Wicked Business Boston

Todd Angilly was pouring beers inside the Garden when eight Boston cops pulled him off the bar, threw a Bruins jacket over his uniform, and sent him out on the ice to sing the anthem with 15 minutes' notice.

Todd has been the Bruins' national anthem singer since 2019, following Rene Rancourt's 42-year run. Before that, he was an opera student who kept getting rejected, then a line cook at Fenway, then a probation officer. His day job is still helping people coming out of prison find work. We talk about the call-up, singing the first Red Sox game after 9/11, his dad's post-game phone calls, and why he insists it's never about him.

Stay Wicked Boston!

This week I sit down with Doug Smith, a guy from the South Shore who started out as a boxer, could barely skate, and still talked his way into a decade of minor league hockey as an enforcer. His job was simple and not at all easy: protect his teammates and drop the gloves when it counted.

Doug co-wrote Goon with Adam Frattasio, and that book became the 2011 cult-classic film, followed by a sequel. Since 1999 he's been a police officer in Hanson, which might be the only second career that makes more sense for him than the first.

We get into what it actually takes to fight for a living, what the movie got right and what it didn't, the physical toll nobody sees on the highlight reel, and why a guy known for his fists turns out to be one of the more thoughtful people I've had in the chair.

Doug also tells the story of donating a kidney to his co-author's brother, which says more about him than any fight ever could.

Stay Wicked Boston!

If you've watched the news in this city at any point in the last 20 years, you know the face and the voice. Mark Ockerbloom anchored at Boston 25 for 22 years and signed off this past May. That's 40 years in the business. He's still not sure "retired" is the right word for it.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Mark is a treasure to the City of Boston.

Kerry Kavanaugh anchors at Boston 25 News and leads their investigative unit. She's from Medford, went to BC, and got exactly one callback out of the 80-odd VHS resume tapes she mailed around the country — from a one-person bureau in Montana. She took it sight unseen.

We talk about the road back to Boston through Des Moines, Tampa and Atlanta, and about covering Sandy Hook and the Marathon bombing, which she says stay with you. She explains why she keeps pulling threads on stories most reporters file and forget, including a domestic violence job-protection loophole that still hasn't been closed. She also talks about going public with IVF in 2018 and a hysterectomy this past spring, and why she thinks women's health is still under-discussed. We finish on the shrinking of local news and what's lost when nobody's covering the town hall meeting.

Stay wicked, Boston.

What do you get when a hockey referee gets fired by the NHL after just one week and channels it into a 26-year stand-up comedy career? You get Mark Riley.

Mark is one of New England's most booked comedians, a former professional referee, screenwriter, and co-host of the podcast Chirping Zebras — hockey from a ref's perspective. In this episode we cover it all: his path from Curry College hockey to the NHL (briefly), why he thinks being American cost him the job, how a bad night at Nick's Comedy Stop — the night before his daughter was born — became a turning point, and why he believes youth sports specialization has become an epidemic.

We also get into Chirping Zebras, his unfinished book, his screenplay Penalty Box, and his rapid-fire takes on instant replay, hecklers, and showering with Zdeno Chara.

🎤 http://markrileycomedy.com | 🏒 http://chirpingzebras.com

Subscribe, share, and leave a review — it helps others find the show.

#WickedBusinessBoston #MarkRiley #ChirpingZebras #BostonComedy #HockeyReferee #StandUpComedy #BostonPodcast

Brian Daly is why every bar in Boston is either terrified or thrilled to see him walk in.

He started out filming skateboarding videos with his friends around Boston, which somehow turned into content work for Red Bull and Puma. These days he's the Director of Social Media at Jeffrey Glassman Injury Lawyers — bringing a skate videographer's eye to personal injury marketing, which is a sentence that shouldn't make sense but does.

Then there's the other thing he's known for: walking into random Boston bars and asking bartenders one question — will you play Bob Seger? The ones who say yes without hesitation get "Certified." The series blew up, landed him in the Boston Globe, got him on air with WZLX, and even got a Seger Bar stamp of approval from the Governor of Massachusetts.

Brian's back on Wicked Business Boston — this time on camera — to talk about the actual arc: skate videos to brand work to legal marketing to accidentally becoming Boston's unofficial Bob Seger ambassador. We get into how he built an audience, what he's learned working both sides of content (his own and a law firm's), and what's next for the Seger Bar.

🎥 Watch, laugh, and if your local bar hasn't been Certified yet — you know what to do.

#WickedBusinessBoston #Boston #BobSeger #ContentCreator #IsItASegerBar

My guest this week is Johnny Hilbrant — creator of "PE Guy," on social media, the private equity parody character with hundreds of thousands of followers online. We talk about how a Boston fitness instructor built a viral character from a wedding conversation he couldn't escape, and what happens once the internet actually notices you.

Becca Pizzi, a lifelong runner, shares her incredible journey, experiences, and challenges as a marathon runner, race director, and coach. From her love for running to her dedication to the Boston Marathon and her participation in the World Marathon Challenge, Becca's story is one of passion, resilience, and inspiration. Becca Pizzi shares her experiences as a race director in Antarctica, the challenges of running in extreme conditions, her achievements in marathon running, and the impact of her family and community involvement. She also discusses her foundation, book, "Becca's Feat on Feet."

Takeaways

• Passion for running drives lifelong dedication
• Overcoming adversity and injury with determination Running in extreme conditions requires specialized gear for protection.
• Support from family and community is crucial for endurance athletes.
• Community involvement and giving back are important aspects of Becca's life.

Chapters

• 00:00 The Journey of a Lifelong Runner
• 03:01 The Boston Marathon Experience
• 05:08 Overcoming Injury and Adversity
• 09:00 Running Around the World
• 11:56 The World Marathon Challenge
• 16:59 Race Directing and Coaching
• 21:16 Race Director in Antarctica
• 21:53 Running Gear for Antarctica
• 22:40 Polar Bears and Safety Measures
• 23:12 Running the North Pole Marathon
• 25:02 Support from Spouse
• 25:59 Coaching and Family
• 27:20 World Records and Aging as an Athlete
• 30:37 Quality Over Quantity in Training
• 31:48 Life in Antarctica
• 33:12 Mount Everest and Endurance Challenges
• 34:13 Becca Pizzi Foundation and Book
• 39:16 Community Events and Scottish Influence
• 41:50 Daughter's Perspective