and means a lot, Gray said. He negotiated it into the three-year, $75 million deal he signed with the Cardinals heading into 2024.”
When it comes to Gray, he has been a major addition for Boston so far this season. He has a 3.12 ERA in 13 starts to go along with a 55-to-17 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 69 1/3 innings pitched. Gray is also 8-1 on the season. Even in a campaign full of losses for Boston, Gray has been able to consistently be a stopper for the club.
If he were to become available, he would be an intriguing, although imperfect trade candidate. From a talent perspective, he’s awesome and would help a contender. But from a contract point of view, he has a $30 million mutual option for the 2027 season with a $10 million buyout. Mutual options rarely get picked up. The buyout is very high and could be a barrier. That will be a bridge to cross later on, though. What’s important to note right now is the fact that Gray is “open” to a conversation about a trade. It doesn’t mean that it will happen, but it’s possible.
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Boston, MA
Jets were 300 feet apart in Boston close call that forced Delta flight to abort landing, expert says
BOSTON (AP) — A Delta Air Lines jet was roughly 300 feet (90 meters) from an American Airlines plane during a close call at Boston’s airport that forced the Delta aircraft to abort a weekend landing attempt, an aviation expert said Sunday.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it was investigating the incident between two commercial flights that happened Saturday at Boston Logan International Airport.
Todd Curtis, a former safety engineer at Boeing, estimated the distance between the two jetliners using Flightradar24, a website that tracks flights. Curtis now coproduces a podcast about flight safety issues.
“This is a significant incident,” Curtis said, adding that it was particularly concerning because it involved two professional airline crews.
He said federal aviation officials have been concerned about such runway incursions for a while now and will scrutinize Saturday’s close call.
Near-misses and runway incursions at U.S. airports will be the subject of a hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. The Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation, Space, and Innovation will seek ways to strengthen safety across the national airspace system.
The Delta flight from Dallas had to execute a go-around, or aborted landing, to avoid the American plane departing from an intersecting runway, according to the FAA and flight logs.
The crew of Delta flight 2351 coordinated with air traffic control to perform the go-around, an airline spokesperson said. The plane, which had 129 passengers and six crew members on board, landed safely and deplaned normally, according to the spokesperson.
Go-arounds are safe, routine procedures performed at the discretion of the pilot or air traffic controllers, according to the FAA.
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