As I sat at my desk this weekend, I could not but think about the Leo Durocher Memorial Tournament taking place over at Stanton Field. Two of Durocher’s sons, Daron and Tom, were participating as part of the Superior National Bank-Stanton squad. I know that Leo created something very ...
I had to chuckle to myself a couple of days ago when I heard two people talking about the recent spate of hot weather in our area. Now, temperatures in the upper 80s and low 90s are nothing to take lightly. There are some pretty severe consequences if you ignore the heat. Like a really bad ...
As we have reached Monday, July 8, the NHL free agency period has reached the start of its second week. Some teams have jumped all over multiple players, other teams have lost a lot of what made them successful last season. It is always fun for me to look at which teams what teams panic, and ...
Should this country ever land on Mars, Neptune or wherever, it’s almost a certainty that some professional sports franchise will immediately set up a game there. After years and years of staging make-believe games overseas, the greedy owners may have established a low when when they had the ...
The passage of time is something a person has no control over. A couple of recent things clearly reminded me of that. First, there was the news that Hancock’s Shane Burcar had been hired for the men’s head basketball coaching job at Northern Arizona University. One, I had just a ...
The St. Louis Blues and Toronto Raptors have already shown that miracles can occur in the world of professional sports. In this most improbable of years, the Blues stunned all in the hockey world by defeating the Boston Bruins in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. And their first-ever cup came ...
If the ongoing National Hockey League and National Basketball Association finals are showing anything, it’s which teams have more sand. The Boston Bruins showed a lot of grit in forcing a Game 7 with a big win over St. Louis on enemy ice. The city of St. Louis had all but conceded that ...
Despite the sheer volume of them in this year’s NHL playoffs, there are still no two words better than these: Game Seven. Yes, thanks to a 5-1 victory Sunday by the visiting Boston Bruins, the Stanley Cup Finals are going to a Game Seven, in Boston. After two straight wins by the St. Louis ...
Looking at the state of the so-called “independent” sports in our area, it’s hard to believe things have changed so much. By independent, I’m talking about baseball and softball for the most part. Those were the main sports played by people beyond high school age in the ...
There’s a reason why the seats at Comerica Park are mostly empty this season. And it’s not all because this year’s edition of the Detroit Tigers is dreadfully bad. Tigers fans are beginning to realize that 1984 was a long time ago …. and that there has been no World Series flags ...
It’s been said for some time that the signs of the apocalypse are with us right now. And without even considering — or even factoring in the situation in Washington D.C. — I can see enough in sports alone that should have everyone very worried. Take the recent selection of the ...
There is an epidemic in our culture. It has permeated into sports culture in waves and we need to stop it before it takes root permanently. That epidemic is blame. We are always looking for blame, someone to blame, something to blame. In sports, this manifests as blame of referees. That is ...
I was recently listening to one of those late night sports shows when I heard something that really surprised me. Now, I don’t normally pay much attention to these so-called “shock jocks.” They almost always originate from the West or East Coast — where they assume the only real ...
Several years ago, when I was still in high school, ESPN had a contract with the NHL and developed their own theme music for games that became iconic. It is still hard for me to sit down to watch a hockey game and not hear that music in my head. The theme music even made it into the ESPN NHL ...
It was with more than a little regret that I read about the recent retirement of long-time Ontonagon High School basketball coach Dick Franti. In a business where you see coaches come and go with the regularity of a north wind off Lake Superior, Franti was unique. Sure, he was around for a ...
There are a number of strange things in the world of sports, that quite honestly, baffle me. Take the just completed National Football League draft, if you will. After listening to a so-called battery of experts (Mel Kiper Jr. and numerous others) dissect the draft for the last year, I still ...
Last week, hockey fans were treated to not one, not two, but three Game Sevens. Man, talk about an opportunity ripe with chances to run the full gamut of emotions over the course of 30 or so hours. On Tuesday evening, the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs got things going with a bang, ...
It was one of those things I intended to do …. but never got around to. The year was 1968, one of the most turmoil-filled in the history of this country. There was unrest in city streets, assassinations of our leaders and riots wherever you looked. But it was also the Year of the Tiger, ...
With two exciting games on Sunday afternoon and early evening, NHL hockey fans were treated to events leading to two of the best words in the English language: Game Seven. The Boston Bruins overcame a 1-0 deficit to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the afternoon game with power play goals from Brad ...
As far as I’m concerned, it’s never too early — or too late — to talk football. And the next big day for fans of the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions is coming up later this month with the annual college draft. The Packers showed definite signs of breaking down last season. Not ...