Camil Blanchet’s big impact on a small campus

 (Photo courtesy of Bowdoin Athletics)

 

Bowdoin senior forward Camil Blanchet has a lot on his plate while at school. He played every men’s hockey game this season for the Polar Bears, and had been playing lacrosse as well.

Statistically speaking, Blanchet’s contributions have been modest on the ice. He tallied 32 points over 85 games, and only broke double-digit points in one season with 13 as a sophomore. After that same year, he left the lacrosse team, having appeared in a mere nine games and scooped up nine ground balls.

But besides the rigors of playing a sport and being a full-time student, Blanchet has been very active doing charity work in his community. That constant overtime presence has had a can’t-miss impact. To that point, Blanchet is one of five finalists for the 2018 Hockey Humanitarian Award.

Name a Bowdoin-sanctioned service project, and chances are Blanchet has taken part. His leadership qualities have manifested themselves through his liaising role between the campus’ community-service office and his peers. He has allies with the Polar Bears football team to raise funds for cancer research. And he enlisted hockey roster-sized group of volunteers for a multi-charity half-marathon (Race the Runway) and a leadership training program (Breaking the Bubble).

The McKeen Common Good Center sees Blanchet’s shadow at a rate that rivals any classroom or athletic facility on campus. McKeen helps students connect with the community of Brunswick, Maine, and encourages them to volunteer and help the relationship between the school and the town.

Blanchet was drawn to this aspect of the Bowdoin experience when he was a candidate for admission. And now that all of his competitive athletic endeavors are behind him, community involvement will join his studies as the one aspect that will fill every week of his tenure there.

Pucks and Recreation recently got the chance to speak with Blanchet about his charity work.

How and when did you first hear about the McKeen Common Good Center?

In my application to Bowdoin, one of the essays explained the history of the McKeen Center and what they currently do. One of the first big events of the school year isn’t a football game, it’s Common Good Day. This is a day when over 500 students, faculty and staff participate in community-building activities around the greater Brunswick area one Saturday afternoon. That was my first direct interaction with the McKeen Center.

What was the fundraiser you worked on with the football team?

The football team was selling neon-pink long-sleeve shirts in a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. A group of representatives from the Breaking the Bubble initiative wanted to expand the fundraiser and have our respective teammates participate. It was pretty easy to order more shirts. The football team raised the majority of the final donation. Getting other teams involved and supporting the fundraiser was a cool thing to see.

 (Photo courtesy of Bowdoin Athletics)

 

Can you describe the Breaking the Bubble initiative and who all you have been working with there?

Breaking a Bubble is an attempt to connect the various work that athletic teams do throughout the year with the work that the McKeen Center does. The McKeen Center has developed strong relationships with the greater Brunswick community, and has resources to support students working with the community in any capacity. It only makes sense to connect teams with the plethora of resources and experience that the McKeen Center provides.

How did you get involved with Race the Runway?

I heard about Race the Runway through the McKeen Center. It was a featured event that requested race-day volunteers. I thought it was a good opportunity for the team to give back to a community that is so supportive of us at the hockey rink. I reached out to a Race the Runway representative who works at Mid Coast Hospital and told her about our interest. It worked out to be a beautiful Saturday in the spring.

How did you hear about all of these events? Was it difficult to initially get involved with them at a smaller school (roughly 1,800 students enrolled) like Bowdoin?

It was never hard to hear about the various events that are happening. There is a school-wide email listing the week’s events, posters and, most importantly, word of mouth. As a student here, you always hear about events that are going on. It’s really about how much time you have and what you want to do.

Have you taken any courses offered by the Center?

As part of starting Breaking the Bubble, all of the student-representatives went through a formal training process with the McKeen Center. This leadership training covered the basics, like how to access different resources on campus to things like how to effectively lead a trip and ensure participants are realizing the value of their work.

Through the McKeen Center, have you ever considered going abroad on a service trip?

I have certainly considered it, but I also knew that it wasn’t likely. With hockey taking up Thanksgiving, winter and possibly March break every year, the only possible time for a service trip was in the summer. I volunteered in Rwanda at the Rwanda Biomedical Center the summer after my sophomore year, so I have had a similar type experience.

What are the best aspects of the McKeen Center?

I’m always impressed by the McKeen Center staff and how approachable they are. The people who work here, both staff and students, are always receptive to new ideas and willing to help. They are very responsive to what students want to do. Rather than create their own agenda, they support what the student has a passion for. Another amazing aspect about the McKeen Center is the breadth of programs that they offer.

For a school as small as Bowdoin, it is incredible to have the types of community engagement opportunities that we do.

- Zach Green

Lauren Spring: ‘Hope is a really powerful tool’

 Photos courtesy of OSU Athletics

 



Lauren Spring did one better than obey an admonishing adage. Even in the context of helping those in need, she did not peer down at her beneficiaries. On the contrary, she literally looked up to them.

She did this in the midst of fitting children for much-needed footwear. She did this while rinsing the feet that had long lacked sturdy shoes, if any shoes.

Together with 10 of her fellow Ohio State student-athletes, she took these steps to ensure cozier and confident steps for impoverished Ecuadorian youth. By her estimate, the Buckeyes brought and distributed 800 pairs over a five-day visit last May. (In a diary on the OSU athletics website, one of her project colleagues, fencer Natalie Falkowski, counted 857.)

Being the Buckeyes’ lone hockey representative in a conglomeration of 10 athletic teams, Spring was naturally primed for humble takeaways.

“Seeing how just a small gesture…can put such a smile on a young child’s face just really puts things in perspective,” she offered last week in a phone chat with Pucks and Recreation.

A senior forward for the Buckeye women, Spring bears the portfolio of a depth contributor on the ice. She just finished the regular season 10th on the team with 11 points on the year. Or, to put that another way, she is one of 10 OSU skaters to have cracked the double-digit point plateau.

Patience paying off is another motif transcending her two worlds. As an underclassman, she witnessed back-to-back coaching changes as Nate Handrahan and Jenny Potter were dismissed in successive years. Her third Buckeye bench boss, Nadine Muzzerall, took the team through growing pains in a sub-.500 2016-17 campaign.

But the program has accelerated its resurgence this winter to the tune of a 21-9-4 regular-season record. An at-large bid to the NCAA tournament or an automatic bid via the WCHA playoff crown — all of which would be program firsts — are tantalizing possibilities.

Meanwhile, Spring is up for individual hardware as one of five finalists for the 2018 Hockey Humanitarian Award. As the first OSU women’s player to achieve this status since Jody Heywood in 2008, she has drawn national publicity through her extra-mile mentality in community service.

“There are times where you’ve had a long day or had a long week,” she conceded. “With school and our sports, we have a lot on our plate. But I think it’s important to suck it up sometimes and get out there and help others. It can teach you a lot about yourself, and you always walk away feeling like you made a difference in someone’s life.”

The HHA’s official press release made a passing reference to Meals on Wheels as one of Spring’s initiatives with her fellow pucksters. But the Buckeyes’ annual multi-sport, international journey on behalf of Soles4Souls is the meat of her candidacy.

Whether that pushes her above her four fellow finalists will become apparent April 6 at the Men’s Frozen Four. First things first, assuming Muzzerall’s squad stays on its trajectory, it will nab one or more March milestones between the boards. If it does, those achievements for Spring and her senior classmates will lend an element of symmetry to her 2017-18 academic year.

 

OSU’s community service all-stars

If each school year or hockey season begins once its predecessor ends, then the start of last summer set a tone for a line of long-awaited gratification in Spring’s OSU swan song. Of joining the school’s Soles4Souls alliance, she said she “had been interested in doing something…for a while now.”

Born in the successive wakes of the 2004 tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, the Tennessee-based Soles4Souls equips underprivileged domestic and global communities. It accepts monetary donations as well as shipments of new or used footwear, the latter of which is repurposed.

But Spring craved the charity’s most personal option for involvement. She could not help but catch wind of OSU’s constant commitment to the cause, as then-teammate Alex LaMere went to Costa Rica for it in 2015. Another batch of Buckeyes represented the organization in a journey to Jamaica following her sophomore year. Later that summer, one more selected group made the same mission to Bolivia.

With Ecuador, the fourth time was Spring’s time this past May.

“I was super grateful I was one of those that got chosen,” she said.

Besides Spring, the 2017 Ecuador excursion included two football players plus one apiece from women’s basketball, women’s fencing, men’s gymnastics, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, men’s swimming and women’s volleyball. It was an oft-overlooked form of diversity she had long wanted to explore.

“That was close to my other favorite part of the trip,” she said. “We do our best to reach out and get involved with other student-athletes, to get out of our comfort zone.”

Barely two weeks removed from the academic year, Spring and her new OSU teammates gelled through an enhanced road trip. On May 11, they connected through Atlanta, where they had four hours of bonding in the busiest airport on Earth.

Once they set down their final leg and returned to ground transportation, the scenery solidified their motivation. The potential in the Ecuadorian people was evident enough, but so was the shortage of prerequisite needs. Through rides as long as four hours each way to each spot on the itinerary, the scenery seldom changed.

“Ecuador as a whole was all in poverty,” Spring recalled. “To see that constantly was really eye-opening."

Stepping outside to meet the locals at a given journey’s end was a more heartening revelation. On the group’s first day of service, Spring made a new kind of forward troika with the aforementioned fencer Falkowski and All-Midwest midfielder Nikki Walts. With each child’s shoe size established, they dug for matches in their inventory.

“It was hard work,” she offered, “but it was the most rewarding hard work that anybody could ever do.”

The subsequent work-play pattern was, most naturally, anything but foreign either. Once their young hosts were properly equipped, the Buckeyes engaged them in basketball, soccer and volleyball.

For Spring, originally from Kelowna, B.C., the lack of blades and frozen water to put them to was a second-nature sacrifice. This mission was bigger than the game that has defined her upbringing and participation in OSU athletics. But more recent developments have illuminated the chances of bringing winter sports to Ecuador and vice versa.

Getting the wheels rolling

Back in her study-skate vortex nine months after her mission, Spring absorbed a timely and intriguing revelation. With cross-country skier Klaus Jungbluth in Pyeongchang, Ecuador has its first native child in the Winter Olympics.

“I did not know that,” Spring admitted when the subject came up last week. “That’s very, very cool.”

Not so surprisingly, Jungbluth is a comprehensive cosmopolitan. Through his various athletic and professional journeys, he has become fluent in Czech, English, German, Italian and Norwegian.

But even in his Hispanophone homeland, Jungbluth has resorted to roller skis for sustained training. He often does the same in Australia, where he is still working toward a degree in sports science.

Having spearheaded the prerequisite establishment of an Ecuadorian skiing federation and passed the trial, Jungbluth is serious about solidifying a foundation. Prior to the Games, he told Australia’s ABC News, “I think what I’ve tried to do here is to set an example that if you want to achieve a goal, even if it’s difficult or its very far away, you just have to keep trying. That’s an example I want to set for my family, and my kids, but also for the people pursuing a sport in Ecuador.”

Could more roller skis and their ice-skating alternative cousin thus be in the country’s future? Spring knows that the necessary “pride” is there, and added that Jungbluth’s groundbreaker “speaks volumes for that individual.”

And while no stand-ins for skates, pucks or twigs entered the equation on her Ecuadorian expedition, her presence may resonate. It certainly does not hurt that staffers from the Nashville Predators also paid a Soles4Souls visit there in 2017.

Regardless, the mere word of Jungbluth’s travails through Europe, Australia and Asia could widen several avenues for his young countrypeople. The new soles from without will allow one to exert the newly inspired soul within.

And if Spring, as part of the assortment of athletic visitors from yet another land, can add more to those tangible and intangible necessities, she will take even an uncredited tertiary assist on the play.

“Hope is a really powerful tool,” she said. “With athletes from all different sports going there, it gives people a lot of hope. It can be extremely powerful, it could definitely be a motivator for a lot of those children. You would hope for that for sure.”

Spring intends to stay in Columbus and pursue a career as a physical education teacher. But she is not relinquishing her takeaways or connections from her coveted Soles4Souls stint.

“In the big picture, all children are the same,” she said. “Whenever I have the opportunity to help a kid grow and learn and become successful, whether it’s a small thing like they figure out how to tie their shoes that day or to jump a little bit higher, I take it.

“That’s the kind of impact any educator wants to have on their students. I think we did that while we were in Ecuador.”

Selfless service characterizes Sidney Peters

(Photo by Eric Miller/Gopher Athletics)

 

During the winter months, college hockey players rarely have enough time to sleep. With rigorous academic work, a long season and extracurricular endeavors, they must balance multiple responsibilities.

The offseason provides more opportunities for players to explore interests outside hockey. For Minnesota women’s goaltender Sidney Peters, this has amounted to countless miles traveled and countless hours of community service.

With some of the places those miles have taken her, Peters has seen the meaning of resourcefulness in a more profound light.

In the 2016 offseason, Peters worked in the Hospital Bernard Mev’s, Haiti’s only critical-care and trauma hospital as well as its only newborn and pediatric intensive care unit. She spent eight days in this hospital assisting with stabilizing and treating patients. She splinted broken bones, dressed wounds, performed CPR and learned how to suture.

“This was my first trip outside the country related to my interest in medicine,” she told Pucks and Recreation. “This trip put me in a different mindset to learn and serve others. It helped me appreciate the resources and opportunities that the United States can afford.

“Sometimes we can take for granted what we have. In Haiti, they don’t have the same finances to meet their healthcare needs. There were four beds and one wheelchair in this whole hospital. I also had to think twice about using something like gauze because you never knew who would come into the hospital next.

“We had to make do with what we had. It was heartbreaking at times to see the lack of money or resources that Haiti did not have.”

For her part in healing those physical and emotional wounds, Peters is now formally on appreciation’s receiving end. Recently, the 2018 Hockey Humanitarian Awardcommittee narrowed its list of finalists to five. Peters was among the remaining contenders for the prize presented to college hockey’s “finest citizen” for leadership in community service.

“It is a huge honor to be a top-five finalist for this award,” she said. “This award is pretty special because it recognizes people outside hockey and shows that we are not just athletes. A big part of my life is volunteering, and it is a special feeling to be considered one of the top five finalists for this honor.”

Since the Illinois native arrived in Minneapolis in 2013, she has devoted herself to serving others. That impulse shows in her major in kinesiology and her hopes of attending medical school and later working in the Air Force. 

“I love learning about the human body because there is always more to learn,” she said. “I love working with people and building relationships with them."

This passion sparked Peters’ involvement as a campus EMT. In 2015, she joined the rapid-response team that volunteers to support the university on weekends when its facilities host collegiate or professional sports, concerts, conventions and graduations.

Less than a year later, her work as an EMT led her on a trip with Project Medishare. The American nonprofit strives to support and improve healthcare services in Haiti by donating human resources, technology and medical supplies.

Upon returning from her trip, Peters learned many lessons that she incorporate into her future career goals. 

“My trip to Haiti was powerful, terrifying, and wonderful all at once because I had the chance to serve people who were even more uncomfortable and scared than I was,” she said in a Gophers release. “It takes courage not to run the other way when you encounter the pressure of being responsible for someone else's life, but it is the best feeling in the world knowing that you were there to take care of them when they couldn't take care of themselves.”

Since then, Peters has recommitted herself to getting involved in healthcare to serve people. Meanwhile, she has spent the last two hockey seasons getting rewarded for her equal devotion on the ice.

As a fifth-year senior, Peters is already a two-time national champion. She has appeared in 75 games with a career record of 49-14-6. After serving as current Buffalo Beauts netminder Amanda Leveille’s backup, she led the Gophers to a 2017 Frozen Four berth.

Even with that much demand from the Gophers, Peters does not limit her on-ice energy to competition. Back home in Chicago, she volunteers as a goalie coach with Hockey Ministries International. This organization offers camps combining a love of Christ and a love of hockey.

In Minnesota, Peters volunteers with HopeKids, Special Olympics Minnesota and the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital, among many other organizations. Of those experiences, she fondly remembers the first in particular.

“HopeKids is an organization that supports kids with life-threatening illnesses,” she explained to Pucks and Rec.

“There is an event held each year called Hope Day, which is a big event at the football stadium. It is a highlight of the year because we play games with the kids. I am grateful for days like these because it shows that you can choose joy in the midst of adversity. This day and my other service experiences have changed my perspective on a lot of things.”

With two regular-season games left on Minnesota’s slate, then another high-expectation playoff run, Peters’ transition to med school is imminent. But her love for service remains as strong as ever, due in part to her strong spiritual life.

“I think my faith in God has taught me the value of love and serving others,” she reflected. “It is so important to get involved in your community. We have been given a lot, and I hope that I can continue to spread love and way that I can.”

- John Morton

Quinn Hughes has a future on both sides of the contract table

If and when playing does not pan out, working in the front office of a professional sports team is a dream for fans around the world. Quinn Hughes is setting himself up to live out the latter after he is done fulfilling the former. 

The Michigan freshman has emerged as one of the premier defensive prospects for this year’s NHL Draft. Adam Herman of The Sporting News sees him ending a dry spell of genuine “superstar” talent among American-born blueliners.

His presence with the puck on the blue line earned him a spot on Team USA’s World Junior roster, and has NHL scouts excited about his potential.

In the meantime, Hughes is getting used to life on campus, where he is majoring in sports management. He described the field as being in a team’s management, or the business side of sports. It chiefly entails dealing with players and forming contracts.

This is something that many people want to do, but most don’t know how to get there. For Hughes, he can follow in the footsteps of his father.

“My dad worked for the (Toronto Maple) Leafs for 10 years,” he said. “He worked as a coach and in management, and it piqued my interest.”

Hughes’ father was the Boston Bruins assistant coach from 2001 to 2003, then worked behind an AHL bench in Manchester, N.H., for three years. He returned to the NHL in 2006 as Toronto’s director of player development. Growing up watching his father and being interested in his job is what influenced Hughes to pursue sports management.

Michigan is one of the most well-known schools in the country. With many different professional development clubs on campus, there are plenty of opportunities to make connections in the industry. Hughes has not joined one yet, but is not ruling it out further down the line.

“It’s only my first semester, so I haven’t had time to really get used to things at Michigan,” he said. “As I get older, it’s something I’ll look at.”

The sports management program at Michigan is well known, and provides a great opportunity for Hughes to learn, even if that wasn’t the reason he chose Ann Arbor.

“It didn’t really influence the decision, but it got me excited to get there,” he said. “After I committed, I found out about that.”

Going west of Lake Ontario was a somewhat unlikely twist in Hughes’ career path. He had been born in Orlando when his father was an assistant coach for the IHL’s Solar Bears.

Subsequently growing up in New England, then Toronto, Hughes was originally more of a Boston College fan than anything else. His cousin, Teddy Doherty, was a captain there in 2015-16. Both of his parents played at a current Hockey East school (Jim at Providence, Ellen at New Hampshire).

But he committed to the Wolverines because they were simply one of the first programs to recruit him.

With such a big alumni base, with many in the sports-management field, Hughes can rest assured in the connections he will have when he begins his post-playing career.

“It’s very comforting to know that there are Michigan people who want to take care of other Michigan people,” Hughes said.

Sports management is a common major among Michigan’s hockey players. With many teammates taking similar classes before him, Hughes feels that he has support in his schoolwork.

“A good chunk of the team is in sports management or training,” he said. “Coming in as a freshman, I can ask what teachers to take, what did you do for that project and just be more prepared. They’re a good resource to have.”

Most people don’t think about how NHL teams care about a collegiate player’s off-ice studies. But Hughes understands the importance of getting good grades to give teams the right impression.

“While I think they’re more interested in hockey, there are so many players,” he said. “So if someone isn’t doing well (academically), and another person is, they’ll take the good student.”

Hughes’ studies mean that he will not be passed up in the draft over his grades. But one day, once his playing career is over, a job in the front office working with contracts would be a welcome reversal of roles.

- Zach Green

For Eric Lindquist, the ice is right with Worcester Railers HC

Photo by Rich LeBlanc

Eric Lindquist likes to be a full-fledged human on the job. He is not the mere eyes and ears of the Worcester Railers HC. And he will certainly not settle for the limitations of being a disembodied voice from above.

No, the Massachusetts- and California-seasoned sportscaster must move about his workspace, taking his audience with him. Families on hand and in the Railers network lean on him as a pivotal infotainer.

“There are 20 sets of parents listening to their sons play,” he told Pucks and Recreation. “It’s a long season, and calling X’s and O’s game in and game out can get a little tiresome and stale.”

So he animates the real-time chronicles the easy way — by living the game-night experience himself. During media timeouts at the DCU Center, while the ice-level laborers slug down sports drinks, he sneaks slurps of small talk in the stands.

At intermission, he savors longer helpings of the same while stretching his legs on the concourse. When the Railers score, he can and will reach out for high-fives with perfect strangers.

Sometimes, before any of that, he dons another metaphorical hat while guests are asked to doff their lids. He ventures from his perch within the seating bowl and enters the spotlight to perform the national anthem.

It is a welcome reversion for a man who prefers making his money and memories in an interactive manner. As the adage goes, caring means sharing. Depending on the setting and situation, Lindquist cares with creativity. He shares his experience and enthusiasm where appropriate — home — and divvies the details like a tourism guru on the road.

“I’m a fan, bottom line,” he said. “I want to be able to share what a hot dog tastes like in a visiting arena. What it’s like in the press box. What the fans are like. Where to get lunch in a certain city.

“I might not be the smoothest when it comes to play-by-play, but I think people recognize my energy.”

His five employers in his minor-league broadcasting career should expect nothing less. After all, Lindquist has obtained the most pizzazz on his resume by competing on game shows defined by contagious energy.

As a young teen, Lindquist fulfilled a dream by appearing on Wheel of Fortune, where he won a whopping $60,000. Later, while working at a Los Angeles sports agency, he won The Price Is Right’s Showcase Showdown. In all, his various stints in Southern California yielded 11 onstage game- or reality-show appearances.

“That’s generally the first thing anybody wants to talk about,” he said of subsequent sportscasting job interviews. “It’s kind of helped me in a strange way to be able to do what I’m doing.”

He could easily say the reverse as well. A North Andover, Mass., native who got his start as a student-broadcaster at Northeastern University, Lindquist calls a sport that requires swiveling heads and open-ended expectation. Anything can take a twist before or during game time (or show time). Accordingly, anyone’s agenda for the day can be altered on the fly.

Lindquist’s initial post-college dabbling in L.A. coincided with the birth and boom of reality TV. With his Showcase Showdown victory, he had cemented his name on the scene at and around CBS Television City. He was part of the pipeline that game-show and reality-show agents go picking at in a pinch.

“Like any other business, everyone sort of knows everyone,” Lindquist explained.

Odds are Lindquist’s affinity for sports made his name jump to precipitate one of his stranger improvisational experiences. While his penchant for pucks has defined his career, he admits he knows little about ball games. (Although he later did broadcast Lowell Spinners baseball for a time.)

Yet one morning, a representative from a dating show called to inquire about serving as a stand-in.

“‘But you have to pretend you know how to play tennis,’” Lindquist remembers being told. “I don’t think I picked up a racket once in my life,” he added with a chuckle.

Nonetheless, he got to the studio, got into uniform and got into character.

And when he was not letting cameras and makeup fall on him, Lindquist granted others a flicker of fame. When his tenure in sports agency “didn’t work out,” he tried working as a casting director for Fox reality programs.

The itch for ice, however, eventually resurged. When the AHL’s Lowell Lock Monsters dangled his first chance to return to the Bay State and broadcasting, Lindquist bit.

He has since made two more end-to-end moves each way. Before the Railers, he called the ECHL’s Long Beach Ice Dogs (2006-07) and AHL’s Worcester Sharks (2007-15) and San Jose Barracuda (2015-17).

The one season in Long Beach coincided with Bob Barker’s 35th and final year of hosting The Price Is Right. The coincidence made for a rare and timely joining of Lindquist’s passions.

As a team-building exercise, he led a 45-minute journey back to his old glorious haunts at CBS Television City. Leading scorer Ash Goldie even answered the coveted “Come on down!” call, though he did not advance beyond the podium.

Back out east, Lindquist occasionally experiments with game-show-inspired activities to keep players loose or humanize them before the fans. He has variously drawn inspiration from the defunct Three’s A Crowd and the time-honored Family Feud.

Of the latter, he recounted, “That didn’t work too well. Guys were cheating.”

Otherwise, in the past 14 years, he has at least put his formal game-show involvement on hold. With that said, he is always open to an eventual stint on Big Brother, Survivor or The Amazing Race.

For now, he expectedly watches from the living room with more-informed-than-average eyes. Just don’t expect him to revisit the grounds he has already covered.

Since Barker retired, Lindquist has eschewed The Price Is Right. When reached by Pucks and Rec, he hinted at giving Wheel the same treatment when Pat Sajak and Vanna White pass their torch. He fears the flavor of the shows may take a turn for the ’80s Coca-Cola formula after that much upheaval.

“I kind of like the old-school mentality,” he said, adding that he has a similar view of his beloved sport.

“I’ve always been a big fan of the hockey fight and the physical aspect of the sport. Not tradition, but things in the way that I enjoyed it or how I remember it.

“I’m not saying I don’t want change, but I grew up in the mid-’90s with Bob Probert, Tie Domi, Lyndon Byers, Chris Nilan. That’s what got me into hockey. I want to get back to how I grew up with it.”

As it happens, per hockeyfights.com, the Railers have engaged in 28 fisticuffs through their first 39 games. This past weekend, leading pugilist Yanick Turcotte engaged Wheeling counterpart Jeremy Beirnes twice in as many days.

Conversely, at that same mark in their schedule last season, the Barracuda had logged 18 fights. In 2015-16, San Jose recorded 22 scraps in its first 39 outings.

The ECHL yields generally chippier action than the league immediately above it. That aspect has ample company in befitting Lindquist’s move back to Worcester this past summer.

Railers HC foretold its advent in 2016, one year after the San Jose Sharks moved their AHL affiliate from Worcester to their own building. Effective a year later, Worcester’s first Double-A hockey franchise followed a self-proclaimed “cue from the European sporting club model.”

“Worcester Railers HC is introducing a new way to be part of professional hockey in North America,” says the de facto mission statement. It has already followed through by engraving the names of season-ticket holders on the backs of their respective seats. It has also spread its own name around the neighborhood without hesitation.

One block up the street from the DCU Center sits the Railers Tavern. A half-mile in the other direction will take you to the Fidelity Bank Worcester Ice Center. Opened one month before the club’s debut, the two-sheet facility also houses a restaurant, a café and a training center.

Two Division III college programs, two youth programs and Worcester Academy have all started calling the Ice Center home. There remains the question of whether the Division I Holy Cross men’s team will ultimately hop over. The added ice also allows Railers personnel to introduce beginners to the pleasures of leisure skating.

“We do have that sense that we want everyone to be a part of what’s going on,” Lindquist said.

As an outspoken, outgoing middle man between the team and fan base, Linquist suits that system. He jumped at the chance to return to Worcester after two fish-half-out-of-water campaigns with the Barracuda.

With the Railers, the 12,239-seat DCU Center wedges its radio booth between its seating bowls. As an NHL facility indefinitely sheltering the organization’s child club, San Jose isolated Linquist above its entire 17,562-spectator space.

But naturally, being a minor-league club, it never filled that cavernous coliseum. The largest audience the Barracuda drew in Lindquist’s lonely SAP Center tenure was 7,664.

“I was sitting all the way up in the ceiling, and I didn’t feel as close to the fans, the players and the action,” he recalled. “I wasn’t in my comfort zone.”

And so that Bay Area fling may be the 38-year-old’s only career stop in a major-league mansion. His return to the Double-A league after a decade in Triple-A is a step down in technical terms only.

Linqduist’s eye-catching game-show track record speaks to his poise before substantial, major-level audiences. But his success formula there of “don’t take it too seriously and don’t take yourself too seriously” also reaffirms his mutual fit with Railers HC and its “eccentric” European marketing model.

“I enjoy doing it at the ECHL level. I’ve have more fun this year,” he said. “Sometimes you kind of have more freedom in minor-league sports to have more personality.”

Rachel, Brandon Kisker taking stock in civic endorsement

Even before he saw them in action, Brandon Kisker favored the Rough and Ready Islanders uniforms.

The ECHL’s Stockton Thunder were to assume a temporary persona Feb. 7 and 8, 2014. It was the front office’s choice of costume for the league’s answer to a masquerade ball.

As the Alaska Aces’ guests when Anchorage observed Hockey Heritage Weekend, the Thunder were to sport a celebration of their history and the ECHL’s relationship with the NHL. Being the New York Islanders’ Double-A affiliate, they had a natural choice to checkmark all of the criteria.

Per a press release announcing the promotion, club president Brian Sandy thought back to Stockton’s welcome sign. It reads “Port of Stockton – Rough and Ready Island.”

Accordingly, the Thunder took the template of their parent club’s road white jersey. They then modified the iconic Long Island/NY/stick-and-puck shield to display their own offshore locale. To complete the local flavor, they emblazoned “STOCKTON” on the band of orange trim along the midsection.

Kisker, then a rookie commentator for the Thunder’s radio crew, was intrigued. By that point, the lifelong citizen of the Eastern Time Zone had been working in California for four months. But he elucidated his love affair with his new home through a Twitter chat with a fan named Ren.

Ren, whose handle is @ren870, wanted to settle a score. Was this upcoming promotion or a prior “Fantasy Team” jersey showcase better?

Kisker engaged in the Jan. 28, 2014 chat with this reply: “Rough & Ready no doubt. It’s such a unique thing and pays such a great tribute to both affiliate and city. #loveit #sandydidgood.”

The dialogue carried on for four more posts apiece. It proved to be a preemptively refreshing inside chat among natural-born and naturalized Stockton citizens. A week-plus later, the concept failed to resonate among the host Aces fan base.

“To an outsider, those jerseys were meaningless and lame,” Kisker conceded in an interview with Pucks and Recreation. “I can’t tell you how many tweets we had that picked on the name. But what locals know is that Rough and Ready Island is actually a real island here in Stockton.”

The island’s history began late in World War II as a naval base. It has since transitioned to a private-sector shipping port. In addition to foreign trade, the site connects Stockton with the likes of Oakland and Sacramento.

The port’s past and present purposes also make it a symbolic inlet to understanding an undersized, underpublicized California city. For Kisker and his wife, Rachel, underappreciated is another operative term.

“When you Google Stockton, very little comes up that is positive,” said Brandon, now the play-by-play announcer for the AHL’s Heat. “People assume there’s nothing to do in our community.” 

Rachel Kisker (nee Saiger), the Heat’s membership retention executive, seeks to solve that scurvy of knowledge day and night. Her official bio’s job description entails ensuring “a memorable time at Stockton Heat games and special events.”

Beyond Stockton Arena, both Kiskers are keen on illuminating all of their adopted home’s attractions. In 2015, while staying through the transition of hockey franchises, they pursued certification in the Stockton Ambassador Program. The program is one of 41 chapters of the Certified Tourism Ambassador™ network, which covers 17 states plus Bermuda.

“It tends to be people connected in the tourism industry,” said Brandon of the program’s membership. “However, we felt that it could also help fans who come to our games by providing them excellent service and recommendations on where to go before and after games — and if they’re staying in town, any other fun things they can do in the area to keep them occupied.”

Since 2013, the Visit Stockton tourism bureau has offered two-and-a-half-hour seminars on the city’s fundamentals and finer points. That class, along with marathons of homework, will culminate in a test.

To date, the Kiskers plus retail/promotions director Rob Cvetan have passed the course, allowing them to represent the Heat as local CTAs™. Five colleagues are hoping to join in the club that already boasts 495 members in total.

“When Visit Stockton offered the program to us, we immediately saw value,” Rachel said. “And as native Ohioans, it gave us a chance to learn more about the history surrounding our arena and team.”

Fish out of fresh water

Brandon Kisker and Rachel Saiger missed intersecting early in life. They each spent portions of their respective upbringings in Cincinnati and along Lake Erie. Brandon was born in Buffalo, N.Y., then raised in the Queen City. Rachel returned for college after being born there and raised in metropolitan Cleveland.

They finally converged upon enrolling in the electronic media studies program at the University of Cincinnati. They overlapped in a class for the 2010-11 academic year, and teamed up on an assigned interview.

As fans of Cincinnati’s edition of Oktoberfest, they surprised few by selecting Dr. Manfred K. Wolfram, who directed a study-abroad program in Germany, as their subject. In the interview, Wolfram peddled modern Munich as a recreational and educational tourist destination.

Brandon went on to intern with the Tampa Bay Lightning. The two otherwise remained in Ohio until the Thunder came calling. With the offer, he was effectively two steps away from his dream of filling an NHL booth full-time.

Hockey still needed to grow on Rachel almost as much as the new region would on both of them. But she followed Brandon out west and joined him at Stockton Arena as the Thunder’s inside sales representative. She has since ascended the ladder in her department, and now says, “We’re chasing an NHL dream.”

With the Kisker and Saiger families back in the Buckeye State, the two households’ long-distance breakaways united via necessity. But together, they took a rapid liking to the bevy of taco trucks, homegrown fruits and the annual Asparagus Festival. (“Be sure to get your asparagus ice cream and your deep-fried asparagus,” said Brandon, endorsing the event.)

By the end of their first season with the Thunder, Kisker and Saiger’s comfort zones had expanded to self-explanatory lengths. Rather than return to their old home for as long as possible, they ventured further west to Hawaii. Brandon punctuated the vacation by taking Rachel to the top of a Big Island volcano, where he popped the question.

They wed two summers later — on July 16, 2016 — at a German-inspired ceremony in Cincinnati. They subsequently jetted across the other great pond to honeymoon in Munich.

“Brandon and I love to travel,” said Rachel. “I’d like to think we bring some flavor from each place we visit to our lives.”

By the time of their wedding, they had elevated to Triple-A in their respective lines of work. And they were fully trained to tout Stockton’s offerings to prospective residents and vacationers.

“We’ve done a lot of growing in this city,” said Brandon. “To the point that I will always have fond memories of my time spent here with her.”

Better reads

In their final season, the Stockton Thunder had two intrastate rivals in Bakersfield and Ontario. They gave way to the Heat — the Calgary Flames’ new partner — as part of the AHL’s push to the Pacific.

With the Triple-A league fulfilling NHL clubs’ desires for closer-range affiliates, the Golden State gained five franchises. Bakersfield (Edmonton) and Ontario (Los Angeles) joined Stockton in its upgrade from the ECHL. San Diego and San Jose became the development bases for the Ducks and Sharks, respectively.

With Bakersfield and San Jose, in particular, the Kiskers have more radiant opportunities to employ their tourism pitching prowess. The Bakersfield Condors have enjoyed a natural rivalry with Stockton, a fellow Central Valley community roughly four hours away. The addition of the San Jose Barracuda one hour away in the Bay Area opens more avenues.

“Most of the people here are Sharks fans,” Brandon notes. And with a 12-game Stockton-San Jose season series, there is ample interaction between the regional fan bases. When the Heat are the hosts, the locals have the harder sell, at least on paper.

“Visit Stockton definitely does a good job welcoming tourists in and helping educate the community about the Heat,” said Rachel. “I think the longer the AHL is in Stockton, the more people will travel out for it. We do have fans from Bakersfield and San Jose come in for games. And after their first visit to the city, we see a lot of them returning for all of our team’s matchups.”

There is just as much give as there is take. Brandon feels obliged to learn about the greater Central Valley and the nearby Bay Area in his side gig. And as the team broadcaster, he constantly interacts with players and coaches who come in with as little familiarity as he had circa 2013. Except many of the young players have the disadvantage of not having found a soul mate to join them.

At best, the new players have the same initial geographic barrier as the Kiskers did. Only three Americans have suited up for Stockton this season, with no Californians. The other players outside the Canadian majority include three Swedes plus one Belarussian, Czech and Slovak apiece.

“It certainly is an adjustment for some of these guys,” Brandon said. “So I do my best to help them out by giving them ideas on places to go, eat, live while also making sure they understand and realize the areas of the city that aren’t in their best interest.”

Yes, even as a communications employee, Brandon will not take C-cuts around every flaw. Stockton has had its reasons to scramble for a reputational redress, especially within the last five years.

Forbes magazine has twice ranked Stockton among America’s 10 most dangerous cities. 24/7 Wall St. had it at No. 12 in the same category last year.

If you took Brandon and Rachel’s challenge to Google the city’s name on Nov. 22, unflattering headlines leaped out. The first three news results, listed horizontally with mugshots over the text, concerned two sagas of manhunt and arrest. The outlets relaying those stories were from San Francisco, San Jose and Sacramento.

Most of Stockton’s local TV reportage comes from stations based in Sacramento, more than 40 miles away. As a result, it lacks the luxury of more intimate everyday scrutiny Cincinnati might receive.

But Rachel, for one, was broader-minded when she joined her then-boyfriend on the uncharted ground. “We knew from experience with Cincinnati and other cities that there is bad and good everywhere,” she said.

Added Brandon: “The people of this city are really friendly and eager to do good things for those in need. This is a big city, and crime is always an issue in big cities. But what always goes unnoticed is the good people that call this city home. 

“Too many times, I have seen the media ignore positive stories in this city and instead report on another shooting. So I think for me, there was an expectation that I was coming to a very dangerous city. And in reality, it’s like any city. Be aware of your surroundings and you’ll be fine.”

As the Kiskers quickly assimilated, diversity dethroned danger as their pick for Stockton’s defining characteristic. Area Vibes gives the place an A-plus for amenities and notes that more than 11 percent of its population is African-American, more than 20 percent Asian. The Hispanic demographic nearly matches the number of residents identifying as “white alone.”

“It excited me to be around people with new and different ideas,” said Brandon.

Between that revelation and a craving among seasoned Stocktonians for improved perception, the CTA™ program was a natural step. The Stockton Ambassador Program began in April of 2013, mere months before Rachel Saiger and Brandon Kisker moved in.

By the time they were an engaged couple of ex-outsiders, the saw the interconnectivity between the program and their jobs. Engaging visiting fans was a natural incentive, but even locals are never finished learning about their community.

“We’re able to better serve our fans and make sure their whole experience is an amazing one,” said Rachel. “Oftentimes, a fan’s experience with the team starts well before they enter the arena and doesn’t end until they arrive home.

“With information about other local attractions, places to eat and even detours or alternate directions to the arena and parking, we’re able to make sure their whole experience is a great one. The more time people want to spend near the arena, the better chance they’ll want to attend more games.”

The apt adage about sports tightening a community radiates with merit in the Kiskers’ intramural and extramural endeavors. As the Heat’s communications anchor, Brandon often accompanies players to appearances at schools and other engagements. This past October, team representatives joined city government officials in a classroom to launch a joint literacy initiative.

In Rachel’s role, she ensures the regular return of those flaunting the crests and colors of other Stockton institutions. Everyone from essential public-service departments to nonprofit organizations is targeted for frequent arena visits.

Already this season, Heat games have coincided with canned-food drives and coat donations. The beloved Teddy Bear Toss — a junior and minor-league staple that never loses its luster — is set for Jan. 20. The Stockton edition partners with its United Way chapter, and involves representatives from the police, fire and education departments.

“To see the pure joy on peoples’ faces when that first Heat goal is made is priceless!” Rachel said. “I love being able to bring people out and leave them with an amazing memory not only from our team but of Stockton coming together for a cause.”

Student-teachers

Despite his critiques of the Sacramento media’s portrayal of Stockton, Brandon counts the California capital among the “most underrated cities.” He appreciates being based in a location that is “pretty central to a lot of things.” It grants him and Rachel easy access to Sacramento, the Bay Area and numerous as-yet unexplored landmarks.

“There’s still so much we haven’t done,” he said. “Like Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, et cetera.”

Once the Kiskers check those boxes, odds are the experience will amplify their informed appreciation of their city’s offerings. And Brandon has high hopes that precocious first-year mayor Michael Tubbs will accelerate and illuminate the attraction within city limits.

The age-old hockey humility bug bit Brandon long before it did Rachel. As such, he was less inclined to credit the ECHL-to-AHL upgrade for making his second job easier. He defers generous recognition to the neighboring Stockton Ports, Single-A partner of the Oakland Athletics. (Banner Island Ballpark and its tenant sit next door to the Heat’s house.) The rest goes to the visionaries in elected office and the tourism leaders.

“I’d give credit more to Mayor Tubbs on helping to reinvent Stockton,” Brandon said of His 27-year-old Honor. “And Visit Stockton for making it fun for tourists to visit this city.”

Of Tubbs, he added, “I think the strides he is making will turn this city back around completely and restore its old glory.”

Maybe not quite as old as the naval-base days of Rough and Ready Island. That legacy will likely live but spiritually in history festivals and minor-league promotional sporting events.

But if Brandon’s optimism comes to fruition, that will mean more material for Stockton CTAs™ to cover. In turn, there could be more Kisker couples to come.

Of the test he passed in 2015, Brandon said, “there really isn’t anything too challenging, in my opinion. You just have to want to learn it.”

As far as Rachel is concerned, that principle has no better exemplar than the man who literally tells the world about their city’s highest-ranking athletic institution.

“Brandon’s passion for what he does is contagious,” she said. “And he puts his whole self into everything he does. His eagerness to learn — not just more about his position but about those around him — and help out wherever he can is such a rare quality."

Keep laughing, or else: A Lewis Black concert-goer’s diary

Only by attending a Lewis Black concert can you grasp the incisively infuriated comedian’s all-encompassing outreach. And only by these means can you absorb the deepest insights from what he has to say.

As with sporting events, even a full-length viewing from one’s residence is no substitute. I know this having gone to Black’s show this past Friday at the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC) in North Carolina. It was my first high-profile concert or performing-arts event of any kind, and the experience yielded exquisite enlightenment.

Going in, the sights and sounds confirmed the scope of diversity the way only in-person mingling can. Some fellow ticketholders filing into the 2,700-seat auditorium looked young enough to be high-school seniors. Another not-so-negligible (frankly much larger) percentage was AARP-eligible.

One attendee in the lower bowl of the balcony sported a buzz cut, a Pennywise sweatshirt and jeans. Another brandished a beard, glasses, a turtleneck, jacket and trousers. By the looks of it, everyone from the baby-faced student to the seasoned professor had an interest in this show.

Still others from a middle age group showed up in dress shirts. Casual Friday held but sparse sway on this crowd in a college-heavy community.

As people sought their seats, I overheard conversations in more than one language. And everyone was presumably prepared to hear Black’s favorite second dialect: Blue English.

There were, of course, an array of viewpoints filling these chairs as well. Black was apt to acknowledge as much, as he has been through two decades as a household name.

Naturally, there are those whose perspectives present him as biased for one party or another. Such is the life of a political humorist, just as it is for a political reporter or commentator.

Although, it is one thing to don the latter-day Gyges ring and critique him on a comment thread. It is another to leave one’s confines and shell out no fewer than $40 for a live hour-plus serving.

The difference is not unlike what Black cited when faulting TV viewers who keep Dancing with the Stars alive. Parents who do so, he said at DPAC, squander their right to criticize their children’s gaming binges. If nothing else, he noted, the kids are involving themselves with the contents of their screen.

Contrary to any controversy one may raise, Black is what most level-headed observers dub an equal-opportunity offender. But even that label is a tad off the mark. He is more of an equal-opportunity assessor. His assessments simply come with unfiltered candor and creative visuals.

This past Friday, he epitomized this characteristic when highlighting the common threads among partisan cable-news consumers. He likened turning on one’s go-to network in the morning to igniting one’s hair on the stove.

That exaggeration was closer to the mark than any assertion that Black seeks to offend. He merely shares a common collective sense of concern.

The more laughter he draws by expressing that concern, the more hope we have. Even if we are contributing to a given problem, we are not oblivious if we pass his demanding laugh-at-ourselves test.

A year and change after the latest national election, the campaign’s odor inevitably lingers. It was therefore fitting that Black revisited it. He was apt to remind us that 60 percent of the electorate expressly did not care for either major nominee. Yet that collective majority combined with the two parties’ powers-that-be to anoint those candidates anyway.

He elaborated by likening one candidate to “the woman who’s been in your carpool the last 20 years.” To illustrate the foolishness of touting the other nominee’s business record, he cited the failures of three casinos. “Bankrupting one casino,” he shouted, “is a feat!”

Either way, the material for the political portions of his 2017 concerts was bound to come from streams of Potomac rapid-level chaos. It was little wonder he kept insisting he needs to put in for a research team. While prior shows, albums and specials confirm he has been here before, the mill of absurdity never gets less maddening.

Likewise, his admonitions that he is supposedly losing his purpose are getting more repeat. Whenever his reading of a dual headline-punchline didn’t evoke immediate guffaws Friday, he warned against losing one’s sense of humor.

It is safe to trust Black is not serious about quitting. (Leave it to a regal comedian to joke about abandoning jokes as an occupation.) But he is rightly concerned about widespread numb funny bones. Those must thaw if we are to cope with what troubles us in a healthful manner.

Strangely, Black never broke out his trusty “I will repeat that” tactic on this night. Doing so might have helped to stoke the inured ludicrousness detectors in the audience.

A minor omission, to be sure, but he did bring topics that would have called for it. Not the least of those was the report that Americans aggregated more than $700 million in spending on Valentine’s Day presents for their pets.

For that bit, he demonstrated the exclusive beauty of the spoken word. Unlike my vocational variety of communication, his has a luxurious selection of deliveries to drive a given sentence.

Black has always made deft use of those options to fill an ostensibly mundane statement with wholesome amusement. He did it again at DPAC when he calmly, but firmly, reminded everyone, “Your pet doesn’t have a calendar.”

Given the spending figures, some live viewers should have heard that and, however unwittingly, laughed at themselves. And incidentally, the local calendar had some fodder that missed the cut for more assisted self-deprecation.

Black performed at DPAC on the eve of the Raleigh Christmas Parade, which unabashedly took place five days before Thanksgiving. You know, the occasion that he has variously lamented as being reduced to “a comma” or “Christmas halftime.”

The day before he came, the Raleigh News & Observer even had a story to potentially set him up. As reporter Brooke Cain had written Thursday, the parade’s strategic scheduling oddity is “all about shopping. Shocking, right? The Greater Raleigh Merchants Association has always put on the parade, and what do merchants want? They want you to shop.”

That is plainer than dawn on Black Friday. Yet the locals have clearly gone along with it.

Between that and his assessment of the active administration, Black could have reprised his President Santa Claus proposal. Almost precisely 10 years ago, he presented that suggestion on his Anticipation album. At the time, he suggested making Santa a formal aspect of the office since the economy depended on the character.

His reaction to the reaction back then: “And for those of you who didn’t applaud, how bitter are you?”

If nothing else, he found one way to recycle that query this year. He devoted what he considered his obligatory early nugget of good news to the subject of his mother turning 99.

Once again, he deftly gauged a percentage of vocal enthusiasm below 100. Only this time, he asked the silent sector, “What kind of a bitter p***k are you?” It was just the right added pinch of intensity to keep one of his time-honored phrasings fresh.

That speaks to Black’s competence as his own marketing strategies staff. He maintains mugs that we never tire of drinking from, and that fit any fashionable flavor of the time.

In the previous decade, same-sex marriage was his choice of an over-debated issue whose importance ranked behind “Are we eating too much garlic as a people?” On this night, he tacked the same question onto a speech about anthem-kneeling in the NFL.

That particular rant was more improvised; the spawn of a selected fan question/submission for an end-of-show livestream. Black characteristically repressed reservations about appearing partisan to confront the rhetorical inquisitor with determined dissent.

Whether that swayed, or at least propitiated, the submitter is only for that submitter to determine. But this author knows he got his own critical-thinking takeaway from one of Black’s prepared addresses.

Not surprisingly, Black took glee in the findings of a University of Rochester study linking intelligence with cursing. He singled out highlights of the study and articulated his interpretation to an effect only those like him can achieve.

In writing, in particular, I have tended to look down on profanity as a destructive, lowbrow tactic. It tends to correlate with other slang, as well as excessive capitalization and punctuation. Those are the loud, lazy strategies that define comment threads in ways that bode poorly for society.

Even through my years of appreciatively watching and listening to Black’s DVDs and CDs, I have sustained this view. And don’t get me wrong, I still believe profundity is preferable to profanity in most settings and contexts.

But at DPAC, I literally looked down on Black from the balcony and absorbed his refreshed defense of off-color speech. With the backing of the Rochester researchers, he explained how its use can signal a fascination with English.

Now that he has mentioned it, why can’t that make sense? Plenty of people keep their mouths clean while still squandering their civility. One can omit one’s intelligence without using NSFW material.

Surely the inverse can occur. How could I have been so oblivious and swift to generalize?

There was no better messenger for this nugget. The way Black walks the walk validates the notion of a place, however limited, for sophisticated swearing.

Unlike nameless, faceless and frankly gutless trolls, Black thinks his rants through. He throws in the verbal grenades and often laces them with original twists to underscore a situation’s head-spinning nature.

Not that anyone should expect to see print equivalents phase into mainstream editorial boards. But perhaps more compromises can come about in the form of fresh minced oaths. This way, no linguistics lessons go to waste and readers can watch a commentary wink in a you-know-what-I-really-want-to-say fashion.

Even if I pen commentaries for a publication where Black’s vocabulary is game, it will not be my style. But barring restrictions (like those here), I will look critically for a meaningful point behind someone’s speech. It will help doubly when there is a visible person putting that point forward.

And as long as the point is fair, I might even laugh at its expression. At least that is one thing we do the same, with no lingual, generational, ideological or social inhibitions.

Kind of like converging on a theater for a Lewis Black concert.