Canada’s assistant coach Jeremy Colliton speaks to his players during training on Sunday.ANNEGRET HILSE/Reuters
The NHL set up its little kiosk in Las Vegas over the weekend, hoping to do some market outreach.
The league’s biggest brainwave? Floating a podium into the middle of the fountain in front of the Bellagio hotel. On that stretch of water – possibly the single tackiest place on Planet Earth – they held a mini-skills competition. Columbus Blue Jackets defenceman Zach Werenski won it.
“I’ve been to Vegas a few times,” Werenski told reporters afterward, channelling Sally Field at the Oscars. “I feel like every time you come here, you walk by [the fountain]. You watch the fountains go off.”
You watch the fountains go off – he makes it sound so magical.
Zach Werenski of the Columbus Blue Jackets makes a shot on goal against Juuse Saros of the Nashville Predators during the game between the Metropolitan division and the Central division during the 2022 Honda NHL All-Star Game on Feb. 05, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada.Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Standing in a floodlit swamp, in front of a bunch of confused rubes from South Carolina and Sunderland, flipping pucks at a target.
Imagine Tom Brady or LeBron James being convinced to do this. Try harder. Try as hard as you can. Now stop before you pop a blood vessel.
What was this crowd of yokels thinking? It wasn’t, “I am standing in the presence of athletic greatness.” It was, “When did Cirque du Soleil get so boring?” But I presume that like all visitors to Vegas, they were sunburned and day drunk and happy to doing anything that’s free.
What a great hockey moment that must have been.
Around the same time, Team Canada was hitting the practice ice here in Beijing. They blew off their first couple of days in the city because of a) jet lag and b) the opening ceremony.
Now here they were in the practice rink jammed in behind Beijing’s second-best arena. Maybe 20, 25 people watched them take the ice, mostly to make sure they were all there and not telling COVID-19 fibs.
They weren’t wearing nameplates. Aside from a few known commodities, you couldn’t tell who was who.
Once again, the men’s representatives of the best hockey country in the world at the sport’s premier international competition are largely anonymous, even to their own people.
“I think it’s pretty sad,” said one of the few name brand players, Josh Ho-Sang. He was talking about all the NHLers who should be here and aren’t. “I feel really bad for those guys. … They may never get this chance again.”
Really? Do you think the NHL will ever be back?
“I hope so,” said Eric Staal, the only bona fide Canadian superstar (if this was 2008). “It’s great for the future of hockey. It needs to be a sport that’s played worldwide.”
Which is a nice way of saying that assembling a bunch of guys from the AHL and assorted European leagues isn’t accomplishing that goal.
Nobody here has as much to gain as Ho-Sang and Staal. Both probably believe that a good tournament gets them back to the bigs.
And even these guys think this is a bummer. Even they can see how badly the NHL screwed up this golden ticket. What does that tell you?
Every Winter Olympics starts off star-challenged. This one may be more barren of big names than any this century. Who’s the hot property up front? Who’s going to get people who think biathlon is running forward and backward to tune in? Eileen Gu, Chloe Kim, Jamaican bobsledders. That’s about it.
Canada’s hockey players should be filling that celebrity vacuum. If Crosby, MacKinnon and McDavid (neither first names nor nameplates required), that practice rink on Saturday would have been packed.
Instead, what you get is a bunch of volunteers lining up to take pictures with Owen Power. Not because they have any clue who he is. But because he is the biggest guy on the Canadian team, he’s standing still and he’s too nice to say no.
Team Canada should be filling the global sports content vacuum at the beginning and then again at the end. Forget about priceless. This would have been two weeks of unbuyable publicity.
I’m no marketing genius, but it seems to me that making that sort of splash in a country of 1.4 billion people who are just coming around on cold-weather sport might be a good idea.
The failure to see that obvious truth is so large, so pan-systemic, so bafflingly self-defeating, that it hasn’t provoked much controversy. One bad roster decision sets the NHL commentariat alight. A total, top-to-bottom failure to understand what is in the league’s best interests is apparently too complicated to discuss.
That’s how the NHL gets away with it (and other things). They wait a while, and then they fly everyone to Vegas instead. Problem successfully ignored.
On Sunday, Canada practised again. After the players had drifted off, team GM Shane Doan dropped by in his street clothes.
This must have seemed like a sexier job a couple of months ago, but you wouldn’t know that from hearing Doan talk about it.
He waxed on about the possibilities and what it means to wear the Maple Leaf. He analogized it to three similar sporting experiences – playing rugby for New Zealand, soccer for Brazil and cricket for India. Being part of teams that are not allowed to lose.
“That’s the best part of our tradition,” Doan said. “The expectation.”
Is it?
You know what Doan’s trying to say, but it’s getting harder to believe the underlying premise. If that expectation existed, the NHL’s best would be here.
I’m not talking about bargaining their way to the Olympics. I’m talking about climbing into the wheel well of a China-bound jetliner if that’s what it took.
Instead, the heirs to that special hockey tradition got a look at what a hassle Beijing was going to be and said, “Pass.”
Would Brazil’s best soccer players or India’s best cricketers take a powder on a World Cup because going might cost them a few bucks? Because someone at their day job told them they had to stay back and work out all the hours they’d missed in December and January?
No, they would not. Every single one of them would go to the World Cup if it was being staged in Hell. No league could deny them. If one tried, it would spark insurrection.
But here’s the NHL and its players with their thinking caps on, trying to figure out how a couple of weeks in the global spotlight might affect the Leafs’ ability to make cap space for a back-up goalie. This is the important work of hockey. Let guys who have nothing better to do handle the little things, like the Olympics. Canadian hockey’s tradition still carries an expectation, but it’s changed. Now it’s an expectation that we can lord over the sport whenever we feel like it, but only if it’s convenient.
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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe remain undefeated in women’s doubles at the WTA Finals.
The 2023 U.S. Open champions, seeded second at the event, secured a 1-6, 7-6 (1), (11-9) super-tiebreak win over fourth-seeded Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in round-robin play on Tuesday.
The season-ending tournament features the WTA Tour’s top eight women’s doubles teams.
Dabrowski and Routliffe lost the first set in 22 minutes but levelled the match by breaking Errani’s serve three times in the second, including at 6-5. They clinched victory with Routliffe saving a match point on her serve and Dabrowski ending Errani’s final serve-and-volley attempt.
Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face fifth-seeded Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk on Thursday, where a win would secure a spot in the semifinals.
The final is scheduled for Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 5, 2024.
EDMONTON – Jake Allen made 31 saves for his second shutout of the season and 26th of his career as the New Jersey Devils closed out their Western Canadian road trip with a 3-0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday.
Jesper Bratt had a goal and an assist and Stefan Noesen and Timo Meier also scored for the Devils (8-5-2) who have won three of their last four on the heels on a four-game losing skid.
The Oilers (6-6-1) had their modest two-game winning streak snapped.
Calvin Pickard made 13 stops between the pipes for Edmonton.
TAKEAWAYS
Devils: In addition to his goal, Bratt picked up his 12th assist of the young season to give him nine points in his last eight games and now 15 points overall. Nico Hischier remains in the team lead, picking up an assist of his own to give him 16 points for the campaign. He has a point in all but four games this season.
Oilers: Forward Leon Draisaitl was held pointless after recording six points in his previous two games and nine points in his previous four. Draisaitl usually has strong showings against the Devils, coming into the contest with an eight-game point streak against New Jersey and 11 goals in 17 games.
KEY MOMENT
New Jersey took a 2-0 lead on the power play with 3:26 remaining in the second period as Hischier made a nice feed into the slot to Bratt, who wired his third of the season past Pickard.
KEY RETURN?
Oilers star forward and captain Connor McDavid took part in the optional morning skate for the Oilers, leading to hopes that he may be back sooner rather than later. McDavid has been expected to be out for two to three weeks with an ankle injury suffered during the first shift of last Monday’s loss in Columbus.
OILERS DEAL FOR D-MAN
The Oilers have acquired defenceman Ronnie Attard from the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for defenceman Ben Gleason.
The 6-foot-3 Attard has spent the past three season in the Flyers organization seeing action in 29 career games. The 25-year-old right-shot defender and Western Michigan University grad was originally selected by Philadelphia in the third round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. Attard will report to the Oilers’ AHL affiliate in Bakersfield.
UP NEXT
Devils: Host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday.
Oilers: Host the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Patrick Mahomes threw for 291 yards and three touchdowns, and Kareem Hunt pounded into the end zone from two yards out in overtime to give the unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs a 30-24 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night.
DeAndre Hopkins had two touchdown receptions for the Chiefs (8-0), who drove through the rain for two fourth-quarter scores to take a 24-17 lead with 4:17 left. But then Kansas City watched as Baker Mayfield led the Bucs the other way in the final minute, hitting Ryan Miller in the end zone with 27 seconds to go in regulation time.
Tampa Bay (4-5) elected to kick the extra point and force overtime, rather than go for a two-point conversion and the win. And it cost the Buccaneers when Mayfield called tails and the coin flip was heads. Mahomes and the Chiefs took the ball, he was 5-for-5 passing on their drive in overtime, and Hunt finished his 106-yard rushing day with the deciding TD plunge.
Travis Kelce had 14 catches for 100 yards with girlfriend Taylor Swift watching from a suite, and Hopkins finished with eight catches for 86 yards as the Chiefs ran their winning streak to 14 dating to last season. They became the sixth Super Bowl champion to start 8-0 the following season.
Mayfield finished with 200 yards and two TDs passing for the Bucs, who have lost four of their last five.
It was a memorable first half for two players who had been waiting to play in Arrowhead Stadium.
The Bucs’ Rachaad White grew up about 10 minutes away in a tough part of Kansas City, but his family could never afford a ticket for him to see a game. He wound up on a circuitous path through Division II Nebraska-Kearney and a California junior college to Arizona State, where he eventually became of a third-round pick of Tampa Bay in the 2022 draft.
Two year later, White finally got into Arrowhead — and the end zone. He punctuated his seven-yard scoring run in the second quarter, which gave the Bucs a 7-3 lead, by nearly tossing the football into the second deck.
Then it was Hopkins’ turn in his first home game since arriving in Kansas City from a trade with the Titans.
The three-time All-Pro, who already had caught four passes, reeled in a third-down heave from Mahomes amid triple coverage for a 35-yard gain inside the Tampa Bay five-yard line. Three plays later, Mahomes found him in the back of the end zone, and Hopkins celebrated his first TD with the Chiefs with a dance from “Remember the Titans.”
Tampa Bay tried to seize control with consecutive scoring drives to start the second half. The first ended with a TD pass to Cade Otton, the latest tight end to shred the Chiefs, and Chase McLaughlin’s 47-yard field goal gave the Bucs a 17-10 lead.
The Chiefs answered in the fourth quarter. Mahomes marched them through the rain 70 yards for a tying touchdown pass, which he delivered to Samaje Perine while landing awkwardly and tweaking his left ankle, and then threw a laser to Hopkins on third-and-goal from the Buccaneers’ five-yard line to give Kansas City the lead.
Tampa Bay promptly went three-and-out, but its defence got the ball right back, and this time Mayfield calmly led his team down field. His capped the drive with a touchdown throw to Miller — his first career TD catch — with 27 seconds to go, and Tampa Bay elected to play for overtime.
UP NEXT
Buccaneers: Host the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.
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