I Dig Sports
RALEIGH, N.C. -- The Carolina Hurricanes and free-agent center Ryan Dzingel have agreed on a two-year, $6.75 million contract.
The deal announced Friday by general manager Don Waddell will pay Dzingel $3.25 million this season and $3.5 million in 2020-21.
"Ryan has proven that he can be an impact player offensively," Waddell said. "His speed, skill and vision make him an excellent fit for our forward group and our style of play."
Dzingel, who is 27, had career highs last season with 26 goals, 30 assists and 56 points. He was acquired by Columbus right after Matt Duchene -- with both coming from the Ottawa Senators -- as the Blue Jackets went all-in on a playoff run,
He had a brutal postseason, however, with just one goal and zero assists in nine playoff games. He was a healthy scratch in Game 2 against the Boston Bruins.
The 2011 seventh-round draft pick has shown himself to be a consistent 20-goal scorer in his four years in the league. Dzingel is coming off a two-year, $3.6 million contract he signed after posting 32 points in his first full season in the league.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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PHILADELPHIA -- Philadelphia Flyers president Paul Holmgren has stepped down to become a senior adviser for the franchise.
General manager Chuck Fletcher becomes president of hockey operations in a related move. Fletcher reports directly to Comcast Spectacor Chairman and CEO Dave Scott.
Holmgren has been a Flyers player, assistant coach, head coach, general manager and president for 40 years. Scott says Holmgren has earned a place among the organization's all-time greats.
Philadelphia hired Fletcher seven months ago to replace the fired Ron Hextall in the hopes of winning the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1975. Fletcher previously was a general manager for the Minnesota Wild and worked for a handful of NHL teams.
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The St. Louis Blues' Stanley Cup championship run had a ubiquitous soundtrack to it: Laura Branigan's 1982 disco classic "Gloria," which became the team's postgame victory song, while "Play Gloria!" became a rallying cry found on T-shirts, hats and other trinkets sold inside and outside the arena during the postseason.
The Philadelphia bar that inspired the Blues' "Gloria" craze believes it's only fair that it share in the profits from those items.
The Jacks NYB, a bar in South Philadelphia, filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for "Play Gloria" on May 8 that covered usage on T-shirts, then a second one for "Play Gloria!" on June 1 that covered an assortment of items from hats and shirts to blankets and beverage cans.
The bar's legal representation has contacted St. Louis companies, including the Blues themselves, about sharing in the profits made from the sales of "Play Gloria" merchandise. In some cases, that has meant cease and desist letters. The Blues have not been sent one.
"There are companies out there making enormous profits, potentially, off of a brand that The Jacks undoubtedly created, fostered and supported," said Rob McKinley of Lauletta Birnbaum LLC, an attorney specializing in intellectual property who is representing the bar. "Our conversations with the Blues have been friendly and open."
The Blues were selling "Play Gloria" shirts in their arena store during the playoffs, but as of Friday had only shirts that read "Gloria Gloria" for sale on their official online store.
The 1980s pop classic "Gloria" has been the St. Louis Blues' victory anthem this season. Here's the new "Play Gloria" shirt design debuting at Game 3 between the Blues and Sharks. https://t.co/OJR5Wu5hWy pic.twitter.com/OQc5DFNO4z
— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) May 15, 2019
Mike Caruso, vice president of media and brand communications for the Blues, told ESPN that the action by The Jacks "has nothing to do with us, so no comment from us. But we heard that it's dead. The folks from the bar never followed up."
The Blues were inspired to adopt "Gloria" as their victory song after watching an Eagles NFC wild-card game against the Chicago Bears at Jacks NYB on Jan. 6.
"We got together with some friends and watched the game with a bunch of Philly guys who grew up there," Blues defenseman Joel Edmundson told StLouisBlues.com. "They had a DJ in the bar and whenever there was a commercial break, they would crank the tunes and all these guys from Philly would get up and start dancing around. They played this song 'Gloria' a couple of times, and this one guy looked at the DJ and said 'keep playing Gloria!', so they kept playing it. Everyone would get up and start singing and dancing. We just sat back and watched it happen. Right there we decided we should play the song after our wins."
McKinley said that origin story, and the subsequent "where it all began" coverage of the bar in St. Louis media and on NBC, bolsters the bar's trademark claim.
"The minute you start saying it is the minute you start to acquire trademark rights. You can establish the rights later. You have to prove the first use of it," he told ESPN on Friday. "I've been doing this for over 20 years. One of the things you have to establish under common-law trademark rights is you have to establish that you own the trademark. That's easy in this case."
From the land of unofficially licensed merch pic.twitter.com/ay3uNCXSWk
— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) June 1, 2019
McKinley disputed reports out of St. Louis that the bar has taken legal action.
"They didn't file any lawsuits against anyone. It's simply a business situation, where a company creates a valuable piece of intellectual property and wants to profit from it," he said. "We didn't try to sue the Blues. That's patently false."
According to Missouri Lawyers Weekly, which first reported on the letters from The Jacks NYB, a company called Arch Apparel initially stopped production on "Play Gloria" gear but then started selling it again after consulting with its legal representation.
On Friday, The Jacks NYB put out a statement on its Facebook page emphatically denying it has "threatened to sue the St. Louis Blues ever" while defending its trademark dispute with Arch Apparel in particular.
"Here's the truth. When we found out that other companies were using our PLAY GLORIA trademark to make money off of it, we reached out to them to try to make a deal with them. If they are going to profit from it, why shouldn't we get a small piece of the pie. Wouldn't you? Why should they keep all of the profits? In the case of Arch Apparel, rather than talk to us, they completely ignored us, then went on to make hundreds of THOUSANDS of dollars off of our #PlayGloria Trademark when fully knowing we owned the rights since our first letter in May," the bar said in the statement.
McKinley said there's been an "us against them" spin out of St. Louis regarding the trademark dispute.
"They look at the company as some out-of-own bar trying to sue a local St. Louis business. Why isn't the spin that those companies pay some fair amount of their profits to make more profits?" he said.
"To put things in context: If the St. Louis Blues owned the 'Play Gloria' trademark, and they sent cease and desist letters to unauthorized users of it, would we even be having this conversation? Unquestionably no. The St. Louis Blues, Anheuser-Busch, the NHL ... they respect the intellectual property rights of others."
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Kuchar moves past controversies with help from grandma, Mickelson
Published in
Golf
Friday, 12 July 2019 03:41
Matt Kuchar has won twice this season and failed to finish worse than T-16 in each of the year's first three majors, but unfortunately for the 41-year-old, his performance has often been overshadowed by controversy.
From not paying his fill-in caddie properly in Mexico to an awkward moment with Sergio Garcia at the WGC-Dell Match Play to a lengthy discussion with a rules official at Memorial, Kuchar knows his aw-shucks reputation has taken a few hits this year. He's heard plenty of criticism.
So, too, has Kuchar's grandmother.
"I don't do the social media, so I think that helped to not see much," Kuchar said Wednesday at the Scottish Open. "However, hearing from my grandmother, you know, the things that she was hearing and talking to me about was really tough. You really want to make your parents proud, your grandparents proud. I've kind of always been that kid that had made my parents and grandparents proud. To see them hear some of the things said about me, was never something that I wanted to put them in that position, and that was very, very difficult."
Not only did Kuchar discuss his controversies with his grandmother, who offered her love and support to her grandson, but also a fellow Tour pro who can relate to being the subject of public scrutiny.
"Phil Mickelson has pulled me aside a couple times, though," Kuchar said, "and he's been one that says, 'Listen, this is a tough deal.' He said, 'I've been through way worse. It will pass. You keep being the guy you are and this will go away. Unfortunately it's a tough situation you're in, but just keep being the guy you are and time will heal.'"
Kuchar, though, has made an attempt to grow as a person.
"You don't learn from victories very often. You learn from your setbacks, and I think that's something where I've certainly learned from," Kuchar said, referring to the caddie situation. "I look at that and that's an opportunity for me to learn to be more generous across the board. You know, whether it's home with the family, with the kids, with the wife, with the fans, with you name it; there's just so many opportunities to be more generous, and that's one of the things you learn. Sometimes the setbacks are hard, but those are the lessons that you tend to learn from and come out better from."
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That was Tiger Woods in his red shirt on Sunday at the Masters. That was Tiger Woods slipping on the green jacket.
But it's not the same Tiger Woods.
The evidence has less to do with how he plays - still plenty good to beat the best in the world on the biggest stage - and more to do with how often he plays.
The chanting and cheering Sunday afternoon at Augusta National sounded as though it would go on forever. Woods, 11 years and four back surgeries removed from his last major, methodically worked his way around the back nine and beat a cast of contenders that included the last two major champions (Brooks Koepka and Francesco Molinari) and the No. 1 player in the world (Dustin Johnson).
It was his 15th major, and it started anew the countdown in his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus and his record 18 majors.
That now seems a lot longer than three months ago.
Woods has played just three tournaments - 10 rounds - since he won the Masters. For only the seventh time in his career, he went from one major to the next without having played in between, and then he missed the cut at Bethpage Black in the PGA Championship.
Unusual? Not anymore.
He goes into the British Open, which starts next week on a Royal Portrush links he has never seen, having not played since he shot 69 in the final round at Pebble Beach on June 16. A good back nine allowed him to tie for 21st. He finished 11 shots behind Gary Woodland.
There were not many options. Woods has not played the week after the U.S. Open since 2003. Instead of having the Quicken Loans National, which his foundation ran, the tour offered two new events in Detroit and Minnesota. The only time Woods has played a week before the British Open was in 1995, when he was still in college. He played the Scottish Open at Carnoustie ahead of the British Open at St. Andrews.
His only public activity since Pebble Beach was a social media post for Nike on Monday in which he says he is getting up at 1 a.m. because that would be 6 a.m. at Royal Portrush, and he wanted ''to be prepared for the time change.''
''If you want to succeed, if you want to get better, if you want to win, if you want to accomplish your goals, well, it starts with getting up early in the morning,'' he said.
The inactivity is another reminder that Woods is managing his health as much as his game.
Most telling was what he said at Bethpage Black: ''There are more days I feel older than my age than I do younger than my age,'' he said.
What to expect at the final major of the year?
Anything.
No one was more perplexed about his lack of competition going into The Open than Padraig Harrington.
''If you're serious about winning The Open, you've got to be playing tournament golf at least before it,'' Harrington said. ''You'd rather be playing links golf and being in a tournament than just on your own going into it.''
That was never the case with Woods.
In his younger days, Woods came over to Ireland with Mark O'Meara for a mix of links golf and fishing, either at Portmarnock or Royal County Down, and sometimes to the south in Waterville. In a 10-year stretch since he first went to Ireland, Woods won the Open three times and contended in three others.
''I think it has been instrumental in preparing for [The Open], not only for getting adjusted for the time, but also getting used to playing links golf,'' he said in 2002 in Ireland, where he won a World Golf Championship. ''We play in all different types of weather, which certainly makes it interesting. And I think it's instrumental in my preparation for The Open Championship.''
Harrington wasn't being as critical of Woods as the headlines suggested. There is simply a different way to prepare, and no one can argue with Woods' results.
''I was always mightily impressed when Tiger Woods would play in a major without playing the week before,'' Harrington said. ''I'd be a basket case if I didn't play the week before. Different personalities. Completely different.''
Woods finished last year with a victory in the Tour Championship, and he had been building toward that. He inched closer to contention two weeks before the The Open, and then had the lead briefly on Sunday at Carnoustie before tying for sixth. He pushed Koepka all the way to the end in a runner-up finish at the PGA Championship.
And then he won at East Lake.
Since then?
He was clearly fatigued at the Ryder Cup - where he didn't win a match - and after two months away from the game, he finished 17th against an 18-man field in the Bahamas. He played three tournaments in a five-week stretch to start this year and finished nearly 11 shots out of the lead on average. And then he skipped Bay Hill, citing soreness in his neck. His explanation was simple. Sometimes he doesn't feel that great, a product of age and injuries.
Woods lost in the quarterfinals of Match Play, and two weeks later won the Masters.
In the three events since then, he missed the cut and finished 10 shots and 11 shots out of the lead.
''If I feel good, then I feel like I can play any venue,'' Woods said at the U.S. Open. ''When I'm stiff and not moving as well, it becomes a little bit more difficult.''
This sounds like the new normal. He would not elaborate - that's the old normal - on how he felt at Bethpage, where he played only nine holes of practice in the three days leading up to the first round. ''I was in rough shape,'' he said.
Before leaving Pebble Beach, Woods said he would wind down and get his lifts up in the gym. His hope was that he would see more than one wind direction during practice at Royal Portrush, ''especially on a course I've never played.''
''I know Florida will not be the same temperature as Northern Ireland,'' he said with a smile. ''I'm not going to be practicing with any sweaters at home, but it will be nice to get to Portrush and get with it again.''
Which Tiger Woods will show up? Odds are, not even he knows.
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Watch: Hatton throws club in disgust on Day 2 of Scottish Open
Published in
Golf
Friday, 12 July 2019 05:43
Tyrrell Hatton is usually not afraid to tell you exactly what he's thinking.
And while he doesn't utter a word in this clip from the second round of the Scottish Open, it doesn't take a genius to figure out he's a little frustrated.
After hitting a tree with his second shot on the par-4 10th hole, the fiery three-time European Tour winner tossed his club in the opposite direction.
And "tossed" is putting it nicely. Very nicely.
"The throw was a better swing," analyst David Feherty quipped.
Hatton recovered to save par and remains in the mix heading into the weekend in Scotland.
Although it wasn't his finest moment, at least he can still use his club once he goes and finds it - unlike Patrick Reed.
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The time McDowell failed to break 100 at Royal Portrush
Published in
Golf
Friday, 12 July 2019 07:25
Graeme McDowell has played Royal Portrush hundreds of times. His best score on the course, which will host next week's Open Championship, is 63.
His worst?
"At least 103," McDowell wrote in a blog post for EuropeanTour.com.
"The first time I played it, we kind of snuck on because my brother and I weren’t quite 15 handicaps and I think juniors had to be at that level to play," McDowell continued. "Anyway, we went and played and it was literally like we were at Augusta for the first time. It was a summer evening and I was around 13 years old. Portrush was like this hallowed turf to us and to be playing shots from that incredible land was dream-like stuff."
Speaking of McDowell's brother, his youngest sibling, Gary, has been on the greens-keeping staff at Portrush for more than 20 years.
"If you think I’m excited about next week, you should go and speak to Gary," McDowell wrote. "The level of preparation that has been done on the golf course is unbelievable, and Gary is so proud to be a part of the team led by Graeme Beatt who are working tirelessly to showcase one of the best links courses on the planet in perfect conditions. Those boys and girls will have one hell of a party when the show is over and they will definitely deserve a few pints."
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Sometimes things just go your way.
Such was the case for Lucas Glover on Friday during his second round at the John Deere Classic, when he came to the par-5 10th. He placed a perfect drive in the middle of the fairway and was left with 255 yards to the pin.
No need for the putter after Glover dialed up the right number on that one, moving him to 8 under for the week.
Glover's 2 on the card marks the second one at the John Deere Classic since 2000 and just the seventh double eagle of the season. That ties for the most albatrosses in a season since 1983.
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Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane has left the club's preseason training camp in Montreal due to personal reasons.
The 12-time European champions are in Canada as they prepare for their opening International Champions Cup match against Bayern Munich, which will take place in Houston on Saturday July 20.
- When does the 2019-20 La Liga season start?
"Our manager, Zinedine Zidane, will leave the preseason training camp in Montreal for personal reasons," a club statement read. "Until his return, the sessions will be taken by his assistant, David Bettoni."
Zidane returned to the Spanish capital in March following the sacking of Santiago Solari, as the club's third manager in a troubled campaign, which saw them fail to challenge in the league, Champions League and Copa del Rey.
And, following a busy summer which has seen the club sign Eder Militao, Rodrygo, Luka Jovic, Eden Hazard and Ferland Mendy, Madrid will be expecting to pose a much stronger challenge next season.
Three days after their clash with Bayern, Madrid travel to Maryland to face Arsenal before ending with a clash against Atletico Madrid on July 26 in New Jersey.
Madrid begin their domestic season on August 17 with a trip to Celta Vigo.
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Barcelona finally sign Griezmann, will Neymar be next? It's complicated
Published in
Soccer
Friday, 12 July 2019 07:54
As expected, there was a delivery at number 10 Calle Hernandez today. Just after 1 on Friday afternoon, a car pulled up outside the offices of La Liga in north-eastern Madrid -- a smart, seemingly ever-expanding building that stands above the A2 motorway heading from the capital to Catalonia -- and a man got out carrying €120m. His name is Sevan Karian, he greeted two other men, headed inside and left. Soon after, there was an announcement: At long last, Antoine Griezmann is officially a Barcelona player.
A year on from the broadcasting of a documentary called "The Decision," in which Griezmann agonised over whether to stay at Atletico Madrid or join Barcelona, only to turn down the Camp Nou club, Griezmann is heading to Catalonia after all. Within months, he regretted that decision and has reversed it.
Barcelona had hoped to negotiate Griezmann's transfer, to pay the money in instalments, but in the end, they have had to pay the buyout clause. They were always likely to: Indeed, the buyout clause is the mechanism that has made all this possible; just as last year his clause temporarily fell to an eminently payable €100m, this year it dropped from €200m to €120m on July 1. It was an open invitation, and Barcelona accepted it.
Paying it took a while, which was pretty silly, as they had known they were going to do this for months and had always known that July 1 was the date. Barcelona had to gather up the money, get it signed off, prepare the paperwork and then help Griezmann do the delivery -- it is officially the player who buys himself out -- but it is done. Griezmann should be able to join the other Barcelona internationals in preseason training on Monday. Before that, there will be photos, thumbs up and a few words. A presentation is penned in, but they're not sure when.
And then it will be on with work.
Which takes them to the next target: another man who turned them down a couple of seasons ago. Turned them upside-down, more like.
With Griezmann done, there are six long weeks ahead in the transfer window that might, just might, end with Neymar heading back to the Camp Nou. Which for now means: nothing.
Sit.
Wait.
Watch.
Think a bit, too. And there is a lot to think about.
Think back to 2017, and the last time a massive signing went the buy-out route; to the comedy scene of a lawyer in a bowtie and a straw hat travelling around Spain trying to give away €220m -- he went to Barcelona's offices before he went to the league's, but they refused to see him -- to release Neymar from the Camp Nou. Think back to the Barcelona director claiming to be "200% sure" Neymar was staying. To Gerard Pique, the same Pique who (rightly) enjoys pointing out how the media publishes fake news, announcing: "He stays." Only for Neymar to go.
Think about the damage it did. It was a lot. They're still due their day in court, for a start: Neymar vs. Barcelona (Neymar has taken his former club to court regarding the non-payment of a loyalty bonus). Their forward line was split days before the season started. It's easy to forget the mess that manager Ernesto Valverde inherited. And that's just the short term: Barcelona's succession plan, well, that was gone too. In pieces. Neymar was Messi's partner, but also his successor. Barcelona looked weak and really rather silly. They reacted by throwing money around. Time will tell, but so far it doesn't look that well spent.
But Barcelona overcame losing Neymar. Well, sort of. Two league titles, a combined 30-plus points ahead of Madrid, were tempered by two successive Champions League disasters that weigh heavily on their thinking.
Now Neymar, too, has changed his mind. He wants to come back; he regrets what he did and wants to reverse it. His best mates, Messi and Luis Suarez, would like him to return.
And it turns out that Paris Saint Germain aren't that keen on him anymore. They're talking like it was nothing to do with them. "No one obliged him to come," president Sheik Al Khelaifi said, which was true. "We didn't push him to," which wasn't quite so true. PSG have talked about "commitment" to the "project," about how they don't want "star behaviour," which was pretty much what their project of signing big stars like Neymar guaranteed. For the first time, they're talking about a player, the player, being able to go.
In fact, they seem to be trying to force it. Neymar didn't show for training, PSG said. And it is the "PSG said" part of that phrase that matters most. In a statement, Neymar's father responded by saying: No, he wasn't due to train until next week, and PSG knew that. This is out in the open, and a split shared is a split deepened. In all probability, this was a hand played.
PSG sporting director Leonardo's words the other day read like an invitation for Barcelona to come and get Neymar at the same time as an expression of his doubt that they can, a doubt which is entirely legitimate. Barcelona don't really have the money for this. They do, though, have doubts of their own. They didn't plan for this; this is an opportunity that arose. But it is one that brings its own problems, they know.
Think back, again, to everything that happened. Some people have been reluctant to welcome Griezmann back after everything he did to Barcelona, after what happened last year. And what he did was far, far less than what Neymar did. Yet there's an excitement about Neymar, that attraction, a frisson. There's also a concern. And an awareness of the cost. Of how difficult it is to make happen. If paying for Griezmann was hard, imagine how hard Neymar is. The club is in debt to the tune of €157m on the league's preferred measurement. (The total is over €500m.)
Yet it is also true that on this issue, Barcelona feel like they are in a strong position for once: PSG and Neymar have exposed themselves. Barcelona have exposed them, in fact: It was Barcelona who publicly said Neymar wants to come back. They have not said, however, that they want him back.
But they do. It's attractive, this idea. It's also a little mad. How do you make it happen? What damage does it do? Can you sign the same player who walked out on you and do it two years later, when most would say that his level has dropped? You lose the "second best player in the world" during his peak and then bring him back when he's past it? Do you have to get rid of the two players you signed to replace him? When you've been busy saying one of them, Dembele, is better than Neymar anyway. What does that say about your strategy? And what about the guy you've just signed for €120m?
In short: Is Neymar worth it?
Some think not.
Many people seem reluctant to recognise that Neymar is a superb footballer. Or they think he comes with too much baggage. Others hope that, in fact, these two years could have been corrective, a lesson learnt. There's pride too: Barcelona want an apology, they want legal actions dropped, along with his salary, they want commitment. They were hurt by Neymar's departure. There'd be some shame in welcoming him back, a loss of face. They do not forget, still less forgive. Few players have cost Barcelona what Neymar has.
Imagine if this was a fantastically elaborate, Machiavellian plan to extract the coldest revenge? PSG and Neymar made to pay, left exposed and broken. Deliciously dastardly.
There are many flaws with that theory, not least the fact that this was not planned at all. One day the opportunity was there: Neymar was no longer impossible. And for all those problems, Barcelona couldn't help feel the excitement. Imagine if they really could do this. If they could let it all go, pretend that none of this happened, magic these two years away, and put him back in. With Griezmann as well this time. And Dembele? Imagine that. Try not to get excited.
It's mad, but it might just work.
It also might not.
And it might not happen. If it doesn't, Barcelona probably don't lose anything. PSG and Neymar, though, do. There will be some explaining to do, some making up. But then things can be explained the way things often are. "You say one thing, and the next day it's another," Leonardo said. "It's incredible, but that's the way it is."
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