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Bruce Bennett / Getty Photographs
Dialog Starters: The lengthy tail of a heated U.S.-Canada rivalryÂ
Extra best-on-best worldwide hockey, please. The 4 Nations Face-Off was a lot enjoyable, primarily as a result of it was simply so intense. Thursday’s U.S.-Canada championship sport felt like essentially the most severe factor ever, not the fruits of a four-team round-robin event that had not existed till this month.
Why was this event, and Canada’s additional time win, such an enormous deal? A number of issues heated up the rivalry this go-around:
- American futility. Sidney Crosby’s 2010 Golden Goal was a part of an extended lineage of U.S. disappointment in best-on-best tournaments in opposition to Canada. The Individuals entered the 4 Nations with no title in best-on-best worldwide hockey for the reason that 1996 World Cup of Hockey. The final World Cup was in 2016, and the U.S. misplaced within the group stage.
- Olympic layoff. That stated, it had been 9 years since any American gamers even had a likelihood to beat Canada in a second like this, with the NHL having skipped the 2018 and 2022 Winter Olympics. Many of the Individuals’ large stars weren’t NHL gamers then. Auston Matthews was a rookie on “Staff North America.”
- Politics. Donald Trump’s musings about annexations led to Canadians booing the U.S. anthem, which seemingly had something to do with all that fighting within the groups’ first assembly of the event. Trump and the U.S. staff were buddy-buddy. Justin Trudeau played along, too.
- Rabble-rousers. Wild stat here: There had been 5 complete fights in best-on-best worldwide tournaments earlier than there have been three in 9 seconds final Saturday.
And that amounted to the most-watched NHL-sanctioned game in decades. Our reporters have written so many good stories from the 4 Nations. Having grown up in Pittsburgh within the time of Sidney Crosby, I’m a sucker for this one by Chris Johnston. Additionally, Sean McIndoe was right, and Canada’s well being edge performed a key position Thursday.
Good rivalry, good hockey. Let’s fast-forward to Milano Cortina in 2026.
Information to Know
Facial hair within the Bronx?
The Yankees have lastly parted methods with maybe the most antiquated rule in all of major sports. Proprietor Hal Steinbrenner introduced Friday that New York has amended its infamous 1976 facial hair coverage, now permitting “well-groomed beards” amongst gamers. Steinbrenner had begun mulling the change 10 years in the past, however the addition of nearer (and staunch facial-hair advocate) Devin Williams seems to have been the final straw. Surprisingly, Yankees of past and present aren’t unanimously overjoyed by the rule change.
MLS season kicks off
I’d enterprise to guess roughly zero non-MLS followers know North America’s high soccer league options as many groups because the NBA and NHL. MLS kicked off its 30th season with a 13-game slate yesterday, whereas the brand-new San Diego FC will make its debut tonight in opposition to the LA Galaxy. (Extra importantly, try our employees’s new kit superlatives for all 30 teams. My private favourite: the Galaxy’s “Rizon” gear.)
Extra information
- Juan Soto took his first at-bat as a New York Met yesterday. The end result? A 426-foot blast to center. Sorry, Yankees followers.
- The Faculty Soccer Playoff seeding course of seems primed for an overhaul in year two. In associated information, Oregon followers throughout the nation simply set free a collective sigh.
- Mirra Andreeva turned the youngest WTA 1000 champion ever, taking down No. 2 seed Iga Swiatek and No. 6 seed Elena Rybakina alongside the best way in Dubai. Backstory on the 17-year-old phenom here.
- The Jaguars employed the youngest general manager in the NFL, appointing 34-year-old James Gladstone to work alongside newly named govt vice chairman of soccer operations Tony Boselli.
- As Opening Day approaches, 14-year veteran first baseman Anthony Rizzo stays available on the market. He still wants to play, however will an MLB staff give him a shot?
Troy Taormina / Imagn Photographs
No Man’s Land: Houston, we’ve mediocrityÂ
One of many final vestiges of the Astros’ two-time championship core departed final week, when Gold Glove third baseman Alex Bregman signed with the Crimson Sox. (Read some good reporting here on Boston’s pursuit.)
By win share and World Sequence win, if the Dodgers are this period’s 1A, the Astros are the clear 1B. However issues have been bizarre currently. Take into account:
- The Astros simply traded five-WAR proper fielder Kyle Tucker to the Cubs, a yr forward of Tucker’s free company.
- Nevertheless, additionally they simply gave a three-year, $60 million deal to veteran first baseman Christian Walker, a defensive whiz with pop.
- They usually’ve held on to each employees ace Framber Valdez (who’s coming into his stroll yr) and mega-expensive nearer Josh Hader.
- Moreover, 34-year-old Jose Altuve remains to be right here and nonetheless hitting (.790 OPS in 2024).
Baseball Prospectus tasks 87 wins. FanGraphs tasks 84, which seemingly misses the postseason. The Astros will run the league’s seventh-highest payroll and have the second-worst farm system in MLB, per Keith Regulation.
What offers? I checked in with The Athletic’s Astros beat reporter, Chandler Rome, who broke the information of Bregman’s signing with Boston. He defined the franchise is caught between baseball actuality and possession’s need to maintain making an effort:
💬 Proprietor Jim Crane is fond of claiming the championship window will all the time be open so long as he owns the staff. This can be a entrance workplace attempting to satisfy his needs, attempting to rebuild a barren farm system whereas sustaining a major-league roster that retains shedding superstars. Buying and selling your greatest participant and letting one other bolt to Boston … whereas signing a primary baseman to a $60 million contract is confounding, however essential to maintain Crane’s promise.
Admirable however sticky. Additionally, Altuve might be a left fielder now. Unusual instances in H-City.
Issues You Have to See
WILD BERRY GAVE SISTER JEAN A FIST BUMP!!
— Sickos Committee (@sickoscommittee.org) February 22, 2025 at 10:25 AM
An important, very online-in-2025 replace: Wild Berry Pop-Tart fist-bumped 105-year-old Sister Jean at Loyola males’s basketball’s win over Dayton on Friday.
Pulse Picks
John Hollinger has an interesting take a look at the newest tactical development within the NBA: the “Euro stop.”
How intently did you observe information throughout the sports activities world this week? Check your data with The Athletic’s weekly quiz.
Melanie Anzidei detailed Catarina Macario’s cathartic return to the pitch for the USWNT versus Colombia on Thursday after years of harm woes.
After ESPN and MLB opted out of their TV deal, Andrew Marchand penned a searing column on the information that “despatched shockwaves” via baseball and sports activities media.
Within the purple mild district of Paris sits a viral, visually stunning basketball court that has grow to be revered, as Eduardo Tansley writes in a enjoyable story in the present day.
With the NFL Scouting Mix arising this week, Bruce Feldman revisited his annual Freaks Listing and gave us the 40 players he’s most intrigued to see perform in Indianapolis.
Most-clicked within the publication Friday: Juan Soto gifting new Mets teammate Brett Baty a car in exchange for his No. 22 jersey.
Most-read on the web site yesterday: Elise Devlin’s journaling exploration with Michael Phelps.
(Prime picture: Nathan Ray Seebeck / Imagn Photographs)
