Author: Al Daniel
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In Edina, it’s cool to be a cake eater
The Cake Eater Classic sounds like it belongs on a one-shot marquee in a satirical primetime cartoon episode. Its trophy looks like it was pilfered or purchased from the Food Network’s hardware vault. Not so on either count. Since 2005, the multi-tiered girls’ hockey tournament has been a culturally quintessential event in Edina, Minn. It…
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Wait 20 years to gauge NHL China Games effect
The NHL China Games, conducted this past Thursday and Saturday, come two years after Andong Song broke ice at the 2015 draft. The People’s Republic has sent one of its talents to an NHL prospect pipeline in its history. And now it has savored a weekend-long return package with the Los Angeles Kings-Vancouver Canucks contests…
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UND should do more to remember its bygone team
Six months later, the University of North Dakota’s decision to eliminate its women’s hockey program is fully sinking in. The first weekend of the calendar autumn is the first weekend of widespread NCAA game action. Between regular-season openers and extramural exhibitions, five former Fighting Hawks will debut their new college crests Friday, Saturday or Sunday.…
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Miracle’s West: ‘It all started with Mighty Ducks 2’
Long before he played through a bruise on the leg as Rob McClanahan, goaltending prodigy Nathan West launched his acting endeavors by taking a bruise on the palm. Before he fought a rival-turned-teammate in character as McClanahan, he briefly brawled with Ken Wu. And before he reenacted an historic Olympic gold-medal clincher, he surrendered a…
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Quebec City’s chance to reset the tone
The Videotron Centre clearly does not want to just be for the Quebec Remparts. That was how its shuttered predecessor, Colisee Pepsi, rode out its final seasons. This month marks the five-year anniversary of the groundbreaking for Quebec City’s bigger, newer and improved arena. The who’s who of ex-Nordiques in attendance all but self-explained the…
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McGill suspended; belated justice for Adam Banks
For all of the ways The Mighty Ducks stretches or snubs the truth, the egregiously lenient minor penalty resulting from the McGill-Adam Banks incident has seen its share of real-life equivalents. From the NHL downward, every hockey league has baffled its viewers when one player lies out cold from a malicious or reckless hit while…
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Mighty Ducks Animated Series: One-year wonder or one-year blunder?
It was as if Disney knew its Duck bubble was set to burst. Precisely three months after premiering its two-part pilot, “The First Face-off,” the Mighty Ducks Animated Series presented “The Final Face Off.” Curiously, five more episodes had their original airdate afterward. But on the morning of Dec. 7, 1996, ABC viewers saw the Ducks…
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Ducks made Anaheim its own sports city
Before any forms of the Mighty Ducks were conceived, Southern California novelist T Jefferson Parker established an authoritative distinction between the neighboring Los Angeles and Orange Counties. A childhood transplant from L.A., Parker invoked the expression “Orange Curtain” in a 1990 column for the Los Angeles Times. Favoring his longer-serving locale, he pulled no punches,…
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10 best one-time South Park guest stars
The ever-resourceful Trey Parker and Matt Stone know how to set their audience up for pleasant surprises. For 20 seasons and counting, South Park has admitted that it tends to for cheap imitations of household names. The chief exceptions came in the formative seasons and the 1999 feature film, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.…
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A bold and balanced buildup
With each U.S. women’s hockey media magnet who preceded Hilary Knight, marketing the team and the sport was a limited-time solo commitment. Starting with her tenure as Team USA’s new “face,” it has become more of a team effort with no calendar confines. Still, she figures to be the most substantial factor with her established…