Author: Al Daniel
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10 greatest Kazmaier Award runners-up
This weekend marks the end of the beginning of the Patty Kazmaier Award’s third decade. The national MVP prize in Division I women’s hockey will have its 21st presentation in Minneapolis this Saturday. Inaugurated three seasons before the sport garnered NCAA auspices, the Kazmaier has emblemized the pivotal ambassadors of a growing entity. A majority…
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The women who put Tulsa in the Tulsa Oilers
A golf cart was as close as Amy Henderson and Jessica Adams would get to their own DeLorean. Their joint ride in it as two fresh-faced Tulsa Oilers employees now lives as the start of their shared journey into the new millennium. Today their tenures dwarf those of all other Oilers front-office personnel. Henderson, the…
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Best actors from OHL West Division cities
Editor’s note: This is the latest installment in a recurring series where a Pucks and Rec writer will select the top contemporary actor from each city in a hockey league. This week, we focus on the current markets in the OHL West Division. All filmography and award information was found on the Internet Movie Database.…
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10 greatest high-school hockey dynasties
As with nearly all levels, pure dynasties are practically a relic in high-school hockey. The longer a sanctioning body exists, and the broader and deeper its pool gets, the lower a program’s chances of stringing consecutive championships. In almost every tradition-laden hockey state, bygone scholastic dynasties are easy to dismiss as products of a less…
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How That ’70s Show can (and should) get in on the rash of reboots
I cannot bring myself to watch any more reruns of That ’70s Show. Former core cast member Danny Masterson has pulled an irreversible cloud of unpleasantness over his character’s legacy. That was bad enough for Netflix to cut him from his more recent endeavor, The Ranch. And it is bad enough to sully Steven Hyde.…
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Best actors from OHL Midwest Division cities
Editor’s note: This is the latest installment in a recurring series where a Pucks and Rec writer will select the top contemporary actor from each city in a hockey league. This week, we focus on the current markets in the OHL Midwest Division. All filmography and award information was found on the Internet Movie Database.…
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10 greatest women’s college rivalries
Two WCHA bigwigs combined to hone 10 of Team USA’s gold medalists at the 2018 Winter Olympics. For America’s previous victory in 1998, a pair of pioneering women’s college hockey superpowers from New England produced 11 players. In both cases, it was life imitating art after art imitated life. It is a remake of one…
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Best actors from OHL Central Division cities
Editor’s note: This is the latest installment in a recurring series where a Pucks and Rec writer will select the top contemporary actor from each city in a hockey league. This week, we focus on the current markets in the OHL Central Division. All filmography and award information was found on the Internet Movie Database.…
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Greatest NHL careers by Miracle on Ice alumni
No, the 1995 Stanley Cup Final was not the Miracle on Ice all over again. With that said, it brought back the defining event of the 1980 Winter Olympics better than any other NHL moment. For the clincher, you had an underdog team in white playing to its home crowd in an upper Mid-Atlantic state.…
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Lauren Spring: ‘Hope is a really powerful tool’
Lauren Spring did one better than obey an admonishing adage. Even in the context of helping those in need, she did not peer down at her beneficiaries. On the contrary, she literally looked up to them. She did this in the midst of fitting children for much-needed footwear. She did this while rinsing the feet…