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No check, please
The male monopoly on hockey has been checked into the boards. Players in Southern California’s first women’s league faced off Sunday. “It’s a breaking of the ice in Southern California,” Kathy McGarrigle, one of the organizers, said. “The women are excited.”
Women were tired of being shoved aside by bulkier men in co-ed ice leagues. So 80 players paid $250 to enroll in the league.
Jennifer Waggoner, a goalie for the Stingrays, got peppered during her team’s 7-3 loss to the Arctic Aces - she thinks. Because women don’t shoot as hard as men, she said, “I can’t feel the puck sometimes. Goalies like to feel the puck when it hits.”
The teams play mostly by traditional rules, although the rink is smaller and players are not allowed to check opponents into the boards. They also must wear face shields. As McGarrigle explains: “We don’t get paid $200,000 a year to play, so we want our teeth intact at the end of the day.”
Our money’s on the southpaw
While they won’t get the pub of the “War on the Floor” one-on-one championship between Shaquille O’Neal and Hakeem Olajuwon, Saturday night’s undercard matchup between a couple of top young point guards - Nick Van Exel of the Lakers and Kenny Anderson of the Nets - promises to be interesting.
What concerns Anderson is the 6-point line - 10 feet farther out than the NBA 3-point line. Van Exel is an accomplished long-range shooter, as the Sonics learned last spring.
“That’s too far for me,” Anderson acknowledged, adding that he’s looking forward to the matchup. “It’s like the end of the game. Every shot is a big shot. That’s when I get keyed up. I want the ball. Getting this stiff competition going into the season is good.”
Stiff competition? What, are Jack Haley and Greg Kite on the card?
What a terrible violation
Kentucky receiver Harold Dennis won’t have a movie deal, after all. But at least he’ll have his eligilibility.
Dennis, badly burned in a 1988 bus crash that killed 27 people, apparently violated NCAA rules by signing a contract for a movie about his life. The junior walkon, whose college career consists of one game, did not receive any compensation, a Kentucky official said.
Kathryn Reith, the NCAA’s director of public information, said Tuesday that Dennis’ status was reversed after the school said his “condition with the movie contract no longer existed.”
Dennis was the recipient of the 1993 Award of Courage by the Louisville chapter of the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame. He also was a finalist for the “Giant Steps” award, recognizing student-athletes who persevere under adverse circumstances.
Leave it to the NCAA to add to those circumstances.
The last word …
“The fact that he hit the home run - it still stinks.”
- San Diego outfielder Tony Gwynn, on his brother, Chris, hitting a recent home run for the Dodgers to beat the Padres
, DataTimes