Marc-Andre Fleury was the face of the Golden Knights long before the Golden Knights had any faces. The two worst-kept secrets in hockey were that 1)the Penguins were prepared to hitch their wagon to the decade-younger Matt Murray and would not protect Fleury in the upcoming expansion draft, and 2)Vegas would select Fleury, the closest thing to a big name and a recognizable face that would be available in the draft, and an eminently serviceable goaltender. The key word being “serviceable.” Fleury, in his 14 years in Pittsburgh, was only very occasionally great, most often perfectly fine, and in the playoffs, as often as not, outright bad. Even in each of the last two runs, both of which ended with Stanley Cups, Fleury was benched for Murray. His time was up. Semiretirement in the dese…

The Football Association is in talks with Uefa over relocating the Champions League final to England after Turkey was placed on the UK government’s travel red list.

Uefa had been expected to confirm details on Friday for the final on 29 May, with Manchester City and Chelsea fans expected to be allocated at least 4,000 tickets each for the match in Istanbul.

That decision has been postponed pending negotiations, however, with English supporters told to stay at home by the UK government.

Manchester City v Chelsea: bravura final battle is held up by healthy bottom line | Barney RonayRead more

The chances of the game staying in Turkey are remote unless the players are granted an exemption from…

Gareth Southgate and Harry Kane have used a team meeting to urge England’s players not to let their standards slip before Sunday’s last-16 tie against Senegal.

John Stones revealed that good behaviour was top of the agenda when Kane and Southgate spoke to the squad on Friday morning. The head coach and captain were joined by other members of the leadership group in delivering the message, with the focus on ensuring that nothing is left to chance as England step up their push for World Cup glory.

“We spoke briefly as a team [about] not letting any standards drop,” Stones said. “Whether it might be putting your kit the right way for the kit men, putting out socks the right way for the kit men – we get on e…

It was the penultimate question of a 15-minute press conference but one that had everybody nodding in agreement, internally at least. At almost 1am local time in a bunker inside the Frankfurt Arena, Roberto Martínez leaned forward into the microphone and reached for a virtual shield to steel himself.

“Do you feel your game gets too predictable with all those crosses inside the box towards Ronaldo?” came the question and regardless of what the Portugal manager may say, the answer is a resounding big, fat yes. Or as the Portugal supporters mimicking Ronaldo outside the ground before kick-off might say: “Siuuu!”

Cristiano Ronaldo says he was ‘at rock bottom’ during tearful Portugal triumphRead more

Make no …

We’ve already brought you the first 13 figures on this list. Check out the rest below. 14. Pat Kelsey source: AP Every year there’s a mid-major coach whose overachievers storm into the NCAA Tournament. Pat Kelsey’s Charleston Cougars have that upset profile after the successful terraforming of Winthrop from a mid-major walkover into a Big South juggernaut. The 47-year-old has bounced around as an assistant for years, but became the winningest coach in Big South history during his nine years at Winthrop, then was nominated for national coach of the year in his final year as coach in 2021. He should be earning a second nomination this year at Charleston, which will raise his profile. A second turnaround of this magnitude should put him on the board in a major conference. 15. Julian…

While searching the aisles at Rite Aid recently for more rubbing alcohol and toilet paper, I came to one of the displays at the end of the aisle that gets stocked with Pokemon, Magic: The Gathering, and baseball cards. To my joy, the 2020 Topps packs had arrived, so instead of the out-of-stock items I’d gone searching for, I returned home with nostalgia. But the real nostalgia arrived in the mail a few days later, because I wanted to see how the cards of today stacked up against the cards of my childhood. So, I found some packs of 1990 Topps on eBay for a dollar each. There were 16 cards in each wax pack, and 34 in the 2020 pack from the store, so I went ahead and cracked open two packs of the 30-year-old cardboard for the exercise. The results? Mostly, it was just good, old-fashioned…

Perhaps you need something to read on the plane home, or something to distract you while you avoid your in-laws. Here are the most compelling long features and essays we published this year so you can catch up before we do it all again in 2019. SafeSport, The USOC’s Attempt To Stop Child Abuse, Is Set Up To Fail—Just Like It Was Supposed To As he was questioned by lawyers in 2015 over and over again about what he did and did not know about sexual abuse suffered by Olympic athletes, then-U.S. Olympic Committee lawyer Gary Johansen made a choice. No matter the question, no matter which lawyer asked it, Johansen did not say “child abuse,” he did not say “sexual assault,” and he did not say “rape.” What he did say, over and over again in his deposition, was “SafeSport.�…

WEEI is where to go to hear Boston Red Sox games on the radio. It’s been that way for most years since 1995, and it will continue to be that way through 2023. Despite the partnership, the team can still acknowledge that the radio station encourages some terrible people. Since Orioles outfielder Adam Jones said that a fan at Fenway called him the N-word in May, the team has presented the notion that it’ll be cracking down on hateful behavior at the park. Team president Sam Kennedy said this in May: “I can tell you, when [the current Red Sox ownership group] arrived in 2002, I think one of the most important things with John Henry, [chairman] Tom Werner and [former president] Larry Lucchino did was acknowledge the shameful past of the Boston Red Sox,” Kennedy said. “There�…