To many longtime hockey fans, Commissioner Gary Bettman seems more interested in destroying the game they love than protecting it.
In his 20-year tenure, the NHL has witnessed three work stoppages; an expansion into the Deep South to the neglect of northern markets; and a television contract with a network that tried to promote the sport with ridiculous, gimmicky, video game-style graphics (see: Fox’s glow puck).
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A bleak season in Berkeley received a jolt of good news this week: Brandon Smith appears healthy enough to rejoin the Cal men’s basketball team in the near future.
After a 6-0 start, the Bears’ season suddenly took a 180-degree turn in December. Smith went down with a head injury, sophomore guard Ricky Kreklow re-injured his surgically repaired right foot and the team has lost seven of its past 11 games.
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Pat Curcio’s five-player trade with the Gwinnett Gladiators is paying off faster than he expected.
The San Francisco Bulls (15-20-1-4) won two of three games against the Stockton Thunder (21-15-4-3) over the weekend after trading team captain Justin Bowers and top-scoring defenseman Sacha Guimond, playing the gritty style of hockey that Curcio envisioned when he executed the deal.
“I’m shocked,” the Bulls’ coach and president said. “The way we played the last two games, I was hoping to get that by game No. 10.”
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Jim Harbaugh encountered the “sharpest iron” he’s ever faced in the first iteration of the Harbowl on Thanksgiving last year.
The Niners entered the contest with a 9-1 record and an eight-game winning streak. It seemed like the NFL was quickly becoming the younger Harbaugh’s oyster. But John Harbaugh’s defense exposed his little brother’s team that night, limiting the offense to 170 yards and sacking Alex Smith nine times while keeping the Niners out of the red zone for the entire game.
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A season that started with promise is hanging by a thread as the Stanford men’s basketball team hosts rival Cal this weekend.
Stanford entered the 2012-13 campaign with their eyes set on an NCAA Tournament berth after capturing the NIT postseason title last season. But the Cardinal (10-7, 1-3) could be watching March Madness on TV again this year if they’re unable to pick up a crucial win against Cal (10-6, 2-2) at Maples Pavilion on Saturday.
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The puck finally drops on a new NHL season this weekend and a familiar Sharks team will get another crack at bringing the Stanley Cup to Northern California.
Despite a disappointing first-round exit from the Stanley Cup playoffs in the spring, the Sharks’ core nucleus remains intact as the team prepares to kick off the lockout-shortened 48-game season on the road against the Calgary Flames on Sunday.
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If the Cal men’s basketball team is going to save its season, someone who isn’t named Allen Crabbe or Justin Cobbs will need to step up and put the ball in the basket at Stanford on Saturday.
The Bears (10-6, 2-2) received a wake-up call last week when Washington ran them out of Haas Pavilion 62-47.
Crabbe and Cobbs shot a combined 7-for-27 from the field and David Kravish was the only player outside of the duo to score more than seven points. The team’s two leading scorers are accountable for 50.5 percent of the team’s points this season.
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Colin Kaepernick could revolutionize the quarterback position in pro football. His speed is more explosive than that of most NFL tailbacks, and he slings the ball downfield with the velocity of a ninth-inning closer. Last week, Kaepernick looked like the super-quarterback that coaches had once dreamed Randall Cunningham, Daunte Culpepper and Michael Vick would become.
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The first team captain in San Francisco Bulls history, Justin Bowers, is headed to the Gwinnett Gladiators in exchange for three players: Rylan Galiardi, Cody Carlson and Christian Ouellet.
The Gladiators also obtained the rights to defenseman Sacha Guimond in the deal. Guimond was called up to the Worcester Sharks last week.
Coach and president Pat Curcio said he executed the team’s first blockbuster trade to obtain roster depth in the wake of the NHL’s return from a 113-day lockout.
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Colin Kaepernick vindicated coach Jim Harbaugh’s controversial quarterback swap with his record-setting performance against the Green Bay Packers.
After eight weeks of acrimony in the press, on social media sites and among fans, the 49ers find themselves back in the NFC Championship Game, where their season ended a year ago.
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Colin Kaepernick ran himself into the NFL record book Saturday and along the way he carried the 49ers to their second straight NFC Championship Game appearance.
In his first postseason start, Kaepernick set a league record for most rushing yards by a quarterback in a playoff game, propelling the 49ers to a 45-31 shredding of the Green Bay Packers at Candlestick Park. The 49ers will meet the winner of today’s game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Atlanta Falcons next Sunday.
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The NHL is back and the San Francisco Bulls are feeling the trickle-down effects.
The Bulls are not only losing NHLers Torrey Mitchell and Ryane Clowe, but Andrew Crescenzi, Jamie Devane, Mikael Tam and Daniil Tarasov are also leaving the team to skate in the AHL.
“That’s the nature of our business. It’s tough to deal with sometimes,” coach Pat Curcio said. “We haven’t really had to deal with it the first three or four months of the season because the NHL has been gone.”
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The longest conference-winning streak in the history of women’s college basketball now stands at 81 games.
Chiney Ogwumike scored 26 points and Amber Orrange added 15 as No. 5 Stanford extended its historic Pac-12 winning streak with a 62-53 win over No. 7 Cal at Haas Pavilion on Tuesday.
“I think [the winning streak] means a lot for the legacy,” Ogwumike said. “But quite frankly, I live in the moment. We try to live in the moment; we take it one day at a time. Today is the biggest day, the most important day.”
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They say timing is everything, and the cliche certainly rings true for the return of the NHL later this month.
Hockey fans are frustrated with Commissioner Gary Bettman and the players’ association for threatening to cancel the entire regular season for a second time in eight years. But by the time the puck drops on the real season — the Stanley Cup playoffs — in the spring, this old spat will seem as ancient as Maurice Richard’s skates.
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The best start in 40 years of Cal women’s basketball will be truly historic if the Bears snap Stanford’s 80-game Pac-12 Conference winning streak tonight at Haas Pavilion in Berkeley.
The No. 7 Bears are gaining national acclaim this season thanks to the first 12-1 start in school history. They’ve already knocked off two ranked opponents — No. 17 Kansas and No. 23 Colorado — and a win over No. 5 Stanford (13-1, 2-0 Pac-12) would be a momentous step toward the goal of becoming an elite program.
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