Sports are supposed to be fun. Sports are supposed to be an escape from the rest of the world. The Boston Marathon is supposed to be a celebration of human accomplishment. Patriot’s Day in Massachusetts is supposed to honor the brave men and women that fought to found this nation. On April 15, everything the day and the marathon were supposed to be became targets, just the same as the innocent men and women around the blast zone.

With fewer than eight months until the puck drops on the Olympic hockey tournament in Sochi, Russia on February 8, 2014, it is still undecided whether or not NHL players will be making the trip to represent their home countries. The NHL along with the International Olympic Committee and International Ice Hockey Federation have been making progress, but work still remains to be done, mainly hammering out details on travel and insurance, to see whether or not NHL players will participate as they have done since 1998.

That this post is even necessary is a shame in itself, but an individual or series of individuals who fancied themselves important enough to inflict their disturbed will upon the lives of hundreds and thousands of innocents – physically, through the successful detonation of a pair of explosives at the world-renowned Boston Marathon, and emotionally, as any attack close to home does.

Kobe Bryant injured his Achilles this weekend, that much we all know. What’s been lost in the shuffle of disappointment however, is that the actual name of the tendon that the future Hall of Fame guard tore isn’t the only similarity he and the mythological hero share. Mark Milner explains.

For those who follow the NHL, Steve Ott falls into one of two categories. He’s either a beloved player or a hated rival. Checking in at 6’0″, 193 lbs., Ott isn’t the most physically imposing player in the league, but he’s a “shift disturber” extraordinaire, the epitome of a “pest”, and until recently a player […]

The actual fictional book edition of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” according to the inimitable Douglas Adams, “has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover. But there is no official Guide to the Baseball Season, and so panicking comes easily.

On March 30, the Philadelphia Sixers celebrated Allen Iverson bobblehead night during a home game. The diminutive former MVP shooting guard was in attendance himself, making the media rounds and enjoying the adulation of Sixers fans. Of course, this wasn’t the first time that Philly has trotted out Iverson during a home game and it probably won’t be the last, but it has been the most transparent so far.

What the hell, if anything, is going on at Auburn University? It’s some kind of mess and in the end, Mike McNeil will have pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery and will serve three years in jail. But if that’s how it ends, it’s sure tough to know exactly what happened that lead to this. McNeil […]

Football coaches everywhere should be keeping a close eye on the story of Mike Rice. The former Rutgers men’s basketball coach was fired this week after video evidence of him physically and verbally abusing players surfaced, and the scandal has since engulfed athletic director Tim Pernetti (who resigned) and school president Robert Barchi (who’s still there, for the moment). It’s a story that could go well beyond basketball, though, and there are plenty of implications for football, a sport where many coaches have long been known for being hard on their players.

There’s something to be said for face-offs in hockey. But, then again, you already knew that. In a sport where puck possession is the name of the game, one who rules the face-off circle is considered king. Joe Scaringi takes a good, romantic and at times tragic, look at how one draw in particular sent an entire NHL playoff run crashing down.