LAS VEGAS — Four of the past five Stanley Cup championship teams have come from states that don’t collect state income taxes — and seven of the past 10 finalists. Those runs, by the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars, have understandably sparked a debate over whether the teams involved…

At first, his screams were met with silence. Stunned silence, really. This rookie was standing there, two weeks into his NFL career, moments after a humiliating loss at home, and he was calling out … the entire team? “Where my leaders at?!?” C.J. Stroud shouted, grabbing the attention of everyone inside the home locker room…

CHICAGO — Seventy times a year, Barry Antoniazzi tosses on his black No. 27 jersey with “Bagodonuts” stitched onto the back, dons a firefighter helmet covered in Chicago White Sox pins and walks a block and a half to his baseball sanctuary. Antoniazzi grew tired of paying for parking at Guaranteed Rate Field, so 11…

On a practice field on the outskirts of a thousand-year-old city, Jim Davis handed the high school freshman a football and told him his objective. It was to impress upon the senior linebacker waiting on the other side of the offensive line that this new member of the Naples Wildcats was not going to be…

Caitlin Clark: Raising the Game A commemoration of Caitlin Clark’s meteoric career at Iowa and evaluation of the start of her WNBA rookie season. A commemoration of Caitlin Clark’s meteoric career at Iowa and evaluation of the start of her WNBA rookie season. Buy During a hellacious stretch to begin the regular season, as Indiana…

This is an updated version of an article originally published in May 2024. The biggest before-and-after moment in Aryna Sabalenka’s life came five years ago, when her father, Sergey, a former ice hockey player, died suddenly of meningitis at 43. She was 21 at the time. There’s another moment, far less weighty, that changed the…

The 50 NFL coaches and executives who voted in 2024 Quarterback Tiers did not for one second confuse the Miami Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa or the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence for the best QBs in the game. They ranked Tagovailoa 15th and Lawrence 16th among 30 veterans at the position, placing them atop Tier 3 as…

The death of Juan Manuel Izquierdo has left Nacional de Montevideo, and the whole of Uruguay, in a deep sense of despair. He died on August 27 at the age of 27, five days after collapsing on the pitch during Nacional’s Copa Libertadores round of 16 match against the Brazilian club Sao Paulo. A week…

Nothing heralds the beginning of autumn more than people stating that it is “too early to look at the league table”. Listen to some and you might be convinced there was once a glorious era when those interested in football didn’t even glance at the standings until eight, 10, maybe even 12 games in. The…

At the end of the 2023 WNBA season, after the Las Vegas Aces had captured their second consecutive title and A’ja Wilson earned Finals MVP, Wilson had a message. “Whoever you are out there that voted me fourth (for MVP), thank you. Thank you so much,” Wilson said during the team’s championship rally. “I wanna…