THE WEARY GROUP trudged across the tarmac and onto the team plane at Philadelphia International Airport.

Awaiting the Los Angeles Lakers at the end of their 10-day, five-game road trip was a cross-country trek back to L.A., with an 11 a.m. ET departure time allowing for a 2:05 p.m. PT scheduled arrival time. This meant their Sunday was supposed to be salvaged by some semblance of an off day in Southern California, after touring through Houston, Boston, New York and Philly amid the chill that comes with late January in the Northeast.

The traveling party filed in -- broadcasters, media relations and team support staff in the back; coaching staff, training staff and players in separate sections going from tail to cockpit. It was one of those flights where those in window seats pulled the shades down as soon as they sat down, looking to doze off before the plane even took off.

But not everyone could sleep.

A few hours into the flight, as the plane hovered above the Midwest, Lakers coach Frank Vogel's face was lit by the glow of a screen as he pored over game tape from the team's 108-91 loss to the 76ers the night before.

The poor performance had soured a night in which LeBron James had eclipsed Kobe Bryant for No. 3 on the all-time NBA scoring list -- in Bryant's hometown, no less.

As Vogel watched clip after clip of the Sixers dismantling his squad, he was approached by Lakers director of media relations Alison Bogli. She had seen a news report on her phone: Kobe Bryant had died in a helicopter accident.

"There was that uncomfortable time, feeling like, 'This is a crazy report,'" Vogel says. "Like, 'This is not true. There's no way.' My expectation was to hear that it was a false report."

Bogli, whose Lakers career dates back to the late 1990s, was texting with team personnel back in California, trying to gather information. It wasn't long, sources say, before Lakers controlling owner and president Jeanie Buss replied. It was true. Kobe was gone.

"That's when I decided if it's 100 percent true, then [the players are] all seeing reports and wondering," Vogel says. "I felt like, as their coach, as their leader, I just instinctually felt like they should hear it from me immediately."

MORE: Stories from those close to Kobe

ANTHONY DAVIS WAS another restless passenger.

"I can't sleep on planes, and I'm watching my iPad," Davis says.

Out of the corner of his eye, the Lakers' star big man saw a phone screen flash in one of the rows surrounding him -- a sign of activity amid the slumbering basketball squad, but nothing noteworthy enough to call his attention away from "Avengers: Endgame."

Only the activity grew.

When Davis next glanced away from his screen, his eyes focused on Dwight Howard and DeMarcus Cousins, waving their hands in his direction, their urgency muted by Davis' noise-canceling headphones.

"So I remove one of my headphones, and I look," Davis says. "And Dwight tells me, 'Man, Kobe died.' And me thinking as invincible as Kobe Bryant is, I'm like, 'Kobe who?' Because I'm like, that's not -- it's not Kobe Bryant.

"And he was like, 'Kobe.' And I was like, 'OK. Kobe who? I'm not sure who you're talking about.' And he was like, 'Kobe Bryant.' And at this time, Bron is still asleep. So I was like, 'Wait, what? How? Like, I need details, like, tell me.' And he was like, 'Man, helicopter crash.'"

Davis jostled the resting James.

"And I just like, start shaking Bron, like, 'Wake up! Wake up!'"

The players section, quiet moments ago, began to stir, members of the team scrambling to log on to the in-flight Wi-Fi.

"By this time, all the players have woken up," Davis says. "Everybody's trying to get to the internet to get on their phone and see what's going on. 'Is it true?' Or, 'What's going on?'"

"It didn't hit me. So I turned my Wi-Fi on just to see," Lakers guard Quinn Cook said on the Inside the Green Room podcast, hosted by fellow L.A. guard Danny Green. "I got 200 messages. Twitter is just going crazy."

Jared Dudley, from the air, became the first member of the organization to comment on the tragedy.

Speechless on this plane ride home! A sad day bruh! RIP Kobe Bean Bryant! Prayers go to his family and loved ones ?????? This doesn't even feel real man..

— Jared Dudley (@JaredDudley619) January 26, 2020

Meanwhile, James, like Davis and Vogel before him, could not accept what he was hearing.

"I remember the first thing Bron said to me was, 'Man, y'all stop playin -- like, stop playing with me,'" Davis says. "And I'm trying to get on the internet. And Dwight, like, you can see him start crying. He was like, 'It's true.'"

For Howard, whose first stint playing for the Lakers had been marred by a rocky relationship with Bryant, the emotions came swift and hard.

"It was like a movie scene when it happened," he says. "I was extremely hurt."

Howard folded his 6-foot-10, 265-pound frame into the nearest bathroom stall. And there the big man began to weep.

IN 2011, PHIL HANDY, a respected player-development trainer, had joined the Lakers' coaching staff after carving out a career playing internationally. He had been part of the team of trainers tasked with the job of keeping Bryant's battered body running through the end of his career.

After working in similar roles on the Cleveland Cavaliers' championship team alongside James in 2016 and with the Toronto Raptors' title team alongside Kawhi Leonard in 2019, Handy was hired back by the Lakers last summer as an assistant coach under Vogel -- no longer just a workout guru, but a trusted voice in team strategy.

Vogel woke Handy up on the plane to let him know what had happened to Bryant.

"I looked at Frank, and I almost fell out of my seat," Handy recalled on the Inside the Green Room podcast. "It's one of those things you can never be prepared for. It's not what you expect when you wake up. Just the last thing; your mind is not even there.

"I got up and went to the bathroom, and Kyrie [Irving] started calling me. He called me about 10 times, and I couldn't pick up the phone. I knew he was crushed."

Even if Handy had been able to hold it together enough to talk to Irving -- who considered Bryant a mentor and who was coached by Handy in Cleveland -- there was no use trying to ring the Brooklyn Nets guard. When your plane is nearly 38,000 feet in the air, there's no cell service to make a call.

With information still sparse and calls impossible, some members of the broadcast crew in the back of the plane had logged on to the Delta app to stream live television coverage of the crash.

When a member of the team's security, who had worked with Bryant both when he was a player and during his post-playing days, heard that the helicopter had come down in Calabasas, California, he thought of the familiar flight route from Bryant's home in Newport Beach to his Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks. His mind darted to Bryant's daughter Gianna and her typical weekend games at the facility, fearing the worst.

Vogel, through Bogli, knew the painful details when he approached the players: Kobe, Gigi and seven other victims had been lost forever.

ONE BY ONE, the coach made his way through his players to deliver the incomprehensible news.

"It was just a daunting task of just grabbing each guy one-on-one and letting him know," Vogel says.

Some players had already discussed the report as Vogel came to verify it.

"Everybody was crying," Davis says. "It was just like something that we didn't believe, something that was shocking to all of us. Because Kobe, he's touched so many, you know -- players on this team, staff members. You know, Judy [Seto], his trainer; Rob [Pelinka, his] agent; Robert Lara, security. He touched so many people."

James, who had fielded a congratulatory phone call from Bryant that very morning before boarding, gathered the players together.

In the same spot on the plane -- among the mismatched blue and maroon vinyl seats -- where the players had posed for a group photo after a perfect December road trip had pushed their record to 20-3, the group embraced.

James, who had scribbled "Mamba 4 Life" on his sneakers the night before, led the team in prayer.

"It was just off the top off my head, just off the cuff," James says. "I think it was needed for us to come together and just give thanks to the man above.

"Even though at times we question him and question why he do some of the things that he do, know that he's never made a mistake. And just hope that he has his hands on top of Vanessa [Bryant] and the kids at that time, and hope that he continues to watch over all of us. So, I don't know, it wasn't something I thought about. It was something that just kind of came to me, and I said my piece."

IF NOT FOR an emphasis on sleep science, the Lakers would have already been in L.A. and dispersed back to their individual homes by the time Bryant's helicopter went down. Only recently has the team started staying overnight at the end of a road trip.

And so they were all together with more than two hours of flight time to go once the initial report had pinged on Bogli's phone.

The remainder of the trip was enveloped by what one passenger describes as "suffocating silence," outside of the sounds of muffled tears.

As the plane continued west, Cook scrolled through his photo archive, trying to find snapshots of him and Bryant together. Handy says he spent nearly an hour in the bathroom before emerging.

The pain was palpable for everyone on board. Some found purpose in comforting others -- particularly someone like Seto, whose ties to Bryant ran deep.

But all they knew, for sure, was that they would land into a world that was irreversibly changed.

"We were just like, we just need to get off this plane," Davis says. "We just want to get off the plane. And be with your families and, you know, just get back home."

American teenager Coco Gauff has broken into the world's top 50 for the first time.

Now ranked 49th in the world, Gauff is the first 15-year-old in 15 years to reach the women's top 50.

Gauff's breakthrough was when she defeated Venus Williams on her way to reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2019 in her first Grand Slam.

Last month she lost to Sofia Kenin in the Australian Open fourth round in only her third Grand Slam appearance.

Gauff finished 2019 ranked 68th, having also reached the third round at the US Open where she lost to defending champion Naomi Osaka and winning her maiden WTA title at the Linz Open in October.

She has climbed the rankings at a rapid rate, having started 2019 ranked number 686.

Bulgaria's Sesil Karatantcheva, now 30, was the last 15-year-old to break the world's top 50 in August 2005.

Australian Ashleigh Barty, 23, remains number one in the world.

Cori 'Coco' Gauff will be 16 on 13 March 2020.

Winner books wild card spot for next year
By ALAN THATCHER – Squash Mad Editor

This year’s Wildcard Challenge at the St. James’s Place Canary Wharf Classic features two extremely talented English players, Tom Ford and Joe Lee, who have returned to action after extended absences caused by injuries and illness.

They will take to the court at the East Wintergarden for a head-to-head battle immediately before the final, which takes place at 19:30 (GMT) on Friday, March 13.

The challenge match is yet another innovation pioneered by London’s biggest professional squash tournament, and offers the winner a coveted place in next year’s main draw of this PSA World Tour Gold event.

Both Lee and Ford have overcome enormous physical and mental hurdles to return to action. Lee suffered a prolapsed disc in his lower back, which caused further complications in his back and hips.

Ford took an enforced break from the game as he came to terms with the effects of chronic fatigue.

Ford revealed: “There are many reasons why I took a break from the game, but the thing that really forced me to stop is chronic fatigue, which I am still recovering from.

“Ultimately, I had to go through the process of trying to get to the root causes of what led me to burning out and addressing them. These were physical, mental and emotional.

“There were plenty of setbacks, and still are, as I continue to build myself back to full health. I have overcome them by learning to ask for help and get support where needed.

“Seeing an osteopath and acupuncturist regularly helps tremendously with my energy levels. Seeing a sports and clinical psychologist helped me to piece together the psychological work I had done by myself.”

Lee added: “I had a prolapsed disc in my lower back, which was irritating my sciatic nerve and causing discomfort both in the back and hip.

“It was around four months between first feeling the symptoms and having an MRI which confirmed the prolapsed disc. I was playing some of my best squash at the time, which masked it to some degree.

“After a year of rehab with little progress the decision was made to have surgery to tidy up the disc. Unfortunately this took two attempts, but since the second operation I have gone from strength to strength.

“While my doctor, physios and trainers have always been confident I could return to playing, it was unknown how my body would recover and respond to all the different elements of training.

“I have adapted my technique and movement with my coach Danny Massaro. Due to all of the physical work I have done I am much more robust and I feel that I am now hitting and moving in a way that is less stressful on my body.”

Both players have enjoyed keeping in touch with the game through coaching, and, after the hard road of recovery, they are looking forward to appearing on the glass court in front of a sell-out crowd at Canary Wharf.

Ford added: “The draw looks pretty amazing, with 13 of the top 16 players in the world, including all of the top four. It’s a dream for the organisers, and the spectators. It’s an honour to be part of it.”

All of the action from East Wintergarden will be streamed live on SQUASHTV (rest of world), Eurosport Player (Europe only) and the official PSA World Tour Facebook page (excluding Europe and Japan), while the semi-finals and final will also be shown live on multiple mainstream broadcasters around the globe.

St. James’s Place Canary Wharf Classic tournament website 

Pictures courtesy of KIM ROBERTS and PSA

ABBOTTSTOWN, Pa. – Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek officials have announced that Red Robin Gourmet Burgers has signed on as the presenting sponsor of the week-long series.

“The PA Speed Week Ass’n is pleased to welcome Red Robin as the presenting sponsor of the 2020 Pennsylvania Sprint Car Speed Week,” said Alan Kreitzer, a member of the association. “Red Robin is a great supporter of sprint car racing and this partnership will help to advance the growing popularity and prestige of the PA Speed Week series”.

“Lehigh Valley Restaurant Group – Red Robin looks forward to growing our partnership with sprint car racing by supporting the 30th Annual Pennsylvania Sprint Car Speedweek,” said Chris DeFrain, CFO at Lehigh Valley Restaurant Group. “We have been a locally owned and operated part of the central and eastern Pennsylvania communities for 27 years.  Race fans have supported Red Robin, and we look forward to bringing our two communities together during the most anticipated week in PA sprint car racing.  Whether it is memories of your favorite restaurant or the first time you saw the sights and sounds of sprint car racing, we all fondly remember those times with family and friends.”

The 30th annual Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek kicks off on Friday, June 26 at Williams Grove Speedway for night one of nine consecutive nights of racing.

Friday, June 26 – Williams Grove Speedway
Saturday, June 27 – Lincoln Speedway
Sunday, June 28 – Selinsgrove Speedway
Monday, June 29 – Lincoln Speedway
Tuesday, June 30 – Grandview Speedway
Wednesday, July 1 – Port Royal Speedway
Thursday, July 2 – Hagerstown Speedway
Friday, July 3 – Williams Grove Speedway
Saturday, July 4 – Port Royal Speedway

GEARY, North Brunswick – The management of Speedway 660 have announced the track’s schedule for the upcoming season.

The track, entering its 27th consecutive season of operation, will host stock car racing events from May to September, culminating in the annual SpeedWeekend in September.

The biggest change to the schedule for weekly divisions at the speedway is the rotation of divisions throughout the Summer months. With many drivers and teams wanting to maximize on the short Maritime Summer, the track has given each division off weeks throughout the racing season while still giving them ample events to chase checkered flags and ultimately a track championship.

Each of the four divisions will see 10 to 12 scheduled events, with extended distance races scattered throughout the Summer. Every race night will have a spotlight division, giving the four house classes a chance to be the headliner as the year progresses.

“We are looking forward to getting our racing schedule for the season out to our teams and fans,” said Max Roy, owner of Speedway 660. “Our teams can now plan around divisional off-weekends to spend time with their families and our fans can start circling dates to come out and cheer on their Saturday night heroes. There are plenty of marquee events scattered in this schedule and it all leads up to SpeedWeekend. I can not wait to get the season underway.”

The season kicks off on Sunday, May 24 at 2 p.m. with the Riverview Ford Lincoln Season Opener. The four house divisions, the Pro Stock, Sportsman, Street Stock and Sharp Shooters, will all race for the first time on May 24. The four staple divisions in the Geary woods will race four more times together, including Kids Day (Sunday, June 7), Christmas in July (Saturday, July 25), Fan Appreciation Night (Saturday, Aug. 22) and the Night of Champions (Saturday, Aug. 29).

The DMR Auto presents the Ricky Bobby Street Stock 150 returns for a third season, taking place on Saturday, July 11. The Late Model Sportsman and Sharp Shooter divisions will play support to the biggest Street Stock division race in Eastern Canada. An early arrival party, the Ricky Bobby Bash, will take place on Friday, July 10. A rain date for the Ricky Bobby 150 has been set aside for Sunday, July 12.

SpeedWeekend will cap a busy season at one of New Brunswick’s top oval tracks. The Labour Day classic kicks off on Friday, Sept. 4 with the annual Corn Boil, Bonfire and Concert. The party turns to business on track for teams on Saturday, Sept. 5 with the Sportsman 100 taking center stage. Touring divisions will play support on Saturday evening with the return of the Passione Flooring & Interiors East Coast Mini Stock Tour, Maritime League of Legends Tour and Bandolero divisions. Sunday, Sept. 6 will be headlined by one of the Maritime crown jewels, the 20th Annual Pro Stock 250, along with racing action in the Sharp Shooters, Street Stocks, Bandoleros and Atlantic Modified Tour.

Speaking of the Atlantic Modified Tour, they will make an additional stop at Speedway 660 this season. The Tour will anchor the show on their first stop to Speedway 660 on Saturday, June 20.

The Sharp Shooter division will have extended distance races early in the season to get the fluids flowing. The fastest growing division at Speedway 660 will thrill fans for 50-laps on Saturday, June 13 and hit the track for the Second Annual Gunslinger 50 on Saturday, July 4. In addition to the DMR Auto presents the Ricky Bobby 150, the Street Stocks will run an extended distance 75-lap feature on Saturday, Aug. 8. The week after will see the Best of the Best Pro Stock 150 take to the track on Saturday, Aug. 15. The Late Model Sportsman will be in the spotlight on Saturday, June 27 for a 100-lap main event.

The Edmonton Oilers have acquired defenseman Mike Green from the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for forward Kyle Brodziak and a conditional draft pick in either 2020 or 2021, the Oilers announced.

Green, 34, adds a veteran presence to the Oilers, who are second in the tight Pacific Division race, just three points out of first but just one point ahead of Vancouver.

Green, who has three goals and eight assists in 48 games this season, has played the past five seasons in Detroit, signing there as a free agent after 10 years in Washington, which drafted him 29th overall in 2004.

He is a free agent at the end of this season.

Green brings experience to a position group for Edmonton that is currently missing two of its top defenders: Kris Russell, recovering from a concussion, and Oscar Klefbom, out with a shoulder injury.

"When you can bring in guys that are only going to help your team, help your depth, and we already know what we got in this locker room right now, just to be able to add to that and be a threat, I think it's fun," Oilers forward Riley Sheahan said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Colorado Avalanche have acquired center Vladislav Namestnikov from the Ottawa Senators for a fourth-round draft pick in 2021, according to multiple reports.

Namestnikov, 27, has 13 goals and 12 assists in 56 games this season. He started 2019-20 with two games for the New York Rangers before they traded him to the Senators.

Ottawa sits in seventh place in the Atlantic Division and is almost assured of missing the playoffs for the third straight year. The Senators have already traded defenseman Dylan DeMelo this month.

For his career, Namestnikov has 79 goals and 104 assists in 416 games. His best season came in 2017-18, when he had 48 points in a campaign where he was traded from the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Senators at the deadline.

He will be an unrestricted free agent this offseason and is carrying a $4 million cap hit in 2019-20.

The Professional Women's Hockey Players Association is postponing a one-week tour in Japan, citing "the worsening of the coronavirus outbreak in the region.

As part of their "Dream Gap Tour" featuring stars from the U.S. and Canadian national teams, the PWHPA was scheduled to play three games from March 4-7 at Tokyo's Shin-Yokohama Skate Center against the Japanese National Women's Hockey. A roster of 18 players was scheduled to appear, including Americans Gigi Marvin and Amanda Kessel.

"After careful consideration, the Japan Ice Hockey Federation felt compelled to cancel the event in light of the worsening of the coronavirus outbreak in the region. While both organizations were excited for the games, the health and safety of the players and supporters is their primary concern at this time. The organizations will be working to reschedule the tournament in the 2020-2021 season," the PWHPA announced on Monday.

The Japan tour was scheduled a few weeks ahead of the 2020 IIHF Women's World Championships that will be held at the end of March in Nova Scotia.

The PWHPA's "Dream Gap Tour" is next scheduled to hit Tempe, Arizona for a weekend event on March 6.

The Edmonton Oilers have acquired defenseman Mike Green from the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for forward Kyle Brodziak and a conditional draft pick in either 2020 or 2021.

How did each general manager do in this trade?

The deal:

Oilers get: D Mike Green

Red Wings get: F Kyle Brodziak, fourth-round pick in 2020 or third-round pick in 2021

Edmonton Oilers: B+

Viktor Hovland's breakthrough win at the Puerto Rico Open didn't bring with it a Masters invite, but it did nudge the Norwegian significantly closer to Magnolia Lane.

Hovland birdied the 72nd hole to edge Josh Teater for his first career PGA Tour victory, a win that brought with it plenty of perks (spots in The Players and PGA Championship) and job stability (an exemption through 2022). But because it was held opposite a WGC event, Hovland's victory did not give him an automatic invite to the Masters, where he was low amateur last year.

But that doesn't mean that all hope is lost for the 22-year-old. Hovland's win did propel him to No. 60 in the Official World Golf Ranking, a jump of 42 spots. It puts him in line to potentially make the 64-man field at next month's WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, which will be finalized after The Players, and if he moves into the top 50 in the world by March 30 he'll earn that Masters bid.

Patrick Reed's victory in Mexico City moved him back inside the top 10, rising six spots to No. 8 in the world. While Jon Rahm's close call in Mexico wasn't enough to overtake Rory McIlroy at No. 1, it was enough to move up one spot to No. 2, bumping an idle Brooks Koepka down to No. 3.

Mexico runner-up Bryson DeChambeau went from 16th to 14th, while a T-3 finish moved Erik van Rooyen from No. 52 to No. 40. Jordan Spieth fell one spot to No. 54 after a T-58 finish, while Phil Mickelson fell from 58th to 62nd after failing to qualify for the WGC event.

McIlroy retains the top spot for another week, now followed by Rahm, Koepka, Justin Thomas and Dustin Johnson. Recent winner Adam Scott is now up to No. 6, with Patrick Cantlay, Reed, Webb Simpson and Tiger Woods rounding out the latest top 10.