Let’s Teach the Mayor and Governor How to Win a Face-Off
On the first sunny and warm Saturday in recent memory, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Gov. Charlie Baker competed in a street hockey face-off as part of the Shamrock Shootout in West Roxbury.
Their face-off technique was God-awful.
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Walsh gets the easy face-off win here, but there’s a lot of room for both to improve.
That’s where we come in. Here are some tips we learned from 15 minutes of watchinghow-to videos on YouTube:
• Get in your opponent’s head: Tell him his shoes are untied. Talk about his haircut. Criticize his support for an Olympic bid in Boston as nonsensical. Or, as Baker does here, prematurely smack his stick.
• Bend those knees: Even when wearing nice dress slacks and shoes, bending with your knees and getting low is pivotal.
• Have a wide stance: Like a man taking up three seats on the MBTA, open up your hips and spread those legs to get better balance and be lower to the ground.
• Choke up on the stick: Get that top hand all the way near the edge of the curved blade, which gives you better handle and quicker reaction time to the ball. Baker’s top-hand is mid-stick. He needs to run a lap.
• Eyes on the ball at all times: Even when it’s still in the refs hand. Don’t look at where the ball will be; look at where it is. Eyes on the prize, which in this case is the eternal love and adulation of West Roxbury, we think.
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• Sweep the ball backwards: Your teammates are (usually) behind you to receive the ball. Walsh does this technique well, as he puts the stick over the ball and then sweeps back for an easy win. Baker is, well, attempting to slap the ball to his left for some reason. He did not think this through.
• Become Visible in Your Local Community: Oh, sorry, I was reading from a guide of how to become a successful politician. A guide these two have clearly know.
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