A lyric little icebox of a park – At Fenway, aging legends and little dreamers take to skates
By David Filipov – Globe Staff / December 19, 2009

The new ice gleamed like silver spread over the carefully manicured outfield turf. The frosty scraping of skates echoed off the grandstands. Bobby Orr, a black and gold blur, whizzed along a background of Monster green.

It was a sports fantasy any Boston fan could appreciate, as Bruins legends climbed onto the ice yesterday for the first skate on the newly built rink in Fenway Park, on a sparkling day as cold as the Red Sox bats in the 2009 playoffs.

Arguably the best spots in this extraordinary confluence of two storied franchises were occupied by Julia Johnson, 8, and her brother, Aidan, 6, stalwarts of the Somerville Mites hockey team. Clad in their team’s red and blue, they skated around the rink as Orr, the Hall of Fame defenseman, playfully pushed them along. Their mother, Karen, cheered them on from behind the glass.

As Aidan skated up to his mother at the end of this once-in-a-lifetime dream, he waxed effusive, not of skating with hockey greats on sacred baseball ground, but of something more immediate. “Mom,’’ the boy shivered. “I’m too cold!’’

City to give 3,000 tickets away for Fenway Park skating
By Globe Staff – December 18, 2009

Love the Red Sox and love to skate? Now’s your chance.

The city of Boston is offering 3,000 tickets Saturday on a first-come, first-served basis to people who would like to skate on an ice rink set up inside the Red Sox’ hallowed Fenway Park on two Sundays at the beginning of the year.

The tickets will be given away to Boston residents at the Boston Public Library and at 15 other locations around the city.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino arranged for the ice time on Jan. 3 and Jan. 10 as part of the inaugural celebrations for his fifth term in office. The rink was being set up at the ballpark anyway because the Bruins are planning to play a hockey game there — the 2010 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic — on Jan. 1 and a Bruins legends game is slated for Jan. 2.

Click here for locations and rules for getting the tickets.

Waiting for the bus? There’s an app for that
By Ira Kantor/Boston Herald – December 19, 2009

Tired of bus schedules that don’t reflect the delayed reality on your route? Want to know how much longer you’re forced to wait in the cold to get from Point A to B? If so, a Boston man has designed a tool that could bring those commute headaches to a screeching halt.

Catch The Bus, an independently created iPhone application, allows passengers access real-time GPS data on five MBTA bus routes, courtesy of the Massachusetts Department of Transporation, to better predict wait times at stops.

“It’s definitely a need that had to be filled,” said app creater Jared Egan, 24, a Northeastern University graduate. “Boston is definitely behind the times.”

Real-time GPS data for the 39, 111, 114, 116 and 117 routes was made accessible to developers as part of MassDOT’s open data initiative and provided through the Web services of MBTA partner NextBus, said MassDOT spokesman Colin Durrant.

“Instead of tens of thousands of dollars, maybe even more, spent on having a consultant build an iPhone app, we’re just putting this data out there for people,” Durrant said. “This is exactly what we wanted people to do with it.”

GPS data for the other 179 MBTA bus routes will become public should this and future applications prove a successful resource for riders, Durrant said.