🏅😤 These Massholes are going for gold

🧠 Pop quiz: Bay State higher ed edition. This week, Jeopardy! had a category about Mass. colleges, and you can play it here! Not to brag, but Gia would’ve banked $5,200 and Emily straight up cleared the board.

🍩 Pssst! Our next workshop comes with a doughnut. On Feb. 27, we’re hosting a Polymer Clay Workshop with Art by Susri at Boston Public Market! Enjoy a Union Square doughnut while making cutesy crafts using polymer clay. Members get $5 off. Grab tickets here!

👀 What’s on tap today:

Up first…

It’s time to ugly cry over a sport you’ve never heard of! A.k.a. The Winter Olympics. The 2026 games kick off Feb. 6, so we’re dropping everything you need to know, from athlete stories to watch parties. 

Let’s get into it:

🏅 The games are in Milan Cortina from Feb. 6 to 22. That’s 16 straight days of action, with athletes from 92 countries competing across 16 sports (here’s the schedule). Beyond the numbers, it’s a particularly exciting year since this is the first winter games in eight years that’ll have fans present. Organizers are crossing their fingers they can be just as buzzy as the 2024 summer games. 

🏒 Of the ~2,900 athletes, at least 100 have New England ties. Annnnd … most of them play hockey. The Boston Fleet are sending seven players, the Bruins are sending nine (for the first time since 2014!), and there are seemingly endless BU, BC, and Northeastern alums to round it out. But New England athletes are all over the event, from Vermont skiers to locally trained skaters.

👏 Here are a few local athletes we’ll be stanning: 24-year-old Medway native Zack DiGregorio will make his second Olympic appearance in luge after becoming Medway’s first-ever Olympian in 2022; 18-year-old hockey star Naemi Herzig will be Holy Cross’s first currently-enrolled student to compete in the Olympics since the 1920’s (as a freshman, mind you); and who could forget Maxim Naumov, the 24-year-old Boston Skating Club athlete whose Olympic journey will make you shed a tear?

👀 And make sure to pay attention to these big storylines: 41-year-old Lindsey Vonn will be making her epic comeback … with a ruptured ACL; “Quad God” Ilia Malinin will make his Olympic debut (he’s the fave for gold); and Laila Edwards will be the first Black woman ever(!) on a U.S. Olympic hockey team. Plus, Ski Mountaineering will make its debut after being voted in back in 2021.

📺 Need a place to watch? High Street Place will be showing the games every single day (minus Sundays) and serving up Italian-themed food and drink specials. Meanwhile, keep your eyes peeled for watch parties at the all-new Frostival Lodge in Copley Square. Hockey fans: The Fleet are hosting official watch parties on Feb. 5, 7, and 10 at A + B Kitchen and Bar.  

🥇 Any other questions? You can keep up with all the action here!

🛒 Local grocery prices are (still) going up. Despite President Trump’s claims that prices are “falling rapidly,” Boston shoppers aren’t feeling it. Between 2025 and 2026, WBUR tracked the price of a few staple items at Walmart, Roche Bros., and Stop & Shop (think: milk, bread, bananas). The results: Even as grocery inflation slowed, the total cost rose by ~$4 at Walmart and ~$2 at Roche Bros., but actually dropped(!) by ~$3 at Stop & Shop thanks to its recent wave of price-slashes. As for customers, they’re feeling the heat.

🎓 Something’s missing on local college campuses. Spoiler: It’s men. Men currently make up less than 40% of the student population at dozens of New England campuses, and colleges are stressing. While the gender gap isn’t new — women have outnumbered men at local colleges since the 80s — it’s grown a LOT in the last 10 years, driven by men’s well-being and self confidence issues, debt concerns, and yes, even podcasters. Some colleges are now taking steps to increase male enrollment, from creating football and lacrosse teams to introducing masculinity programs.

🤝 Could Mass.’ rent control battle end in a compromise? Some advocates and legislators are pushing for one as worries about the potential ballot Q’s consequences come into focus. If it passes, real estate bigwigs (even Gov. Healey) worry it’ll destroy the housing market. If it fails, it could set the issue back years, keeping rent sky-high. But there’s a sneaky third option: Organizers have said they’d be open to ditching the Q if Beacon Hill passes an alternative rent stabilization measure. The only problem? Legislators don’t seem particularly interested.

☕ It’s a BIG day for cozy cafe lovers. The former Curio Coffee has officially completed its rebrand and reopened as Call Me Honey after an ownership swap in December. The signature coffee and liège waffles will remain, but with some new Pinterest-worthy vibes. Meanwhile, in an unexpected collab, L.A. Burdick is now open in Logan’s Terminal C through March 3 as the airport’s first-ever pop-up. Yes, there will be hot cocoa drinking chocolate and chocolate mice!

There’s a lot to loathe about Boston winters: Icy sidewalks, chapped lips, and … hats. Specifically, beanies. Which for one Globe writer, are the singular worst part of the season. Or, as he calls them, “Satan’s chapeau.”

His case: 99.994% of people look terrible in them (notable exceptions include Drake Maye, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, The Edge, and Taylor Swift), and they ruin your hair. The only consolation, he said, is that everyone looks just as bad as you — and you don’t get frostbite on your ears. 

But after a foray into beanie-wearing tutorials proved too complicated, and earmuffs proved less effective, he ultimately had to throw his hands up and embrace “the evil power of knit beanies.” 

Read the whole (scathing) piece here.

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

🧣 Thanks for reading! Someone’s gotta tell him about the balaclava scarf look.

🚩 The results are in: 57% of B-Siders said they’d define a red flag as straight-up manipulative or unsafe behavior. One reader said: “Manipulative behavior may be the brightest of red flags, but at the end of the day, if I get the ick I get the ick.” Fair enough!

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