hockey Page 15 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
It’s time the NFL made Guardian Caps mandatory
In the aftermath of Tua Tagovailoa’s frightening concussion on Thursday Night Football, the NFL has taken baby steps to prevent another woozy player from bypassing the concussion protocol. Tagovailoa’s hands and arms stuck in the fencing response was one of the most indelible images since Lawrence T...
Sports would be all right if it wasn’t for the organizations that run them
Yesterday was just a banner day for the governing bodies of sports. We know that people in power will do just about anything to protect what little fiefdom they have. In the grand scheme of things, having a seat on the organization running whatever league or game is a pretty small fiefdom. But that ...
Are you actually going to have to put up with Red Wings fans this year?
Well yes, because they never shut up, no matter the team’s fortunes on the ice. They’re always around, screaming about the “Yzer-plan!,” and assuring you that the Red Wings dynasty will continue because in their minds whatever comes in 2025 is still connected to what happened in 2002. This is the wa...
P.K. Subban was just a little ahead of his time
Hockey still can’t seem to recognize its need for a rockstar. While not the biggest problem with hockey’s culture at the moment (hi there Hockey Canada), the ethos that no player can stand out or be above the team keeps the game from having vibrancy or personality. And vibrancy and personality are w...
Are we done being salty about the Astros yet?
Last night, the Astros clinched their fifth AL West title out of the last six. And that one they missed was the 2020 season, which basically doesn’t count. So for all intents and purposes, this is their fifth straight division title. Currently, that’s the longest streak in the majors, as the Dodgers...
Baseball’s rules changes are more about looks than effect
I don’t envy the task that MLB has. I also don’t trust that anyone in charge of it has any sense of the challenge, but that’s another topic for another time. Baseball’s charm will always be rooted in its history and simply the amount of time it has been part of American culture. While pro football m...
Who the hell let Ray Hudson in the house?
CBS has mostly been a gift to soccer fans. Unlike Turner when it bought the Champions League rights, forgot about it until the day before the tournament started, and then dusted off some closet and called whatever former USMNT members were within an hour’s flight of the studio, CBS has taken its cov...
Stephen A. Smith forgets the basics of football
Stephen A. Smith is great television. The way he casually cascades between idioms in an excited, commanding voice is magnificent. I get jealous of his inflection just watching him. That said, he’s also had a series of brain farts that can’t be overlooked. Whether it’s ranting about nonexistent ties ...
Aaron Judge is the king, but not for the reasons some New York dips**t thinks
It’s going to be a month of this. Aaron Judge has 50+ homers by Sept. 1, one of the very few to accomplish said feat. And with all baseball records, there are going to be self-appointed gatekeepers who have decided it is their purpose to keep the hordes at bay from sullying something sacred. There i...
For one day, Yann Sommer channeled the spirit of Ron Tugnutt (wait Ron Tugnutt isn’t dead, right?)
Most soccer analysts, especially those who really get in up to the elbow in the analytics, say that the sport is pretty random. Most games are only decided by a single moment (or rarely more than a handful), and those moments can bounce any which way no matter what the trends of a match or a season ...
People are still out there wishing death on high schoolers for their college choices
We learned a lot in 2020, most of it sad and depressing. In the moments when we weren’t terrified, mourning, angry, or all of the above, some of us might have turned on sporting events once the UFC got back to broadcasting events and the NBA concluded the 2019-20 season in The Bubble. Sports looked ...
C.B. Bucknor drags everyone down with him
It was yet another banner day for C.B. Bucknor behind the plate, as we watched in real time while he lost sense of the strike zone and perhaps indeed any sense of direction at all. The plane which the ball must pass through to be called a strike is imaginary, of course, and tough to judge from a pos...
No surrender in Calgary
One of the familiar tropes in the NHL is the “poor ol’ Canadian team.” Lord Stanley’s chalice hasn’t been parked north of the border in 29 years, and there must be a reason for it. After all, the first two Great Bettman Lockouts were somewhat based on the fact that Canadian teams couldn’t have their...
Looking at possible numbers for the NFL to retire league-wide
The NFL is now the only big-four pro sports league in North America to not have a number retired throughout the league. The NBA retired Bill Russell’s No. 6 earlier this month after his death. Major League Baseball gave that honor to Jackie Robinson’s No. 42, while the NHL has barred anyone from don...
Tyrod Taylor should be starting for the G-Men over Danny Dimes
It’s important not to succumb to too many overreactions in the preseason, especially during opening week. Teams are just starting to figure things out, and starters are coming in and out of games like they’re playing hockey. I try to not get too caught up in making predictions based on a few preseas...
Why does Canada get to participate in the World Juniors?
You may have forgotten about hockey’s World Juniors championships. It’s the middle of summer after all, which is supposed to be the definitive dead time for hockey. You’ll probably need a reminder that the WJCs, in their normal slot back in December/January, had to be scrapped thanks to COVID outbre...
I’d wreck my Subaru to be on the Patriots, too
In the barren wasteland that is sports in August, there are only baseball and speculative NFL stories to write about. And since we just wrote about Aaron Judge and he didn’t hit a dinger Friday night, we’ve got football chatter for you. Today’s anecdote comes from former New England Patriot offensiv...
Vin Scully felt like family
Growing up in Los Angeles, my favorite Dodger was never anyone on the field. The guys on the field constantly changed. Injuries or slumps sometimes kept them out of the lineup. Trades and free agency changed the makeup of the team....
The Calgary Flames will not go quietly into that good night
It’s the kind of trade that’s only cooked up at the bar, and almost certainly not before midnight. It’s only then and there that the right kind of desperation can be tuned into, as fans of whatever team it may be, try and live in denial for just a little while longer that their window of contending ...
Carl Nassib came out to help a movement push forward
When Ryan O’Callaghan decided to come out as openly gay, for him it was supposed to be the end of the world. He thought that he would lose everything. His family, his friends, his career, it would all be over with so his plan in 2011 was to kill himself after the conclusion of his NFL career. ...