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Steelheads' Kraws Earns Goalie Of The Week

Steelheads' Kraws Earns Goalie Of The Week

Yahoo24-03-2025

The ECHL announced on Monday that Idaho Steelheads goaltender Ben Kraws has been named Warrior Hockey ECHL Goaltender of the Week for Mar. 17-23.
The 24-year-old Kraws went 3-0-0 with two shutouts, a 0.67 goals-against average and a save percentage of .967 in three appearances for the Steelheads against Allen last week.
The rookie netminder, who cracked The Hockey News' ECHL Friday Five, stopped all 27 shots in a 7-0 win on Wednesday, turned aside all 31 shots in a 1-0 victory on Friday and made 31 saves in a 5-2 win on Saturday.
Under a one-year NHL contract with the Dallas Stars, Kraws is 20-8-4 in 32 appearances for the Steelheads this season with four shutouts, a 2.89 goals-against average and a save percentage of .911.
Kraws is tied for second in the ECHL in shutouts and tied for sixth in wins among all goaltenders.
The 6-foot-5, 195-pound native of Cranbury, N.J. is also 2-1-0 in three games with the Texas Stars in the AHL this season.
Kraws has made five consecutive starts for Idaho including 12 of the last 13 games dating back to Feb. 21. He is 6-2-0 in his last eight starts with three shutouts, a 1.62 goals-against average, and a .949 save percentage.
With 10 games left in the regular season, the Steelheads are three points back of the fourth and final playoff spot in the Mountain Division and just four points back of third place.
Idaho is on the road this week for four games against the Tahoe Knight Monsters beginning Wednesday. Puck drop is set for 8 Pm MT.

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The Bay Area's toughest trail race has a twist: A child just might win
The Bay Area's toughest trail race has a twist: A child just might win

San Francisco Chronicle​

timea day ago

  • San Francisco Chronicle​

The Bay Area's toughest trail race has a twist: A child just might win

Daniel Saucedo just ran up 700 feet of elevation on 'Cardiac,' the most carnage-filled section of the Bay Area's most carnage-filled trail, and he's smiling like a maniac. The 12-year-old jumped over logs, dodged obstacles, rolled his ankle and was almost certainly exposed to poison oak. His reward upon reaching the summit? Three more miles of brutal hill work. When it's over, the only question I can think to ask him is some variation of 'why?' 'It was tough, but that's where I learned to enjoy it,' Saucedo said, as upbeat as ever. 'To be comfortable in the uncomfortable.' A hundred miles from his home in San Juan Bautista, the pre-teen is here to train for one of the Bay Area's most storied sporting traditions. The Dipsea Race on Mount Tamalpais, which returns on Sunday, June 8, is known for its chaotic and grueling course, and many quirks. Over the 7.5 miles from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach, runners climb 688 steps in the first mile, navigate hills with names like 'Dynamite' and 'Insult,' and contemplate choose-your-own-adventure shortcuts that trade stability for potential speed. Entering its 114th year, the Dipsea is the nation's oldest cross country trail race, and a religion for Marin County runners. But to outsiders, there's one Dipsea oddity that stands out above all others: When the winner crosses the finish line this weekend, it's entirely possible it will be a child. Thanks to the Dipsea's byzantine and ever-shifting handicapping rules, a grade schooler can beat a competitive athlete in their prime. Unlike most races, where the elite or fastest competitors take off at the sound of the gun, the Dipsea assigns groups to launch from the Throckmorton Avenue starting line at one minute intervals in reverse order of assumed speed. A 7-year-old girl or a 74-year-old man gets a 25-minute head start. Men aged 20-25 are 'scratch' runners, who would have to pass most of the race's 1,500 competitors to win. The idea of a child breaking the tape in Stinson Beach isn't theoretical. Children have won the Dipsea 15 times in 113 races, and the field usually includes at least 100 kids. When I ran in 2023, more than 75 children finished ahead of me, including four 10-year-olds. But it's been 15 years since a kid took first place. Eight-year-old Reilly Johnson, the last child to win in 2010, was also the youngest champion ever. Now that field is expanding. The Dipsea Kidz program has been bringing Marin County elementary and middle school children to the trail for more than a decade. And this year, the race's 2023 winner, professional ultrarunner Paddy O'Leary, has recruited five more youngsters to compete and be featured in a crowdfunded documentary. His goal is to spread the trail race gospel and making distance running more accessible in places that don't have specialty running stores, established programs or a century-old race in their backyard. Among O'Leary's Dipsea Generations team are runners like Saucedo and Karina Arrizon Lopez, a senior at Mt. Eden High School in Hayward, who had never been to Mill Valley before this May training day. 'I thought, 'What am I getting myself into?'' Arrizon Lopez said after the run, looking tired but enthusiastic. '(Dipsea) is such a different scene to me. … In Hayward we don't see many people just running around.' Kids won Dipsea from the beginning. The first Dipsea Race in 1905, sponsored by Olympic Club members, included several marathoners who had won European or East Coast races. In the days before the race, the Chronicle covered each celebrity entrant as they arrived by train. But the victor that year was a 'gritty schoolboy,' 17-year-old Oakland High student J.S. Hassard, who took his 10-minute head start and outlasted runner up Cornelius Connelly — a speedy Irishman who didn't realize he was in second place until the last mile. 'When I got straightened out on the beach I saw someone running ahead of me and I could not understand it,' Connelly told the Chronicle. 'He was going like a cyclone. I don't know where that kid got his speed.' Over the years, other child legends have emerged on the trail. Mary Etta Boitano ran in 1968 at age 5, registering as M. Boitano to disguise her gender because women weren't officially allowed to enter until the 1970s. The tiny Boitano stepped on a hornet's nest near Muir Woods and was stung five times, yet still finished the race. And she came back. Boitano won the 1973 Dipsea at age 10, just ahead of her 11-year-old brother Michael, who won in 1971 and '72. 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The race openly accepts 'bribes' for 100 of the 1,500 coveted spots, with the money going to charity, and until recently, many runners got an upper hand by bringing their entries directly to the local post office. Motivated by races like Gilroy's Mt. Madonna Challenge, which raises scholarship funds for young runners to pay for training and travel, last year O'Leary gathered a film crew for Dipsea Generations with a long-term plan to complement inclusive elements of the Dipsea Kidz project and get scores of children running the race from across the region. 'That inspired me to think of an idea like this,' O'Leary said, 'where we try to get kids from all over the Bay Area, they experience something special and spread the word to their (community).' With three weeks to go before race day, the five Dipsea Generations kids and their coaches gather at a parking lot near the Dipsea Trail to run a 6-mile loop with about 25 regulars from Dipsea Kidz. The newcomers get a sampler platter of the course — running through Muir Woods redwoods that convert fog into droplets for surprise rain showers, up wooden stairs and along a sunny ridge with Pacific views — and a chance to test their legs on the climbs. Nicole Amyx, who started running Dipsea when she was 11, and two more sure-footed members of the film crew are half Christopher Nolan, half Steve Prefontaine, darting ahead of the kids to get video on the trails. 'For me it has always seemed so normal,' said Amyx of the race's challenging route. 'It wasn't until I was old that I heard my friends say, 'That's insane. Who sprints up and over a mountain? Who runs a race on Mount Tam?'' Saucedo is undaunted. The middle schooler was discovered by running coach Jose Cruz at a Morgan Hill gym, where he saw a little kid in street clothes sprinting up a treadmill like Captain America. 'He had it at an incline and he's just charging up this thing,' Cruz said. 'I turned away, turned back, and he's still hauling up there. I liked him right away.' Arrizon Lopez was the only girl on the cross country team her freshman year at Mt. Eden, and helped recruit teammates for a program that now fields a full girls varsity squad. Coach Schuyler Hall sees Dipsea as another challenge for the runner who set personal records each year and this spring broke 6 minutes in a 1600-meter (1 mile) race. He also sees what she has to give back to the sport and her peers. 'When we run in the foothills above Garin (Regional Park), we can see the city of San Francisco in the distance, we can see Mt. Tam in the distance,' Hall said. 'But unless we come out on a dedicated spring break trip, so many of the kids in our school have never run in Golden Gate Park. They've never even been to the bridge.' Amyx, who is Mexican-American on her mother's side, points out that the greatest champion in Dipsea history was Sal Vasquez, a Mexican immigrant who won seven titles between 1982 and 1997. She says the Bay Area running scene is strongest when high-profile events draw from different communities. 'We predominately have seen white people in the sport,' Amyx said. 'In reality, it's becoming more open and welcome. But we always need more people of different backgrounds to set an example.' For Mary Blanchard, her childhood runs on the Dipsea launched a long journey of health. The former champion estimates she has run more than 175,000 miles in her lifetime, a tally that would be an impressive odometer reading on a Honda Civic. Meanwhile, the Dipsea is overdue for the next Mary Etta Boitano. Just one child — a 17-year-old boy — finished in the Top 35 last year, an honor referred to as 'black shirts' for the numbered tees awarded after the race. Four of the five Dipsea Generations youth will compete in the 'runners' section this weekend, starting the race later and hoping for a time that qualifies them for the more competitive invitational section next year. When they do, Hall said the kids have real advantages beyond the significant handicap. Arrizon Lopez is 4 foot 9 inches and low to the ground, benefiting from quick steps, a compact stride and better balance. 'If we can get her comfortable,' Hall said, 'she's going to be able to rip through a lot of this terrain in a way that somebody who's a foot plus taller than her is going to have to be a little bit more careful.' Saucedo, who has broken six-minute miles in a 5K race, said his goal is to 'have fun and finish.' Arrizon Lopez, who will run Dipsea two days after high school graduation, is focusing on just one runner: Schuyler Hall. 'My ultimate goal is to stay in front of my coach,' she said. O'Leary, Amyx and their crew have more ambitious hopes. They plan to finish the documentary and share it at local film festivals and schools, then expand the Dipsea Generations program. Perhaps by next June they'll have 15 or 20 child entries from all corners of the Bay Area. 'I love the Dipsea Race and everything about it,' O'Leary said. 'I want to continue to tell the world about it, but also the people in this area. We want to tell them that this race can be for them.'

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USA Today

time2 days ago

  • USA Today

Stanley Cup Final live updates: Panthers vs. Oilers time, TV, odds for Game 1

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Dallas Stars Loan Alex Petrovic And Ben Kraws To Texas Stars
Dallas Stars Loan Alex Petrovic And Ben Kraws To Texas Stars

Yahoo

time5 days ago

  • Yahoo

Dallas Stars Loan Alex Petrovic And Ben Kraws To Texas Stars

The Texas Stars have received some reinforcements for their Western Conference Finals showdown as defenseman Alexander Petrovic and goaltender Ben Kraws have been returned to the team by the Dallas Stars. Petrovic recorded 25 points in 55 games for Texas this season and appeared in five regular season NHL games before playing a sizeable role in 17 playoff games for Dallas due to various injuries. Advertisement The 33-year-old will add stability to Texas' blueline as they look to dig out of the 2-0 hole they find themselves in against the Abbotsford Canucks. Kraws appeared in three games for Texas this season but spent the majority of his time with the ECHL's Idaho Steelheads where he had a 23-12-5 record with a 2.88 GAA, .910 SP and five shutouts. The 24-year-old was serving as the third goalie for the Dallas Stars during their playoff run. Check out The Hockey News' Dallas Stars team site. Make sure you bookmark The Hockey News' AHL Page for the latest news, exclusive interviews, breakdowns and so much more. Photo Credit: © Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

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