Author: Al Daniel
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Alexis Crossley racing to sustain fitness — her own and others’
Just a little more. Alexis Crossley comes from a household and neighborhood where craving, pursuing and doling out more enrichment is the norm. Especially if that enrichment comes via competitive exercise. The way she recounts her upbringing in Cole Harbour, N.S., on the outskirts of Halifax — and the way she represents the place as…
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10 greatest players to come through the Albany Devils, River Rats
Albany Devils fans will take in Thursday night’s Calder Cup playoff opener knowing that their city’s AHL days are numbered. With New Jersey moving its top development base to Binghamton, and with no immediate replacement lined up for New York’s capital city, those fans will lack a local pro team for the first time in…
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Sympathy for the seniors as college hockey withdrawal kicks in
F. Scott Fitzgerald, the brain parent of polar personalities Nick Carraway and Tom Buchanan, stands in bronze memoriam in the same vicinity as college hockey coaching legend Herb Brooks. The proximity of the tributes to those two Minnesotans in their native city of St. Paul is most fitting when the NCAA postseason comes and goes.…
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10 greatest players to come through the Alaska Aces
The Alaska Aces had a Hartford Whalers-esque finish to a somewhat similar chronicle this past Saturday. The franchise had spent two-plus decades operating in multiple leagues, under multiple datelines and under the same nickname before financial constraints, among other factors, precipitated its demise. No longer a sustainable operation as the Last Frontier’s lone representative, the playoff…
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The best of Kate McKinnon’s first five years on Saturday Night Live
Paul Brittain all but did the world a favor by cutting off his Saturday Night Live cast tenure halfway through his sophomore season. Within three months, the show plugged the void by enlisting Kate McKinnon on March 29, 2012. She went onscreen for the first time nine days later, five years ago this weekend. McKinnon wasted little time…
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Gateway to a gift gathering
For 25 years, Shattuck-St. Mary’s has gone national (and occasionally international) with its hockey program. The undertaking was a survival tactic after overall enrollment dipped to perilous lows, so much so that a full team of SSM students was not possible. Since the turnaround, hockey has remained a microcosm of Minnesota’s lone boarding school’s fortunes,…
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5 milestones NCAA women’s hockey fans are still waiting for
NCAA women’s hockey enthusiasts will end a seesaw month of March with a double tablespoon of vinegar following Wednesday’s revelation that North Dakota is promptly abolishing its program. The nation’s No. 4 attendance leader from 2016-17 learned its fate in the wake of the deal that salvaged Team USA’s participation in the IIHF World Championship. The setback is self-explanatory…
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Alex Trebek has run his course as Jeopardy! host
Lately, more often than not, time has expired on a given Jeopardy! round before the contestants and TV audience can try their hand at all 30 clues. What was once a disappointing rarity has become irritatingly commonplace. Yet the clock continues to reset for Alex Trebek, as his hosting tenure hits 33 years and counting. As multiple…
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Scott Sudikoff eager to break more ice with the Women’s Frozen Four
The Family Arena in St. Charles, Mo., is barely a half-hour drive west of America’s ultimate tribute to tackling new territory. When the Gateway Arch’s construction crew finished their project in 1965, the Associated Press stated that the structure “…symbolizes the pioneer spirit of the men and women who won the West, and those of…
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Kirk McCaskill, master baseball convert, savors hockey’s desert deluge
Kirk McCaskill was reached this past Saturday in the wake of his fifth season opener as the Torrey Pines High School baseball coach in San Diego. A 9-1 romp over Murrieta Valley was the cathartic culmination of a wet and windy week that prompted painstaking efforts to remedy the field. Had the Canadian-American dual citizen…