Archives for March 2016

March 31, 2016

March 30, 2016

Inside the NHL Department of Player Safety: “I am creating effective after this season a new Department of Player Safety which will be headed by Senior Vice President of Player Safety and Hockey Operations, Brendan Shanahan. In this revised role, Brendan will be responsible for developing rules related to better protecting our players without changing the fundamental nature of our game, dealing with equipment and safety issues related to equipment, and pursuant to a request made by Colin Campbell, Brendan will administer commissioner supplemental discipline.” And thus the Department of Player Safety (DoPS, for short) was born.

posted by BoKnows to hockey at 01:06 PM - 0 comments

March 29, 2016

Pace Mannion NBA Pick 'Em: 16 Days Left in the Season: There are seven nationally televised games to predict this week in SportsFilter's contest. Howard_T has a 66-point lead so it may be all over but the crying. Golden State plays twice this week in TV games and Houston thrice.

posted by rcade to basketball at 01:31 PM - 14 comments

Emails from Bettman and other top NHL officials reveal knowledge of harm from fighting and links to drug abuse: "“This is not the same role as it was in the 80’s and 90’s,” Shanahan wrote. “Fighters used to aspire to become regular players. Train and practice to move from 4th line to 3rd. Now they train and practice becoming more fearsome fighters. They used to take alcohol and cocaine to cope. (Kordic) Now they take pills. Pills to sleep. Pills to wake up. Pills to ease the pain. Pills to amp up. Getting them online.”"

posted by rumple to hockey at 01:19 PM - 1 comment

March 28, 2016

ESPN Will Air 'Glory Road' Texas Western/Kentucky Game: In 1966, sports history was made when the five black starters of Texas Western took the court against the all-white team of Kentucky in the NCAA basketball championship. Texas Western (now UTEP) won 72-65 over legendary coach Adolf Rupp's team. The game 50 years ago got the movie treatment in Glory Road but has rarely been seen since the original broadcast on March 19, 1966. That's about to change: ESPN will air it Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. EDT.

posted by rcade to basketball at 11:49 AM - 0 comments

March 27, 2016

March 26, 2016

March 25, 2016

March 24, 2016

NFL knowingly distorted their own concussion research: "These discoveries [from decoding the league's own database] raise new questions about the validity of the committee’s findings, published in 13 peer-reviewed articles and held up by the league as scientific evidence that brain injuries did not cause long-term harm to its players. It is also unclear why the omissions went unchallenged by league officials, by the epidemiologist whose job it was to ensure accurate data collection and by the editor of the medical journal that published the studies."

posted by rumple to football at 12:20 PM - 5 comments

March 23, 2016

NFL Adds Rule for Automatic Ejections After 2 Personal Fouls: The NFL has passed a rule that ejects a player automatically for two personal foul penalties. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell made the recommendation, which will define some personal fouls as infractions that are eject-worthy. The league also moved touchbacks to the 25-yard line and abolished chop blocks.

posted by rcade to football at 01:12 PM - 11 comments

March 22, 2016

March 21, 2016

March 20, 2016

NCAA Men's Ice Hockey Pairings are Announced: The "Shivering (not Sweet) Sixteen" for 2016 have been selected. Quinnipiac (1), East Regional; St. Cloud State (2), West Regional; North Dakota (3), Midwest Regional; and Providence, Northeast Regional, are the top seeded teams. Northeastern has to be the "Cinderella" team, having overcome a 1-11-2 start to go 21-2-3 in its next 26 games to finish 22-13-5. The regionals start on March 26, and the Frozen 4 begins on April 7 in Tampa, FL.

posted by Howard_T to hockey at 10:12 PM - 1 comment

Tennis Tourney Exec: Women Ride Men's Coattails, But They're Attractive: The finals of the BNP Paribas Open are today at Indian Wells. So what better time for Raymond Moore, the CEO of the tournament host, to say that the WTA women "ride on the coattails of the men. ... If I was a lady player, I'd go down every night on my knees and thank God that Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal were born, because they have carried this sport." He also said of the women's game, "They have a lot of very attractive players. ... They are physically attractive and competitively attractive."

posted by rcade to tennis at 05:24 PM - 35 comments

March 19, 2016

Rebecca Lowe Leaving NBCSN Premier League Desk for a While: The face of Premier League soccer in the U.S. is taking a leave of absence during a season that could make history. Rebecca Lowe would rather give birth to her first child than see whether Leicester City can shock the world or Tottenham take its first title since 1961. "Of all the seasons in the Premier League, it's typical that this is arguably been the best one and I won't be there for the end," said Lowe, who is eight and a half months pregnant. Her last game is Sunday's Manchester derby.

posted by rcade to soccer at 11:28 AM - 2 comments

March 18, 2016

March 17, 2016

Gay minor league baseball player quit because of homophobic comments from teammates and coaches.:
In a letter to Outsports, Dunnington says he decided to leave baseball after hearing comments about how gay people should be killed.

posted by grum@work to baseball at 09:28 AM - 4 comments

March 16, 2016

March 15, 2016

March 14, 2016

Pace Mannion NBA Pick 'Em: Week 18: Only five national games this week, including two games tonight on ESPN: Memphis vs Houston at 8 p.m. ET and Cleveland at Utah at 10:30 p.m. This is the week Howard_T falls back to the peloton.

posted by rcade to basketball at 03:35 PM - 13 comments

March Madness 2016: Printable NCAA tournament bracket: Well, actually, the printable version of the bracket is here. The ACC has two #1 seeds this year, Carolina (who won the ACC tournament for the first time since 2008) and Virginia (who lost to Carolina in the ACC championship game). The other two #1s are Oregon and Kansas. I set up a bracket group here. Group name: SportsFilter. Password: 1SpoFi!

posted by NoMich to basketball at 10:53 AM - 5 comments

March 13, 2016

March 12, 2016

Snowmobiler Strikes Iditarod Team, Killing Dog: A snowmobile driver repeatedly attempted to harm two Iditarod sled teams on Saturday morning, leaving one dog dead and several injured, two teams claimed. "Someone tried to kill me with a snowmachine," musher Aliy Zirkle said after reaching a checkpoint. She described two incidents, and musher Jeff King another where his team was hit from behind, killing one dog and injuring two others. The driver fled, but later Arnold Demoski, 26, said that he struck the dog teams and was blackout drunk when it happened. "I feel really bad for what I did," he said.

posted by rcade to other at 04:27 PM - 3 comments

March 11, 2016

March 10, 2016

March 09, 2016

March 08, 2016

Calvin Johnson retires: Nine seasons, one rule, several NFL records, and innumerable crazy catches in the service of an overall 54-90 record and two playoff one-and-dones.

posted by Etrigan to football at 04:37 PM - 1 comment

March 07, 2016

Spring Training Fan Saves Kid from Flying Bat: A fan watching a Pittsburgh Pirates/Atlanta Braves spring training game at Disney World made an incredible save, blocking a bat flying into the stands as it was heading towards a young boy's head. Christopher Horner of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review captured the incident in a series of photos. Pirates outfielder Danny Ortiz, who lost his grip on the bat, had no idea this happened. He said, "I went home and my wife said to me, 'You almost killed that kid!'"

posted by rcade to baseball at 01:56 PM - 1 comment

Shelter Dogs Serve As 'Ball Boys' At Brazil Tennis Open: Dawwwwwww Now I wanna go home and play tennis with my Addie.

posted by NoMich to tennis at 10:20 AM - 1 comment

March 06, 2016

Peyton Manning is Retiring from the NFL: Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning will announce his retirement from the NFL at a news conference in Denver on Monday, bringing an end to a Hall of Fame career. In his 18-year career with the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos, Manning won two Super Bowl titles, five most valuable player awards and the records for career yards and passing touchdowns. He plans to spend more time with his brands: Nationwide, Papa John's, Gatorade, Nike, DirecTV and Budweiser.

posted by rcade to football at 10:14 AM - 12 comments

March 05, 2016

March 04, 2016

Michael Powell follows the sad, dirty trail of big time high school and college ball: For some prominent college coaches, the disheartening math seems to go as follows: win wherever and however you can, and hope that not all of your prior triumphs end up getting vacated.

posted by beaverboard to basketball at 02:02 PM - 1 comment

March 03, 2016

March 02, 2016

Oklahoma City Thunder Co-Owner Dies in Car Crash: Aubrey McClendon, a 20 percent owner of the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder, died Wednesday when his car struck a highway embankment. He was 56. A day earlier, the Department of Justice indicted McClendon for conspiring to suppress prices paid for oil and natural gas leases. Police told Reuters he had "plenty of opportunity to get back on the roadway and that didn't occur."

posted by rcade to basketball at 06:12 PM - 1 comment

Pace Mannion NBA Pick 'Em: Week 18: Eight national games this week, tipping off with Pistons/Spurs and Thunder/Clippers tonight on ESPN. Howard_T is a prognosticative juggernaut.

posted by rcade to basketball at 05:51 PM - 9 comments

March 01, 2016

Bart Starr's Back Injury Was From Brutal Hazing at Alabama: "For more than 60 years, Bart Starr and his wife, Cherry, have kept a dark secret hidden away from the narrative of the Hall of Fame quarterback's career. No more. One of the most respected football players in the history of the game, and arguably one of the toughest, was hazed so badly while at the University of Alabama that it derailed his college career, disqualified him from military service and affected him throughout his 16 years with the Green Bay Packers."

posted by rcade to football at 02:28 PM - 2 comments