Charlie Voelker

There are nearly 100,000 volunteer firefighters in New York State. According to the Firefighters Association of the State of New York, those volunteers provide service hours that save the citizens of the Empire State over $3.8 billion per year. It's difficult to quantify what those volunteers really saved those that they have served. Then there are the volunteer Ambulance & EMS workers, jobs so stressful their numbers are tumbling each year. In December, Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill introduced by Democratic Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski and state Sen. Elijah Reichlin-Melnick that may be a way of keeping those volunteers.

Woody Johnson, along with his brother Christoper, purchased the New York Jets from fellow billionaire Leon Hess in 2000. For the first decade as NFL owners, the heirs to the Johnson & Johnson fortune enjoyed watching their investment go to the playoffs in six times. However, the Band Aid brothers wanted more. Their stadium partners, the New York Giants had won two Super Bowls in that same decade. The Johnsons, rightfully so, wanted a Lombardi Trophy of their own and trust me, so did their fans.

Legal sports wagering in New York saw about $15 billion in bets placed during the course of its first year in 2022. Still tens of millions of dollars continue to be wagered illegally in the Empire State. Federal prosecutors near Rochester were hunting down members of an illegal sports book ring when they got an unwanted surprise. A New York State Trooper was involved and working for the wrong team.

People have found over the years that laundry detergent can be deadly, if ingested. It's not really a surprise. It seems more of a shock that some are ignorant enough to eat laundry products in the first place, but we live in a strange world. Even if we are not ingesting the products, most of us don't want to be washing our clothes with a possible cancer causing ingredient, either. That's why New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation put a cap on a chemical compound found in some popular laundry detergents. Is yours one of them?

Cameron Maybin was a good Major League Baseball player. He was never great but he was talented enough to find himself playing for 10 different teams over 15 seasons in the big leagues. Maybin's transition to the TV broadcast booth for games and analysis has definitely been solid. Unfortunately, just like his MLB career, the outfielder will be moving on to a new booth next season and it doesn't seem like Cameron Maybin wanted to leave.

When you are a small, family owned supply store with a total of 17 employees, located in Chittenango, New York, you don't often get 22,000 on-line sales transactions in one weekend. So, when Ryan Powell began looking at the sales reports from New Year's weekend, he knew something wasn't right. In fact, he knew something was very wrong.

Davis Webb started his collegiate career at Texas Tech University for three years, playing 10 games in his freshman season and sparingly the next two. Webb transferred to Cal to be the starter for his senior year. In 2017, he was drafted by the New York Giants in the 3rd round. Then general manager Jerry Reese thought the 6-5 Texan could possibly develop into the heir to Eli Manning's quarterback throne. As we know, that didn't work out. On Sunday, Davis Webb had the job of filling in for Daniel Jones, as the Giants rested 19 of their starting 22 players, in anticipation of next week's playoff game against Minnesota.

Major League Baseball fans are growing impatient with the cat and mouse game going on between super-agent Scott Boras and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, involving the contract of Carlos Correa. The issue at hand? Correa's lower leg injury, that appears significant enough that the San Francisco Giants pulled away a $350 million deal and now the Mets are keeping the All Star infielder at a little less than arms-length for the same reason. Rumors came out on Thursday night that Correa's agent has reached out to other clubs. That may be true but Correa will end up a Met and this is why.

These days, it's easy to forget that Brooklyn started their season in complete turmoil. The offseason was a complete mess with perennial MVP candidate Kevin Durant requesting a trade. Then, seven games into the season, they fired their head coach, Steve Nash. 3 days later Kyrie Irving was suspended, almost as expected, and any hopes of an NBA championship were burning in a dumpster at the Barclay Center. Things have changed. Nash's replacement, Jacque Vaughn, has seemly put one fire out and started a new one, a positive one.

In many counties in New York State, condominiums and co-ops are taxed at a lesser rate than single-family homes. The tax break has been a big reason that condos have been a popular retirement choice in the Empire State. New York City and Nassau County have separate assessment laws due to overall population. Some, now former, state legislators proposed a bill that would change that tax advantage for new condo and co-op owners in the rest of New York State. The governor, enjoying her first elected-inauguration days ago, did not agree with the proposed tax.

A person's character is a foundational part of their self-being. Some NFL head coaches are seen as tough people that love nothing more than football and they find players to win in their systems. Then there are the coaches that breed success within their organizations by creating bonds and beliefs with their players. They are a team. They consider each other family. According to Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zach Taylor, his counterpart in Buffalo, Sean McDermott is definitely a Category #2 coach.

Tragedy in the NFL is nothing new. Thankfully, scenes like the one that involved Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin do not happen often, but they do. Family, friends, teammates and fans hope and continue to hope and pray that Hamlin has a full recovery. The horrible scenes from Monday night drudged up terrible memories for a widow of an NFL player from a game that happened over 51 years ago.

Ask any coach or manager to name two characteristics a team needs to win a championship. Among the top responses will mostly often be: depth and experience. Those attributes help front offices win championships, as well. On Tuesday, the New York Yankees got a little deeper in the front office with an old friend with a ton of good experience and happens to sport a few recent World Series rings.

The New York Jets maintain the longest absence from post season in the NFL. However, at the start of the season, no one realistically thought that the Gang Green would go from a 4-win team in 2021 to a playoff franchise in '22. Expectations were: anything under 7-wins this year would be a failure for general manager, Joe Douglas and head coach, Robert Saleh. Wins weren't the area of failure this year. The quarterback position in its entirety takes that award. Someone in the Jets organization is to blame.

With the city of Buffalo in the midst of a deadly blizzard and a governor declared state of emergency, including a complete travel ban, the Buffalo Bills players were videoed driving out of the team parking lot on Christmas day after their bus arrived from Rochester and according to one official. All of this was without permission.

It's no secret, New York Yankees senior VP and general manager, Brian Cashman is pressing to get his organization back to the World Series. Cashman has a brand new four-year contract, so he isn't worried about his personal job security. However, the Long Island native is considered one of the best executives in MLB and a 13-year late October draught probably doesn't sit well.

Last week, in the midst of the holiday season, New York's Governor, Kathy Hochul granted clemency to 13 individuals that exhibited remorse, demonstrated the effects of their rehabilitation, and have displayed a commitment to improving themselves and their communities. Among the 13 grantees are two prisoners that are currently serving sentences for murder and a woman that is a domestic violence survivor, in prison for manslaughter for the death of her abuser. Another woman convicted of the same crime was absent from the list.

Those NFL fans that believe you have to have a top draft pick to rebuild your team have not watched the New York Giants this year. So, why do some teams "appear" to tank a season to get the top pick, like the Jacksonville Jaguars "appeared" to do in 2020? The Jags ended up with the much-hyped quarterback out of Clemson, Trevor Lawrence, notably a franchise changing player. The Jags have a chance to make the playoffs this year. However, the tanking philosophy may have cost the Jacksonville fans at least 5 years of playoff football.

On Friday, the 8-5-1 New York Giants were in the Twin Cities preparing for an opportunity to clinch a surprising 2022 NFC playoff birth with a win (and some help) over the 11-3 Minnesota Vikings. Some of the Big Blue players and staff took advantage of the team hotel being attached to the world famous Mall of America to get in some last minute holiday shopping. During the same time, at the nation's largest mall's Nordstrom's location, shots rang out, leaving a 19-year old man dead and thousands in a panic, including the New York Giants.

The one-time thriving higher education industry in the United States is in decline. According to the publication Inside Higher Ed, colleges across the nation are closing on an annual basis. Eighteen four-year universities shut their doors from 2019-20 to 2020-21. The number of community colleges dropped by 26 over that same period. A common issue is financial instability, the same problem that is shutting down a prestigious liberal arts college in upstate New York.

Oysters are delicacy enjoyed by people around the world. Whether it's on raw on the half-shell with some lemon, fried to perfection with Old Bay seasoning or sautéed over pasta with wine and garlic. Oyster farming is nearly a $70 million agriculture industry in New York State. The tasty mollusks also happen to be environmental dynamos. Currently, tens of millions of the shellfish, not to be consumed by humans, are being used as a natural filter for the polluted waters off of New York City. However, an expansion of a project that has shown to increase the growth of consumable oysters in New York waters has been shelved by Governor Kathy Hochul.

Back on May 3rd of 2015, Danny Mendick was playing shortstop for UMass-Lowell over at University Field, on the campus of UAlbany. The Rochester, New York native went 1-3 with 2 walks and a run scored in the America East match-up. The former Riverhawk played a flawless shortstop that day. A few weeks later, Mendick was selected by the Chicago White Sox in the 22nd round of the MLB draft. Fast forward 7-years and a few months and that former foe of the Great Danes, Danny Mendick, just signed a $1 million contract to play for Steve Cohen's star-studded, super-team in Queens.

Some New York Jets fans get chills down their spines when you bring up the 2020 season. The team started out a brutal 0-13. Head coach Adam Gase infuriated the Gang Green fanbase and was mocked on a daily basis by the New York sports media. Let's face it, the Jets hadn't won a Super Bowl in 50 years and 2020 seemed like rock bottom. Well, at least they would get the top pick in the NFL draft, right? Not so fast, in true New York Jets fashion, they pretty much screwed that up on December 27th of 2020, against the Cleveland Browns, a haunting game for a few reasons.

Steve Cohen, in an overnight move in the early hours of Wednesday morning, appears to have snatched the highest priced free agent left on the market from the San Francisco Giants. Even weirder, it appears this may have all begun as the Giants were getting ready to introduce Carlos Correa as their new shortstop.

Finding "holiday week" activities that the entire family will enjoy can be a drag sometimes. Outdoor fun is often curtailed by tough-to-plan-for weather conditions, while other options are either too far away or too expensive. Capital Region baseball fans have a gem in their own backyard and the week between Christmas and New Year's is the perfect time to take advantage.

As reported here on December 6th, the New York State Legislature had passed a bill that would have allowed counties to opt-out of the 2021 'Holiday Hunt' law, which added a deer hunting period from December 26th through January 1st each year in the designated Southern Zone of New York State. For those non-hunters, the Southern Zone is just about everything south of the Adirondacks. Democratic State Senator, John Mannion sponsored the opt-out bill and another powerful democrat put an end to his endeavor.

It is an age-old story in New York. When the iconic Yankees are good, they rule the region. In fact, it was 65 years years ago that the Bronx Bombers' National League neighbors, the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers abandoned their fanbases and moved across the country. Many believed the move was primarily done to get away from the powerful lure of the team in pinstripes. Many decades later and billions of dollars ready to spend, Mets owner Steve Cohen is at least trying to put up a fight for his Queens franchise.

As reported on 1045theteam.com earlier this week, college student, Kenny DeLand Jr. had been thought to be missing in France since November 27th. His parents, in the small town of Clifton Springs, NY, waited tirelessly for clues to their son's uncharacteristic disappearance. Friday morning some news came that they had been waiting for. The best phone call a parent could ever have. Their son was okay.

There is no question that Miami Dolphins head coach, Mike McDaniel has done a nice job this year. McDaniel has led his team to an 8-5 record and possible playoff birth in his first season at the helm. This Saturday night in Buffalo, facing the first place Bills, is a crucial game for his Dolphins. The rookie head coach led Miami to a victory over Buffalo in late September. The game was played in Miami and the weather was very hot. Bills players struggled with the extreme temperatures. That won't quite be the case on Saturday night at 8:15pm in Orchard Park.

When the 2022 NFL season began, Buffalo Bills quarterback, Josh Allen was the odds-on favorite to win the AFC Most Valuable Player Award. Allen was coming off of his best statistical season in 2021. General manager Brandon Beane added free agent slot receiver Jamison Crowder to Bills talented receiver corp. Beane also picked up a great receiving running back, in the second round of April's draft, with James Cook. Josh Allen kicked off the season with everything he needed to be the "All World" quarterback that the Bills Mafia dreamed about. Unfortunately, things never seem to go as planned.