Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
The start of the NHL season, and the season in general, may not happen as expected.
The NHL has locked out its players.
For the second time in eight years, the NHL is experiencing problems between its owners and players.
The Collective Bargaining Agreement between players and owners has expired.
Andy Murray is having a good year—a very good year.
All of his career, the 25-year-old tennis player has been plagued by the fact that he has never won a major tennis tournament.
On the weekend, he put that doubt to rest by winning the US Open.
The US Open is one of the big four, “Grand Slam” tennis tournaments.
The others are the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon.
Britain has been waiting 76 years for a male player to win a Grand Slam singles event.
Murray had been waiting all his life.
Some amazing kids have been been in the news recently. Here are two who have made big achievements in the sports world.
Lydia Ko recently won the Canadian Women’s Open golf tournament. It’s a tournament for female golfers–adult golfers. Ko, however, is just 15 years old.
Ko lives in Auckland, New Zealand (where she has lived since she moved from South Korea when she was six years old). Last month she travelled to British Columbia, where she faced professional golfers at the Canadian Women’s Open.
Here’s a look at some of the highlights from the spectacular 2012 Summer Olympics.
• U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps now holds the most Olympic medals of any athlete in history. He has 22 Olympic medals, four more than the next highest Olympic medal holder (gymnast Larisa Latynina, from the Soviet Union, who has 18).
Not only that, but he has 18 gold medals—twice as many as any other Olympian.
Phelps won six medals in the 2012 Olympics.
• Four of the world’s top badminton women’s doubles teams were kicked out of the Olympics for throwing their matches.
The women deliberately tried to lose by serving wildly and hitting shots into the net or out of the court. Why?
If they had won their first matches, they would have had to play more difficult opponents. By losing their first matches, they would have been able to play easier, more beatable teams.
However, you’re not allowed to “throw” a match by losing on purpose so they were eliminated from the Olympics.
The 2012 summer Olympic Games takes place in London, England starting next month.
From July 27 to August 12, athletes from 203 countries around the world will converge on the city to compete in sports including swimming, cycling and diving.
Before the competitions begin, the Olympic torch is run in a cross-country relay through more than 1,000 cities in the United Kingdom.
The torch was flown to the UK on May 18 and the huge, cross-country relay began.
In the relay, runners hold the torch aloft as they run and when they get to a certain spot they light the next runner’s torch–and so on.
The last torchbearer will light the giant cauldron in the Olympic Stadium in London, to mark the start of the Olympic Games for 2012.
The LA Kings are the kings of hockey, for the first time in their history.
On Monday night, the Kings won hockey’s ultimate prize — the Stanley Cup.
Their quest for the Stanley Cup has been 45 years in the making.
Their dream became a reality after they beat the New Jersey Devils 6-1 in the sixth game of a seven-game series.
The win can be attributed in large part to a five-minute major penalty against one of the Devils’ players early in the game. During that penalty the Kings scored three goals.
The game then really opened up in favour of the Kings. Jonathan Quick, the Kings’ goalie, was solid in net. In fact, he was fantastic for the entire playoffs, setting NHL records. He was named playoff MVP (Most Valuable Player), and was awarded the Conn Smythe trophy.
Canadian-owned I’ll Have Another was a favourite to win the Belmont Stakes horse race this year.
The race was held last Saturday.
If he’d won, he would also have won all three of the major horse races and become the U.S. Triple Crown winner, every horse-owner’s dream.
However, it wasn’t to be.
Just before the big race, his trainer announced that the horse had tendonitis in his left front leg and would not be able to race. The owner decided to retire the colt from racing.
The good news is that I’ll Have Another will recover from his injury and will be fine. It’s likely that the horse will become a stud, which means that he will father other colts which may go on to become excellent race horses themselves. In that way, I’ll Have Another’s legacy will live on.
“I’ll Have Another” did indeed have another, just last Saturday.
Canadian-owned horse, “I’ll Have Another” (yes, that’s its name) won the 137th Preakness Stakes.
Blazing down the stretch, “I’ll Have Another” pushed hard with each powerful stride to cross the finish line first — winning by only the length of its neck.
It was a very close and exciting finish. The horse was jockeyed by Mario Gutierrez.
The jockey is the person who rides and directs the horse in the race.
On Tuesday, Brett Lawrie — a baseball player for the Toronto Blue Jays — lost control of his emotions during a game.
Lawrie was batting, and the umpire made a couple of calls that Lawrie disagreed with.
In Major League Baseball (MLB), there are four umpires including the home-plate umpire.
He is the one who decides if a pitch was a “ball” or a “strike.”
The pitcher pitches and when the ball crosses home plate the umpire makes a quick decision as to whether it was a good pitch (called a strike) or a bad pitch (called a ball).
If a batter gets three strikes against him he strikes out.
If a batter gets four balls against him he gets a ‘walk’ and is allowed to go to first base.
England loves soccer. English soccer teams play in the Premier League (PL).
Two of the biggest soccer teams in the PL are two of the bitterest rivals: Manchester City, known as “Man City” and Manchester United, known as “Man United.”
Last weekend, one of the most exciting games in the PL took place… and it came down to the final moments. It was a game that would decide who took home the cup.
If Man City won its game against the Queens Park Rangers, Man City would end up with more points than its rival, Man United. In that case, Man City would win its first PL championship in 44 years.
However, a win wouldn’t come easy.
