Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
The Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team has finally made the playoffs.
Tomorrow, the Leafs will play their first post-season game since 2004.
Toronto hockey fans are well known for their enthusiasm for their team—and their patience.
They’re excited their team has finally made the playoffs again.
For each Maple Leafs playoff game Toronto’s CN Tower will light up blue, the colour of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
This year’s Masters golf tournament was very exciting.
The Masters is the most important golf tournament of the year for professional and amateur golfers.
This year an Australian golfer won the tournament.
Adam Scott beat Argentinian Angel Cabrera in a “sudden-death playoff.”
On the difficult 18th (last) hole, Scott made a great shot that seemed unbeatable.
To tie him, Cabrera would have to make a seemingly impossible shot. Scott went to the clubhouse, with everyone fairly certain he’d won.
But that feeling was very brief.
When the new pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team – R. A. Dickey – throws a pitch, it goes up and down like a rollercoaster.
A rollercoaster: just like his childhood, his career and his life. Although it’s been a bumpy ride, he’s now in a good place as one of the best pitchers in the major leagues.
This year, he signed a contract for three years, for more than $25-million.
That’s a long way from the $11,000 a year he used to make as pitcher in the minor leagues.
At that time, around 2005, Dickey was a struggling pitcher throwing fastballs. But the batters were able to hit them, and sometimes knock them out of the park.
Mark Buehrle is a baseball pitcher who recently joined the Toronto Blue Jays.
Buehrle is an extraordinary pitcher. He is one of only 18 people in the game’s history to pitch a “perfect game.”
The Blue Jays are pinning some of their hopes of winning this season on Buehrle.
However, there is a problem. When Buehrle signed on with the Jays, he had to move to Toronto.
Ontario law doesn’t allow people to keep pit bulls as pets; Buehrle has a pit bull named Slater.
The top high school basketball player in the United States is a Canadian.
This week Andrew Wiggins was awarded the Naismith Trophy and named the Boys’ High School Player of the Year.
Wiggins was born in Vaughan, Ont. and is playing for Huntington Prep School in West Virginia.
Wiggins is 18 years old. His average per game is 23.6 points and 11.7 rebounds.
He hasn’t yet decided where he will go to university; many schools are competing for him.
The Naismith award winner is chosen by basketball journalists in the U.S.
On Wednesday, the general manager of the Toronto Raptors basketball team took care of some unfinished business.
Bryan Colangelo made a huge trade, to get superstar player Rudy Gay.
It all started back in 2006. At that time, Colangelo held the “number-one overall draft pick.” That meant he could choose any eligible player and add them to his team.
He travelled around the world, looking for the perfect person to add to the Raptors.
Was there really anyone left who still believed he didn’t cheat?
If so, even they would have to admit that Lance Armstrong did cheat at cycling.
That’s because he himself recently came clean about it, to celebrity interviewer Oprah Winfrey.
The renowned cyclist won seven Tour de France victories–more than anyone else.
The Tour de France is the sport’s most gruelling and prestigious race.
For years, Armstrong has been accused of cheating by using performance enhancing drugs that aren’t allowed in competitive racing.
He always denied it. Vehemently.
The National Hockey League season is finally beginning.
After 113 days, the dispute between the owners and the players is over.
Fans have been without hockey since Sept. 15; that’s when the NHL season was supposed to have started.
After months of negotiations, players voted in favour of a new “collective agreement” to end the lockout.
Then to officially end the lockout, representatives for both the owners and players signed a document saying they agree to the proposal.
The 30 hockey teams that make up the NHL started training camps on Jan. 13.
There are seven Canadian teams in the NHL: the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Montreal Canadiens, the Calgary Flames, the Edmonton Oilers, the Winnipeg Jets, the Ottawa Senators and the Vancouver Canucks.
Training camp is a time for teams to put together their roster.
It also gives teams a chance to prepare for the upcoming season in hopes of winning the Stanley Cup.
This camp will be shorter than usual as there is a rush to get the season started. As a result there will be no pre-season games.
Women’s soccer superstar Christine Sinclair has won the 2012 Lou Marsh Award.
The award is given out each year to Canada’s outstanding athlete. She is the first soccer player to win the award.
Sinclair, 29, is from Burnaby, British Columbia; she is captain of Canada’s women’s soccer team.
She led Canada to a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics.
She played a spectacular tournament, scoring an Olympic-record-setting six goals.
Changing the rules of hockey to reduce aggressive behaviour like bodychecking is the best way to keep kids safer on the ice, according to a group of Canadian researchers.
In hockey, body checking is when one player charges into another player.
The researchers looked at the different ways people have tried to reduce injuries among young hockey players.
They found that the most effective method is to introduce a “no bodychecking” rule, or at least raise the age when players can begin to bodycheck.
The number of young hockey players suffering brain and spinal cord injuries has increased in the past 15 years.
On some teams, as many as one-quarter of the players will suffer a concussion during a season.
These injuries are often caused by bodychecking.
