Sports category, Page 2092
North Huntingdon’s Austen Swankler on NHL Central Scouting draft list
The NHL draft, like the rest of the sports world, remains in limbo. But the league’s official internal scouting service has released its final rankings in advance of it. And local product Austen Swankler is on the list. Swankler, a North Huntingdon native, came in at No. 200 in the...
2 Pitt divers, 1 swimmer earn All-American status after NCAA cancellation
Three athletes from Pitt’s swimming and diving team lost their opportunity to compete in the NCAA Championships, but that roadblock didn’t stop them from becoming first-time All-Americans. Sophomore divers Serena Buchwald and Amy Read and junior swimmer Blaise Vera were named Wednesday 2020 All-Americans by the College Swimming & Diving...
Steelers’ T.J. Watt, Rams’ Aaron Donald among favorites to win defensive player of yearVideo
Four Pittsburgh Steelers are among the more than six dozen names that a prominent betting site have named as potential candidates for 2020 NFL defensive player of the year. The list of more than six dozen names is headed by a Pitt alumnus. Penn Hills High School graduate Aaron Donald...
Fans can submit nominations for Steelers’ 4th annual Hall of Honor class
For the first time, the Pittsburgh Steelers are soliciting nominations for the fourth annual Hall of Honor class. Fans, however, better hurry with their submissions. Voting ends April 17. The Hall of Honor, which started in 2017 with a 27-member class, has 36 representatives. Five members were inducted in 2018...
Penguins Foundation distributes 500 backpacks of supplies for schooling at home
Families who lack educational resources in their homes during this school-from-home period are the target of a donation from the Pittsburgh Penguins Foundation, the team announced Wednesday. The organization’s charitable arm is donating school supplies filling 500 backpacks — 200 each to State Police barracks in Allegheny and Somerset counties...
Tom Brady on Howard Stern: It was ‘just time’ to leave Patriots for new challenge
TAMPA, Fla. — Tom Brady entered his final season in New England with a strong inkling it would be his last with the Patriots. The six-time Super Bowl champion who signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in free agency last month said Wednesday on SiriusXM’s “The Howard Stern Show” it...
Mark Madden: Playing all MLB games in Arizona sounds far-fetched, but we could use some normalcy
MLB’s proposal to sequester all 30 teams and their attendant personnel in Arizona by way of starting the season there sometime in May sounds far-fetched. But if games are played in empty ballparks, it’s going to be easy to hear the Houston Astros wallop that trash can. They won’t get...
Vote on Marc-Andre Fleury’s best playoff saves. And relive the 2009 Stanley Cup Final
Wednesday’s “Essey Tire” hockey podcast features Penguins Radio Network host Brian Metzer, as we flashback to the 2009 Stanley Cup Final. Because, well, there are no 2020 NHL playoffs to discuss right now. Thanks for that, covid-19. So the best we can do is look to the past. And AT&T...
Tim Benz: Play MLB games. Or don’t. But spare us the social distancing optics.
Try to keep up, baseball fans. Because you are reading a column that’s being written while stuck in “fast forward.” In an effort to avoid a covid-19-induced shutdown, Major League Baseball is considering playing the 2020 season exclusively in a league-wide, semi-quarantined state of existence throughout the Phoenix, Az., area....
First Call: Steeler hurt most by quarantine? 10-round NFL Draft? Rashard Mendenhall still fumes over Super Bowl fumble
In Wednesday’s “First Call,” the Steelers player most hurt by the absence of an offseason program. Rashard Mendenhall is still touchy about his Super Bowl fumble. Kevin Colbert wants a 10-round draft. Shutdown hardest on whom? ESPN.com came up with a list of one player per team that is going...
Want feedback from Roger Federer? Tweet him your volleying videoVideo
Roger Federer offered stuck-at-home amateurs the ultimate online fantasy camp of sorts, a chance to get tennis tips from a guy many consider the greatest of all time. While people all over the world are cooped up because of the new coronavirus — social distancing while trying to stay healthy...
Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy targets May 1 return; university disagreesVideo
Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said Tuesday he hopes to have his team return to its facilities May 1, a proposed timetable that would defy federal social-distancing guidelines and quickly was disputed by the university and its athletic director. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended against gatherings of...
Players, managers intrigued by MLB’s all-Arizona optionVideo
Boston’s Chris Sale, out for the season following Tommy John surgery, thought about the prospect of his teammates sequestered in the Phoenix area for an extended period if MLB and its players adopt an all-Arizona start to the season. “I don’t know if I could look at my kids just...
Dayton’s Obi Toppin wins Wooden Award as top hoops playerVideo
Obi Toppin of Dayton won the John R. Wooden Award as the nation’s outstanding college basketball player. Toppin, along with Saddiq Bey of Villanova, Luka Garza of Iowa, Myles Powell of Seton Hall and Peyton Pritchard of Oregon, also won positional awards from the Basketball Hall of Fame. The winners...
Doug Ferguson: Masters in November is better than no Masters at allVideo
C.T. Pan could become a footnote in history at Augusta National. Imagine qualifying for his first Masters and then having to wait 571 days before he can hear the most understated announcement in golf. “Fore, please. C.T. Pan now driving.” One week after Tiger Woods slipped on a fifth green...
Jags pass rusher Ngakoue teases Eagles interest
Yannick Ngakoue doesn’t want to go back to the Jacksonville Jaguars. He’s made that clear over the past month or so. But where will the 25-year-old pass rusher end up? The Jaguars placed the franchise tag on Ngakoue, which keeps him in team control, but he has not signed the...
With draft approaching, former Pitt teammates Reggie Mitchell, Saleem Brightwell reunite
Saleem Brightwell always felt comfortable asking Reggie Mitchell for guidance. Didn’t matter where. Didn’t matter when. Didn’t matter how many people were watching. He did so during a moment of chaos in Clemson’s Death Valley in 2016 when more than 80,000 people were making so much noise that Mitchell, Pitt’s...
Penguins’ Bryan Rust settles into routine of working out, board games, street hockeyVideo
Hockey players are famously routine-oriented. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise Bryan Rust has been drawn to a daily schedule even during these uncertain times of stay-at-home orders. “I get up, usually have a little bit of a slow morning and usually have a coffee, hang out a little...
Bettman raises chance of NHL not completing regular season
For the first time since halting play four weeks ago, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman raised the possibility Tuesday of not completing the regular season in order to squeeze in time to award the Stanley Cup. Bettman acknowledged during an interview with NBCSN the league is considering having games played at...
Former Cal (Pa.), Slippery Rock standouts named to All-Decade team
A quartet of former WPIAL football players are in elite company. Cal (Pa.) products Rontez Miles and Eric Kush, along with Slippery Rock’s Brandon Fusco and Marcus Martin, were selected to the D2Football.com All-Decade Team on Tuesday. Miles, a 2012 grad, was a first-team selection at defensive back. Kush, also...
Russia denies U.S. allegation of World Cup bid bribes
GENEVA — Russian officials Tuesday denied bribing a FIFA voter with millions of dollars to support the country’s winning 2018 World Cup bid, after American prosecutors revealed new details about the alleged payments. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia had no part in bribing FIFA executive committee members to win...
Iconic sports cities turn eerie during coronavirus shutdownVideo
They are cities defined by iconic sporting events. When Augusta comes up, one instantly thinks of the Masters. If Omaha is mentioned, it’s often in the same breath with the College World Series. It’s hard to imagine Louisville without the Kentucky Derby. In the coming weeks, The Associated Press will...
Buccaneers unveil new, yet familiar look for next seasonVideo
TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are all in for a new look in 2020. Building on momentum created by the signing of six-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady in free agency, the Bucs on Tuesday unveiled new uniforms for next season — a move that also figures to...
Redskins weigh drafting Chase Young vs. trading No. 2 pickVideo
WASHINGTON — It has long seemed like a virtual certainty that the Redskins will take Chase Young with the second pick in the NFL Draft. If the Cincinnati Bengals select LSU quarterback Joe Burrow first overall as expected, the Ohio State pass-rusher and Heisman Trophy finalist would fall into Washington’s...
Penguins’ Zach Aston-Reese moves in with Bryan Rust, wifeVideo
Take a nationwide lockdown headed into its fourth week, the suburban house of a hockey player and his wife, add her brother, his teammate and three dogs. “My wife has been good with it — a house full of boys,” Bryan Rust said Tuesday. “But she has been awesome.” Rust...
