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

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#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.