First at Five: Canada's Team
With the Stanley Cup on the line, all eyes – and hopes – are on the Edmonton Oilers – Canada's last team in the NHL playoffs.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBC
28 minutes ago
- CBC
Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to have MRI on hamstring after leaving game
Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. left Monday night's 5-2 loss to Pittsburgh in the fifth inning with hamstring tightness following a pair of stellar defensive plays. Guerrero did the splits twice at first to snag tosses from teammates, the last a pretty pick off a long throw by shortstop Bo Bichette to retire Jared Triolo to end the third. Guerrero returned to play the field in the fourth before being replaced by Ty France when his turn in the batting order came around in the top of the fifth. Blue Jays manager John Schneider said Guerrero was doing "all right," but that an MRI was scheduled to get a clearer look at things. "It was after that stretch, obviously," Schneider said. "At this time of year, everyone is kind of grinding a little bit, and that just irritated his hammy. It's just tightness." Schneider said Guerrero wanted to go out for the fourth inning to get a feel on how hurt he might be. Rather than risk aggravating it, he was pulled in the fifth. "I trust him, and he knows himself really well," Schneider said. "We can't afford to lose him for an extended period of time, so it was partially precautionary, too. Hopefully, he's good to go in the next day or two. He's obviously really important to our lineup." Guerrero is hitting .298 with 21 home runs and 69 RBIs this season for first-place Toronto.
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
Fernandez solves ‘setback' with opening-round win at Monterrey Open
Leylah Fernandez, of Canada, tracks the ball during her round match against Maya Joint, of Australia, at the National Bank Open tennis tournament in Montreal, Tuesday, July 29, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes MONTERREY — Leylah Fernandez needed a major confidence boost after back-to-back opening-round exits at the National Bank Open in Montreal and Cincinnati Open. The 22-year-old from Laval, Que., got it Monday night in Mexico with a 6-3, 7-5 first-round victory over Jaqueline Cristian of Romania at the WTA 500 Monterrey Open, where she is a former two-time champion. The seventh-seeded Fernandez, who posted on Instagram that 'I like to think every setback is just a setup for the comeback,' won the first set in 35 precision-filled minutes. Both players stayed on serve in the tight second set until Fernandez broke Cristian at 5-5, then served out to win 7-5 to take the match in one hour, 33 minutes. Fernandez, who won the Washington Open last month, advances to the round of 16 and will face the winner of a match between Rebecca Sramkova of Slovakia and Victoria Rodriguez of Mexico. Cristian, who got stronger as Monday's match progressed, finished with five aces and three double faults. Fernandez had three aces and one double fault. Fernandez held an advantage on first serves, winning 86 per cent of her points on first serve, compared to 76 for Cristian. Fernandez won two of five break points and took 24 points while receiving. Cristian had 23 unforced errors, 11 more than Fernandez. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 18, 2025.
CBC
2 hours ago
- CBC
Young soccer players who 'head' the ball face cognitive decline, new research shows
Social Sharing A new study from Western University found the practice of hitting a soccer ball with the head leads to noticeable cognitive decline in young players, and researchers are now calling for more restrictions in the sport. Over the course of a five-month season, the study tracked a U13 London soccer team made up of male players around 11 and 12 years old. Researchers fitted each player with a custom mouth guard to track head impacts, and had them do regular cognitive tests. One of the main findings that stuck out to Rachel Watson, a PhD student at Western, was that every time a player hit the ball with their head, their reaction time slowed down by about six milliseconds. "Each time it was a small amount that it slowed down," Watson said. "But, by the end of the season, this all accumulated or snowballed into a much larger effect." Many more head hits occurred during practices compared to games, Watson and her team observed. With the team practicing four times per week, there were far more opportunities for head impacts than at weekly game, but some practice drills led to hundreds of these impacts, she said. Currently, policies are in place in Ontario to provide guidelines for coaches, stating how often players of different age groups should be hitting the ball with their heads. Kids under 11 should not be heading the ball at all, players aged 12 to 13 should have a maximum of one session per month with up to five head hits with a lightweight ball, and 14- to 17-year olds should have one session with up to 10 hits. These guidelines were not being followed when researchers were following the team's season, Watson said. Every coach needs to rethink what they're doing. "Coaches have a really great ability to limit this in practice and focus on emphasizing other alternative methods of controlling the ball," she said. "And what the athletes are practicing in practice will come out in the game." The team's coach, Jonathan O'Neill, was surprised by the results of the study, he said. While the study showed the majority of head impacts were occurring at practices, the team doesn't actually practice a lot of heading, he explained. Most of it would have happened on recovery days, when the team played soccer tennis or Teqball, which are variations of the sport with very low impact on the head, he said. "But obviously the low impact still had a cumulative effect on the players' nervous systems and their ability to respond to football interactions," O'Neill said. Heading will happen as a byproduct of the game, because players cannot control the opponent and the chaos that sometimes causes the ball to go into the air, he said. But the safety of players is paramount and now that the effects of heading on cognitive ability is better understood, every coach is going to have to rethink what they're doing, he added While heading the ball is just one of many technical skills in soccer, Watson said, young athletes are likely not thinking about the short or long term effects of their actions—whether they are unaware of them, or simply don't care. Even if banning the practice of heading is not fully attainable yet, Watson believes coaches and parents should emphasize the findings of this study to really get it across to the players that it can be harmful. "Then when the athletes are older, stronger and more developed and more aware of the effects of head impacts, they can choose to make an informed decision themselves if they want to head the ball or not."
