In the News

The Column: Both Lowell, women’s hockey score

THE DAY before the first Professional Women’s Hockey League championship, the governors of the states of Minnesota and Massachusetts were talking smack.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey texted a challenge to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

“Hey Tim,” Healey wrote. “PWHL Minnesota and Boston face off in Game 5 tomorrow – and I have a good feeling about this one.”

“No way,” Walz replied. “Minnesota’s got this in the bag. How about we make this interesting?”

Healey suggested the losing governor would post a picture posing in the winning team’s jersey, cheekily telling Walz that he would “look great in green.”

A sellout crowd of more than 6,300 spectators packed Lowell’s Tsongas Center’s seats the night of May 29, to watch the puck drop in Game 5, in which the two teams were vying for the honor to hoist the Walter Cup for the first time in league history.

The Minnesota players shut out the Boston team with a score of 3-0, but by the end of the night, everybody was a winner.

Women’s sports won big — again.

The PWHL championship came on the heels of the women’s NCAA basketball tournament between the South Carolina Gamecocks and Iowa’s Hawkeyes that smashed audience records for both women’s and men’s college basketball title games.

Healey, a former college- and professional-level basketball player, noted the impact of Title IX on women’s sports. The Education Amendments Act of 1972 states that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

“We are so proud of the Boston PWHL team for an incredible season,” Healey said by email on Saturday. “It was a joy to watch them play and see how fired up the crowds were in support. PWHL has been a huge win for women’s sports and the sell-out crowds at Tsongas Arena confirm that it’s really true – everyone watches women’s sports.”

Healey attended the game with tennis great Billie Jean King, U.S. Rep Lori Trahan, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and UMass Chancellor Julie Chen, and it seemed, half of Lowell.

“It was particularly great to be at this historic game alongside Billie Jean King,” Healey said. “Congresswoman Trahan, Lieutenant Governor Driscoll, Chancellor Chen and I are all beneficiaries of Title IX and got to play college sports because of the advocacy and work of Billie Jean King. So it was really nice to be able to thank her for continuing her advocacy by helping to create the league. The PWHL made history and I know so many young girls have been watching and been inspired.”

Lowell won big.

There have been 14 PWHL games over at the Tsongas Center, and almost 60,000 people have come to attend games that began in January.

Besides Lowell’s name being plastered in media channels across the nation, business owners across the city benefited from the increased foot traffic. Numbers haven’t been posted yet by the Department of Planning and Development’s Office of Economic Development, but those metrics will be a helpful guide for future event planning.

“It’s been a great season for the team,” City Councilor Wayne Jenness said during the council’s Tuesday night meeting. “It’s been a pretty amazing first season across the league. And for Lowell to be playing a part of it, and to have the eyes of the women’s hockey world on the city of Lowell, is pretty cool.”

Inclusion won big.

The crowds reflected Lowell’s melting-pot identity and family-friendly vibe. Hometown rivalry was on display in the stands, with fans wearing Minnesota’s purple colors sitting right next to green jerseys for Boston fans.

Sports(wo)manship won big.

From the postgame home team stick salute that players perform for fans to the handshake line between teams, and from puck scrums to attacking zones by both teams, the game was fiercely competitive, but classy.

And Gov. Walz and Minnesota won big.

Healey was gracious in defeat, posting congratulations via a video on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“The Minnesota women took it tonight, but Boston put up a great fight,” Healey said. “Congratulations to you and Minnesota. We’ll see you next year. It was an all-around victory. A huge success for women’s sports, for the professional women’s hockey league. I know you and I are big-time supporters of both.”

She closed with, “I’ll be wearing that purple soon.”

Walz said he was proud of the level of play on the Tsongas ice for the title game.

“Minnesota is the state of hockey, so I was ready to bet that our team would dig deep and take home the Walter Cup,” Walz said by email on Friday. “I want to congratulate both teams on an incredible series and season. These are outstanding athletes who are taking women’s sports to new heights.”

See you this time next year, PWHL!

The elections to come

THIS ELECTION season has already been an extraordinarily busy one with a long span of local elections concluded and a presidential primary that had an all but certain outcome. With the congressional primaries on Sept. 3 and the general election on Nov. 5, the election season is only going to get busier still, and local candidates for state office have been declaring their intentions to put their names on the ballot.

In the 1st Middlesex District state representative race, which includes the towns of Ashby, Dunstable, Pepperell, Townsend and parts of Groton and Lunenburg, Republican Lynne Archambault announced last month that she is running in the primary for the seat again. Archambault ran an unsuccessful primary bid two years ago against Andrew Shepherd, who lost the general election against Democrat Margaret Scarsdale that year. Scarsdale is running again this year as the incumbent to seek a second term.

In the 22nd Middlesex District, consisting of Billerica, Republican incumbent Marc Lombardo seems like he will have some competition for his state representative seat as well. Lombardo has been in the seat since 2011, most recently having won in 2022 against Democrat challenger Teresa English. Now, Lombardo will at least have competition from a third-party candidate, with former Billerica Select Board member and Town Center petitioner George Simolaris telling The Sun that he is running for the seat as an independent. Simolaris had floated the idea last year of running in the Select Board race this spring, but ended up not doing so, paving the way for Dina Favreau to unseat Andrew Deslaurier instead.

In the race for the 19th Middlesex District representative seat, Democratic incumbent David Robertson, who has held the seat since 2019, will have a challenger in the form of Tewksbury Board of Health member George Ferdinand, running as an independent. The 19th Middlesex District consists of Wilmington and parts of Tewksbury.

The deadline for candidates for state House of Representatives and state Senate seats to file was May 28, so any further candidates in local races will become known in the coming days.

A Garofalo/Sheehan carpool?

IS CARPOOLING to Sudbury in the works for soon-to-be former Dracut Assistant Town Manager/Finance Manager Victor Garofalo?

Garofalo has a Chelmsford address. So does Sudbury Town Manager Andy Sheehan. An approximately 40-minute commute – either straight down Route 27 or down Interstate 495 to Route 2 – may not be the most onerous imaginable. It must certainly be nice to know someone else in town is headed in that direction.

Of course, many more serious reasons exist for Garofalo’s resignation other than a potential carpooling adventure.

In Sudbury, as described on its Wikipedia page as “one of the best places to live in Massachusetts,” he will be finance director/treasurer/tax collector.

A comparison of Sudbury and Dracut points out statistics that would make a compelling argument for a job change. Among those arguments are the following:

• Dracut population, 32,291 (U.S. Census Bureau estimate for 2023)

• Sudbury population, 19,934 (U.S. Census Bureau estimate for 2023)

• Dracut fiscal 2025 budget (total all general fund expenses) $106,045,885

• Sudbury fiscal 2025 budget (total all general fund expenses) $124,294,269

In Sheehan’s budget message to Sudbury residents, among his stated goals is to develop a budget within the limits of Proposition 2½. He does not mention a deficit in either the next fiscal year or in succeeding fiscal years. After all, Sudbury approved a Proposition 2½ override only last year.

Sheehan’s name will be familiar to many in northern Middlesex County.

He was community development director in Chelmsford, assistant to the city manager in Lowell, assistant town manager in Westford, and town administrator in Townsend. He became town manager in Sudbury in February 2023. He’d previously been town manager of Middleton.

In both Chelmsford and Lowell, he worked for Bernie Lynch, who was Chelmsford town manager and then Lowell city manager. Lynch now operates a consulting company which works for municipalities seeking top talent for high-level jobs. His consulting company, Community Paradigm Associates, worked with Sudbury on filling the town manager job and also worked with Bedford when it hired former Tyngsboro Town Manager Matt Hanson.

Trump conviction echoes into Mass. politics

THE CONVICTION of former President Donald Trump by a Manhattan jury on 34 felony counts this past week echoed into area politics with tweets like Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s — “Equal justice under law.”

“This is how a healthy democracy is supposed to work,” Congressman Seth Moulton said.

The MassGOP’s chair, Amy Carnevale of Marblehead, slammed what she called a “political prosecution” and a “troubling moment” for judicial integrity.

“The Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice both investigated these allegations and chose not to bring charges against President Trump. It should have ended there. This case should have never been pursued by the Manhattan District Attorney driven by political ambition. We expect this verdict to be reversed on appeal and Joe Biden defeated in November,” said Carnevale.

UMass Lowell professor John Cluverius said he expected that “politically speaking, one conviction could lead to another.”

Thursday’s verdict “increases pressure to hold more of [Trump’s] criminal trials before the election,” Cluverius added.

It also increases pressure on fundraisers, and on potential donors’ ability to withstand a tsunami of emails and robocalls.

“Since a jury found him guilty yesterday, Trump has raised $35 MILLION to enact his campaign of revenge and retribution,” the Biden campaign wrote in an email Friday morning. “His supporters are clearly fired up by his conviction. We need ours to be too.”