hockey Page 12 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Sports Nihilist: Like life, defense shouldn’t matter
When someone goes for 85 points in an NBA game this season, please don’t downplay the accomplishment. I know Kobe Bryant’s 81 is immortalized, and Lakers fans don’t have much to keep them warm at night nowadays, so they’ll cling even harder, but it feels like someone is going to approach the modern-...
L.A. Kings, Pacific Division prove why overtime and the shootout are a plague upon society
The idea that the NHL regular season is just an 82-game preseason is maybe the last vestige of a time when 16 of the then-21 teams made the playoffs. These days, when exactly half the teams are culled, some genuinely decent teams don’t make it. Teams like the Knights last year can rack up over 90 po...
The Vancouver Canucks are the worst
For an organization that has spent almost its entire existence accomplishing nothing, the amount of noise the Vancouver Canucks generate is certainly outsized. Three lost Stanley Cup Finals is the sum of their 53-year existence, and yet it feels like the drama they create always seeps into the great...
Here are our NHL midseason awards
Handing out awards in the middle of the season is always a little silly, because just about anyone can spasm 40 games of brilliance. But hey, we’re here to be silly! So it feels like a great time to go over the first half of the NHL season and see who is the leader in the clubhouse for the baubles h...
![Ivan Provorov, John Tortorella once again show that hockey can’t move forward [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/e5c7510945e9755bf115def070b35df0.jpg)
Ivan Provorov, John Tortorella once again show that hockey can’t move forward [Updated]
This is becoming, sadly and infuriatingly, a familiar story in sports. The NHL wants you to believe that “hockey is for everyone,” except that it never seems to filter down to anyone in the game below the tagline....
Napoli are Showtime
While Arsenal have gobbled up most of the world’s oxygen in the “came from nowhere to lead the league” category, there’s another team in Europe that’s outside the usual cast of characters that is destroying the competition. And while Arsenal may be a joy to watch, they’ve got nothing on S.S.C. Napol...
Damar Hamlin’s injury could have a major effect on youth football participation
23.6 million people tuned into Monday Night Football between the Bengals and Bills this past week. 23.6 million people saw Bills’ safety Damar Hamlin nearly lose his life. That kind of image sticks with people, and I wouldn’t be surprised if several parents think of that moment in the future when co...
The Red Sox actually paid someone
At Monday’s Winter Classic, John Henry appeared, as the hockey team he owns (the Penguins) was playing the Boston Bruins at the ballpark he owns (Fenway Park, as owner of the Red Sox as well). Henry is more reclusive than a lot of owners, so it’s hard to know if he’s as deluded as some billionaires ...
The whole human experience
I’ve spent a lot of time in this space trying to figure out the nature of fandom, the magnetism of sports, and where it all fits in our lives. The best I’ve come up with, and it’s probably not all that accurate, is that fandom is the allure of feeling part of something, of being part of a group, a s...
Alexander Ovechkin, the 'GR8 One'
Alexander Ovechkin is the best pure goal-scorer in NHL history. That’s not up for debate. The longtime Washington Capital hasn’t been hockey’s best player for years, but his ability to put the puck in the back of the net is nearly as good as it was 15 years ago when he scored 65 goals during the 200...
NBA answers G.O.A.T. debate by picking MJ over LeBron for MVP trophy’s namesake
LeBron James’ fans must simply concede. The charade is over. That flimsy argument is washed. James isn’t the G.O.A.T. And who said so? Who settled this long-running barbershop debate? Well, the NBA, itself....
It was a great day for the best to ever do it
If part of the reason you watch sports is to see things that will live forever, then Tuesday was a day for you....
What does Jack Edwards have to be so smug about anyway?
The idea of a particular villain, a true public enemy, still exists for most hockey fanbases. More than any other sport, one player can send an opposing arena into hysterics by merely hopping over the boards. Rivalry as an idea in sports has calmed down over the years, given player movement and othe...
Teams should be outlawed from wearing black
The Philadelphia Eagles’ black alternates are stupid. There’s a lot that’s stupid about the Eagles, and I recognize the risk of making that statement when they’re 10-1 and their faithful lurk around every corner with a thought to share, but one cannot ignore the truth....
Hockey still needs to be shamed into doing the right thing
It would appear that hockey has at least slithered to the level that public attention can get it to do the right thing a couple of days late. It’s just above barely nothing, but moving from nothing to a couple of inches above barely nothing is the lowest form of progress. But progress. ...
The best from the start
There’s an old hockey axiom that any young defenseman needs 200 games in the NHL to come into his own. Unlike most of the sport’s theories, which are usually grizzled old horseshit that everyone has just gone along with out of terror for ever rocking the boat in any way, it holds some water. It’s a ...
This is not your beautiful house, these are not your New Jersey Devils
Must’ve been a slow night, sports-wise, if I feel the need to talk about the New Jersey Devils. There has been no more scenery team, and dreary at that, than the Devils the past 10 years. You didn’t think about them until they came up on the schedule against your favorite team. And even when that ha...
Bruins get a finger in the wind and then jammed in their own eye
As far as public statements go, this one rings pretty hollow:...
We’ll never be rid of the Bruins
The Boston Bruins will never be considered anything close to a dynasty. It’s probably sobering for Bruins fans how close they are to being one, if anything can actually be sobering for Bruins fans. Had Zdeno Chara hit the other side of the post in Game 1 against the Hawks in 2013, and if Brad Marcha...
Rob Manfred’s dumb ghost runner is here to stay
The start of the World Series always means that whichever ghoul is the commissioner of MLB is going to emerge from the damp and dark dwelling in which he inhabits. That’s the rule for every league of course, so it’s not to single out baseball. A Super Bowl, a Stanley Cup Final, the NBA Finals always...