dlyon  Feb 8 2005 - 8:45am  Local News   

By MATTHEW L. BROWN
Chronicle Staff Writer
WINDHAM — The new owner of the South Windham Diner says he hopes to have the local landmark moved to its new location and restored within six months.
Tony Lent, the owner of the North Windham shopping plaza that contains Western Auto, a bagel shop, a Chinese restaurant, a family restaurant and other retail stores, bought the diner recently.
He and his partners in A&A Development Properties paid $8,000 for the classic stainless steel diner.
“The deal is that we want to put something in our plaza to make it different from all the others,” Lent said. “It should be moved within the next couple of weeks and we’re going to renovate it right back to original condition.”

dlyon  Feb 8 2005 - 8:42am  Local News   

By SEAN O’LEARY
Chronicle Staff Writer
As the holiday season ended, January brought Connecticut one more gift that no one wanted to open — a sharp increase in gas prices.
Today, average gas prices for a gallon of regular unleaded across the state crept to the $2 mark in some places — an increase of 15 cents over the past 30 days.
According to the American Automobile Association’s fuel gauge report, the average price per gallon in the Hartford area was $1.86 Jan. 8 and was at $2 this morning.
Locally, the prices were slightly less than $2, but more than enough to create headaches as wallets empty into hungry gas tanks.

dlyon  Feb 7 2005 - 11:42am  Local Sports   

By MIKE SYPHER
Chronicle Sports Editor
STORRS — Tonight’s Big East Conference showdown with Syracuse at 7 p.m. (ESPN, WILI 1400-AM, WTIC 1080-AM) at the Carrier Dome was on their minds, to be sure.
And yet, the University of Connecticut men’s basketball players were facing more than the expectations associated with facing the nation’s eighth-ranked team when they took on feisty St. John’s Saturday at Gampel Pavilion.
The Red Storm made sure of that.
“It’s a good win for us because of the job that Norm [Roberts] is doing,” Husky coach Jim Calhoun said of the Red Storm’s coach after No. 23 Connecticut (14-5 overall, 6-3 Big East) broke open a 7-point game early in the second half with a 14-1 run that paved the way for a 68-46 victory over St. John’s (8-11, 2-7).

dlyon  Feb 7 2005 - 11:39am  Local Sports   

Whippet wrestlers win two of three
WILLIMANTIC — No. 3 state-ranked Ledyard (16-4) won six of the final seven matches en route to a 40-27 wrestling victory over No. 5 Windham Saturday afternoon at Callaghan Gymnasium.
The Whips (18-3), who dropped their second match in three days, picked up victories over Windham Tech (66-9) and Vinal Tech (68-3) in the quad meet. Windham Tech also fell to Ledyard, 75-3.
In the highlight match of the afternoon, Windham held a 24-19 lead entering the 103-pound weight class when Ledyard’s C.J. Satti pinned Windham’s Andrew Blain 1:13 into the second period to give the visiting Colonels a 1-point, 25-24 lead.

dlyon  Feb 7 2005 - 11:37am  Local Sports   

ECSU goes deep to tame Panthers
WILLIMANTIC — Making her first career start in her 64th appearance, junior guard Lindsey Karsmarski recorded a record-tying seven 3-point field goals to lead the Eastern Connecticut State University women’s basketball team to an 83-51 Little East Conference victory over Plymouth State University Saturday afternoon at Geissler Gym.
Eastern (13-7 overall, 7-2 Little East) maintains its hold on second place in the conference with its 11th win over Plymouth State in the last 12 meetings with the Panthers. Eastern completes the regular-season sweep of Plymouth State, having posted a 100-94 win over the Panthers a month ago on the road.

dlyon  Feb 7 2005 - 11:35am  Local Sports   

Record-setting crowd enjoys hockey win
STORRS — The University of Connecticut men’s hockey team (9-19-2 overall, 8-9-1 league) cruised to a 5-1 Atlantic Hockey Association victory over Sacred Heart (9-16-1, 9-6-1) before a record-setting crowd of 1,752 fans at the Mark Edward Freitas Ice Forum on Saturday evening.
Junior Chris Uber put the Huskies out in front in the first period with his sixth goal of the season from sophomore Matt Scherer and senior captain Tim Olsen at 15:27.
UConn then extended its lead to 2-0 as sophomore Cole Koidahl snapped a quick wrister from the slot past Pioneer netminder Kevin LaPointe 19:47 into the second off a feed from senior Beau McLaughlin and freshman Mike Neilon.

dlyon  Feb 7 2005 - 11:34am  Local Sports   

By RICH ZALUSKY
Chronicle Sports Writer
PROVIDENCE — It was ugly.
And Ann Strother remembers it well.
Strother was a freshman when the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team visited Alumni Hall on the Providence College campus and the host Friars led by as many as six points in the opening 12 minutes of play.
“Coach [Geno Auriemma] brought that up,” said Strother. “I think it was in the back of our minds. The juniors and seniors on the team now experienced that and we didn’t want to experience that again heading into our tough stretch coming up this week.”
Two years ago, reality took over and UConn ran away to a 70-52 victory.

dlyon  Feb 7 2005 - 11:31am  Opinion/Editorial   

Threads to Windham selectmen for approving a measure to use funds collected from blight ordinance fines to tow junk cars. Currently, it costs the town $75 to have a vehicle towed and the hope is that this program will make enforcement of the blight ordinance self-sufficient. In the end, the we hope for no towing and no fines collected. That would mean the town is truly blight free. Not a bad dream to have, is it?
Needles to the Coventry Police Department for an $18,000 accounting error that lead to a discrepancy in the budget. For a small town, $18,000 in any department is a lot of money. Thankfully, this was merely an error and not an indication of any wrongdoing. That should be clear. The error had to do with missed application dates for a grant regarding a program already funded. The fund was frozen and the problem has been fixed. Still, the department — as well as any town entity — should double check and make sure their checkbook is balanced. It is a big checkbook, after all.

dlyon  Feb 7 2005 - 11:29am  Opinion/Editorial   

By Terese Karmel
“Good morning, Michael. If you’ll give us a minute, we’ll set up the omelet station at your bedside so we can prepare your favorite truffle-cheese breakfast. What’s that? Fresh squeezed orange juice? Coming right up.
“Oh, and here’s your ‘USA Today.’ It was slipped under your door earlier; you must have been sleeping in this morning because we noticed the ‘Do not disturb’ sign, swinging from the door knob. (Calm down. We didn’t mean anything by the word ‘swinging’). We were a little concerned when you didn’t order from room service until 11 (we know that sometimes you have dire thoughts about your future), so when you called the kitchen, we were very relieved to hear your voice. Hope our robust chorus of ‘Good Morning to You,’ wasn’t too much to greet your day. Certainly at the Osborn-Astoria Hotel and Spa your mental health is our chief concern.”

dlyon  Feb 7 2005 - 11:25am  Local News   

By MATTHEW L. BROWN
Chronicle Staff Writer
WILLIMANTIC — The deadline to nominate a city resident for the honor of being “Romantic Willimantic Cupid 2005” is fast approaching.
Anyone interested in nominating someone who has made a voluntary contribution to the betterment of the community must do so by Tuesday.
The naming of a Willimantic Cupid is a tradition that goes back decades. Winners are proclaimed cupid for an entire year and are given flowers, chocolates, T-shirts and a ceremonial bow-and-arrow.
But the honor is supposed to come as a surprise to the winner.
Each year, great pains are taken to keep the soon-to-be-crowned cupids in the dark until they’re ushered into Windham Town Hall where a proclamation ceremony is conducted.