Hullabaloo

Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan is a hot-bed for up-and-coming hockey players, but it’s also a proving ground for Canada’s Lords Kitchner. Members Garrett DeLaurier, Andrew Fyvie, Drake Mark and Brett McKay formed Lords Kitchner in 2009, taking the band’s name from a 1960s clothing boutique in London whose customers included The Beatles. The title song of Lords’ debut EP “Brail” begins, “Needle deep, she’s sinking in her teeth like a bat on a bone/Pin-striped, black-and-white bow tie, a lonely Marlboro.”

When you visit Moosejaw Mountaineering’s Web site, you can learn great life lessons – or not. “Six out of fourteen tooth fairies give 41% more cash if you lose a tooth while in a tent or sleeping bag. That actually might not be true at all.” What is true is that the outdoor retailer – six stores in Michigan, one in Chicago, and an online presence -- takes its customers seriously but not itself. The Moosejaw representative who chats with you online might be named “Foxxy Cleopatra” or “Dr. Murph.” You might find savings of up to 70 percent off “on stuff that didn’t sell as 20% off.” Moosejaw’s motto is “Love the Madness.” We do.

Thirty years of working in Manhattan as a Newsweek executive was enough for Maine native Tom Manning. In 2008, he turned the page on one career and embarked on a wholly new one as owner of the reopened Miss Portland Diner in Portland, Maine. Built in 1949 by the Worcester Lunch Car Co., the Miss Portland, according to the diner’s Web site, made a cameo appearance in the 1993 movie “Man Without a Face,” which marked Mel Gibson’s directorial debut and was filmed in Maine.

Reading was first. Before the likes of Jamie Quick, George Parros and Scott Parse made it to the National Hockey League, they were members of the Reading Royals hockey club. The Royals play in the ECHL, just two rungs from the NHL, so the brand of hockey is quite good. The Royals also represent fun, affordable family entertainment, including many opportunities to interact with players.

Someone thought so much of Ralph Slate that they started a petition to get him into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Slate never played the game, at least not on a level that would earn him a mention in his creation, the Internet Hockey Database. But his contributions to the sport are legion – and ever-expanding. The database includes statistics for thousands of players, from Antii Aalto to Andrei Zyuzin, as well as teams and leagues from the past to the present. It also boasts an inventory of team logos, including the greatest one of all time.

What Slate is to hockey fans, Mike Andrews is to members of Red Sox Nation. He created SoxProspects.com in 2003, giving diehard Red Sox fans access to profiles and statistics about players toiling in Lowell and Greenville, Portland and Pawtucket with the hope of following Kevin Youkilis, Jonathan Papelbon and Dustin Pedroia to Fenway Park.

You can take the boy out of Maine, but the boy can't find anything outside of the Pine Tree State quite like a Sam's Italian sandwich. It's not complicated: salami, white American cheese, green pepper, onions, pickles, tomatoes and light oil. A Vacationland institution, right up there with L.L. Bean, the Portland Sea Dogs and Ed Muskie.