Sport

After months of aggressive pursuit by city leaders, St. Paul will become home to Minnesota’s new Major League Soccer franchise. Minnesota United owner Bill McGuire and St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman on Friday announced the team’s — and the league’s — commitment to play at a new, privately built 18,000-seat stadium in St. Paul’s Midway area. The team, which is essentially transforming from a lower-tier squad that plays in Blaine…

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa- On Friday morning Iowa was introduced to something called Bubble Soccer. The concept takes a little explaining, but once understood can lead to some fun. Players are inside of a giant air inflated bubble.  They enter the bubble and wear it kind of like a back pack. Players can be knocked flying with out much risk of being injured. “In theory the goal is to play soccer…

When the Chase for the Sprint Cup began, Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch would have been on anybody’s list of championship favorites. Each won four times during the regular season and possessed the bona fides to make one think they could successfully navigate NASCAR’s four-round, 10-race knockout playoff format. But Kenseth and Busch find themselves in a position neither expected entering Sunday’s Round 2 elimination race at Talladega Superspeedway…

Greg Rebello By the time he was 21, Greg Rebello could tell that his hockey career was coming to an end. It had been part of his life since a very young age while living on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. He had moved from a very strong high school team to the U.S. junior leagues, but he knew hockey wouldn’t be his future. Still wanting to compete, Rebello started some martial-arts…

When the Chase for the Sprint Cup began, Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch would have been on anybody’s list of championship favorites. Each won four times during the regular season and possessed the bona fides to make one think they could successfully navigate NASCAR’s four-round, 10-race knockout playoff format. But Kenseth and Busch find themselves in a position neither expected entering Sunday’s Round 2 elimination race at Talladega Superspeedway…

Over the past three days, the Blues gave USA Hockey the red-carpet treatment, from meet-and-greets with city officials to tours of the local facilities to fancy dinners and happy hours with stars such as Brett Hull, Chris Pronger and Keith Tkachuk. But in bidding for the right to host the 2018 IIHF World Junior Championships against a city like Pittsburgh, which boasts a five-year-old rink and can trot out Mario…

0 Shares print Our experts weigh in on four of the biggest questions in NASCAR this week: Turn 1: Was that Joey Logano dump of Matt Kenseth “quintessential NASCAR,” as Brian France said it was? Ricky Craven, ESPN NASCAR analyst: Fact is, it’s great. I hope it is the primary reason paying customers come to the track, to see two drivers square off, rub, beat, bang one another in the…

Who builds a bicycle road on a 32km-long sea dyke? One akin to a really, really long Severn Bridge, made of earthworks, tumbleweed and gulls, with a six-lane highway? The Dutch, that’s who, and I’m grateful for it. With no end in sight, only a straight line of smooth tarmac stretching seemingly to infinity, and bordered on both sides by sea, this bike road on the Afsluitdijk is impressive, if…

0 Shares print Our experts weigh in on four of the biggest questions in NASCAR this week: Turn 1: Was that Joey Logano dump of Matt Kenseth “quintessential NASCAR,” as Brian France said it was? Ricky Craven, ESPN NASCAR analyst: Fact is, it’s great. I hope it is the primary reason paying customers come to the track, to see two drivers square off, rub, beat, bang one another in the…

When NASCAR came up with its new format for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup last year, it made it almost impossible to predict a champion. Now in its second year, the Chase is more random than ever. Some might even say too random. Consider the fate of some of the sport’s biggest stars at playoff time: Jimmie Johnson, a six-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion and four-time race…

The Shreveport Mudbugs will return to action in 2016.(Photo: File/Robert Ruiz/The Times) Dust off the skates, fire up the Zamboni, grab your plastic crustaceans and get ready to let them fly. Mudbugs hockey is back. Tommy Scott, the owner of the Mudbugs franchise when it ceased operations in 2011, has signed a 12-year lease (plus a pair of five-year options) with the State Fair of Louisiana for use of the…

A week ago, as I was leaving soccer training, one of the younger kids, a senior in high school, asked me if I could stay for some time to practice long ball passing drills with him. He was desperate to improve. Me being the charitable man that I am, I obliged. The kids are the future and the least I can do is leave my mark with him so that…

As drivers sweat out potential elimination in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, the jockeying behind closed doors appears just as intense as NASCAR and owners furiously try to hash out a plan to make the team business a more stable one. NASCAR and the owners might not spin each other out, but they have plenty of details to work through. As with a car, any small piece of the…

0 Shares print Our experts weigh in on four of the biggest questions in NASCAR this week: Turn 1: Was that Joey Logano dump of Matt Kenseth “quintessential NASCAR,” as Brian France said it was? Ricky Craven, ESPN NASCAR analyst: Fact is, it’s great. I hope it is the primary reason paying customers come to the track, to see two drivers square off, rub, beat, bang one another in the…

NASCAR handed out warnings to teams Wednesday afternoon for issues discovered in technical inspection last weekend at Kansas Speedway, where the Sprint Cup Series competed in Race No. 2 of three in the Chase Contender Round. Of the four teams issued a warning, only one — the Hendrick Motorsports team of driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. — is in the Chase. Earnhardt’s No. 88 group received its warning for twice failing…

0 Shares print For Kenny Wallace, the value of the struggle was validated in a heavy splash of Absolut vodka spun through a glass of Five Alive orange juice cocktail. The sweet concoction was Dale Earnhardt’s drink of choice, unique and self-made, just like he was. And he didn’t fix one for just anybody. But on Oct. 15, 2000, as dusk crept toward dark, that’s what Big E poured with…

One day in 1993, Anita Stech decided to take her three daughters to play hockey in their hometown of Duluth, Minnesota. “I observed there were girls on many of the boys teams,” Stech recalled. “I said, ‘Why don’t we invite all of these girls to play on an afternoon?’” About 36 girls came together that day and watched an adult women’s team play. Then they all…

In a Country of Runners, Kenyan Cycling Team Faces Uphill Climb Playlist MP3 – 128.0kb/s – 3.7MB wav – 1.4Mb/s – 41.0MB MP3 – 64.0kb/s – 1.9MB In East Africa, the sport of cycling has been growing in popularity in recent years. There are plenty of hills for cyclists to climb and a mild climate – not too hot, but…

Now that it’s Chase time, NASCAR penalties and warnings are more important than ever. Here’s a list of all the infractions NASCAR has acted on since the playoffs commenced for Sprint Cup Series teams last month at Chicagoland Speedway. Sept. 23 NASCAR announced penalties on Wednesday afternoon to two Sprint Cup Series teams stemming from last weekend’s Chase for the Sprint Cup opener at Chicagoland Speedway. And one of them…

Austin Dillon’s car goes into the catchfence during a crash at the end of the Coke Zero 400 in July at Daytona International Speedway.(Photo: Reinhold Matay, USA TODAY Sports) NASCAR is reducing the number of overtime attempts it allows at Talladega Superspeedway in hopes of generating a safer race. The sanctioning body said Tuesday it will give the opportunity for just one green-white-checkered flag finish for both its Sprint Cup and…