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Boston Globe
7 hours ago
- Sport
- Boston Globe
You should absolutely be rooting for Brad Marchand to win another Stanley Cup, even in a Panthers sweater
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Do the right thing. Hold your nose, swallow your pride, holster your hate, and pull for the Panthers. It's the magnanimous and mature route. For all he did here, our Lil' Ball of Hate deserves to cart the Cup around the ice one more time. Advertisement Renounce laundry logic and cheer on the guy who remains a Bruin to the core, no matter what sweater he's donning. That's what yours truly plans to do. Boston fans aren't always the best at resisting provincial interests and instincts. I covered the games when Adam Vinatieri, whose foot delivered two Super Bowls for the Patriots, and Johnny Damon, who slugged two home runs in the Red Sox cathartic Game 7 victory over the Yankees in 2004, got booed upon returning with rivals. Advertisement Johnny Damon homered twice in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, but was likened to Judas when he returned to Fenway Park as a member of the Yankees two years later. Jim Davis/Globe Staff Marchand looks like he's having the time of his hockey life. It's like breaking up with your ex and then seeing on Instagram that they're dating a billionaire. You wish them well, but not that well. It's hard to watch the last link to the Bruins 2011 Stanley Cup chasing hockey's Holy Grail with a rival. But it means so much to him at this stage of his career, an on-ice oeuvre that should land his No. 63 in the TD Garden rafters. 'I may never get back this late in the playoffs ever again in my career,' the 37-year-old said. 'To be one of the last teams standing and being part of a great group of guys, these are memories that I want to remember and enjoy.' The rascally Marchand has endeared himself to the players he spent the previous two postseasons battling. The Panthers are 8-2 this postseason when Marchand records a point. Instantly, Marchand fit in with the NHL's Rat Pack. Plastic rats are to the Panthers and their fans as octopi are to the Red Wings. It's a tradition that dates back 30 years to the 1995-96 Panthers, who reached the Stanley Cup Final. Now, The tradition moves on to the SCF... Panthers FIRING rats at Brad Marchand 😅🐀 — B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) We're a long way from Advertisement Pursuing Lord Stanley's cherished chalice makes for strange bedfellows. The recipe for sports rooting interests is loyalty, emotion, geography, and common objectives. But there are reasons to root for Marchand, the little guy who came up big for the Black and Gold; Marchand's five-goal heroics in the 2011 Stanley Cup Final endeared him to Hub hockey fans for a lifetime. Everybody's favorite agitator left his mark — with his wit, his hockey hijinks, and his production. Marchand ranks in the Bruins top five all-time in regular-season games (fourth, 1,090), goals (fourth, 422), and points (fifth, 976). The inimitable winger couldn't have been classier about his departure. Even in absentia , he helped the Bruins score, Undoubtedly, some will associate cheering for Marchand with echoes of one of the low points in 21st-century Boston sports — the celebration at City Hall Plaza for Bruins legend Ray Bourque after he won the Cup with the Avalanche in 2001. It was a desperate ploy by a city starved to attach itself to any sort of sports success, mere months before Tom Brady ushered in the titletown ethos. Advertisement Having not celebrated a title-winning team since the Celtics in 1986, more than 10,000 people showed up at City Hall Plaza on June 13, 2001, to congratulate Ray Bourque for winning the Stanley Cup with the Avalanche. JIM BOURG/REUTERS There also could be those withholding support because they hold it against Marchand that he couldn't deliver a second Cup here. Mad Brad was a big part of the Bruins falling apart on home ice in a gut-punch Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final. They never recovered — both in that game and as a franchise. This will be Marchand's fourth kick at the Cup. He has played in 20 Stanley Cup Final contests entering Game 1 Wednesday, notching seven goals and five assists. With a career 60-92—152 postseason line, Marchand is fourth among active players in playoff points, trailing Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Nikita Kucherov — heady company for an undersized pest from Nova Scotia. All of them have won multiple Cups. Here's hoping Marchand joins them on that list too, even if watching him do it with Florida hurts like a slapshot off the elbow. Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at
Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Zdeno Chara was surprised to be elected to the IIHF Hall of Fame, but he shouldn't have been
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Clearly, if not Chara for such an honor, then who? Advertisement The Slovak-born strongman played his final NHL game three years ago at age 45, his 1,680 regular-season games ranking seventh in league history and No. 1 among defensemen. His name is on the Stanley Cup as a Bruin (2011) and he was awarded the Norris Trophy in 2009 as that season's top blue liner. He spent 14 years as Bruins captain, instilling and curating a culture woven into the club's three trips to the Cup Final (2011, '13, and '19) during his tenure. Advertisement Chara also captained two Slovak national squads that won silver medals at the Worlds, and three times wore his country's colors at the Olympic Games (2006, '10, '14). So it should have been zero surprise when International Ice Hockey Federation president Luc Tardif called a couple of months ago to welcome Chara to this year's class. Yet it was a surprise, to Chara. 'I said, 'Whoa! I mean, are you sure?,' said Big Z, chuckling as he related his back and forth with Tardif. 'And he said, 'Yeah, of course … it's been voted on … you're in!' ' Related : To help understand that response, understand Chara — not only for his genuinely unassuming nature and presence, but particularly for the unconventional path he traveled to the summit of his profession. Decades ago in Trencin, as a gangly and athletically awkward young teenager, his dream was not to play in the NHL or one day see his name placed next to the game's greatest European players. 'I was cut … and cut again … all I wanted to do was make my hometown team!' recalled an animated Chara. 'You move up by age groups, right? And that's automatic … good or bad, you move up. But as you progress, teams bring together two or three age groups [different birth years], that's where the cuts start and I didn't make it. Not good enough.' In part, that underappreciation of his game and skills was what led Chara, at considerable peril, to defect to North America in the fall of '96. After the Islanders took a third-round flyer on him (pick No. 56) in the '96 draft, Chara thrived in his one season of top-level Canadian junior hockey with WHL Prince George and made his NHL debut some 18 months later. Advertisement 'Nov. 19th, 1997,' he said, recalling his NHL debut, with Mike Milbury then the Islanders' coach. The date sticks in Chara's head largely because his ascension to the league, just over a year after departing Slovakia amid zero fanfare, by his description caught the Slovak national team by total surprise. 'Everybody at home is like, 'Who?! … We have a Slovak defensemen in NHL?!' ' he said, again chuckling, this time over how he ultimately was invited to play for Slovakia in the 1999 Worlds. ''We gotta bring him back to play for us.' Remember, I didn't make any youth national team, right? They had no data, no track of me.' A complicating factor in Chara suiting up that first time for his country was that he had defected, opting for a shot at big-time hockey in North America instead of serving mandatory military service. 'I'd call home,' recalled Chara, 'and my dad would say, 'The military police were just here, looking for you … you better not come home or they'll lock you up.' ' Before flying out of New York for his return to Bratislava in the spring of '99, he had to be assured he wouldn't be hauled away once landing on Slovak terra firma. 'I swear, it was like a scene from a movie,' he said, recalling how he felt after he got off the plane back home. 'There's this one belt going around with my bag on it and I see this glass sliding door … and it's opening and closing, opening and closing. And I see this officer behind those doors. I have my passport in my hand, and I'm thinking, 'OK, this could be it … I pass through that door and somebody puts handcuffs on me and I'm done. Are the Islanders going to bail me out? Maybe, who knows?' I knew I had papers from the national team … I knew I should be OK, but…' Advertisement He made it through the door just fine, and nearly three decades later, his name has been added to the IIHF's honored section at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. The HHOF votes on its candidates for this year's inductees June 24, and Chara is a virtual lock to be named to the class that will be feted in November. 'If it happens it happens,' he said. 'Obviously, I'd be very, very grateful, But again, like IIHF, I know there's so many names that deserve to be there and, rightfully, they have so many great candidates that should be there. If I am there … we'll see, that's up to others to decide. Right now, I'm just enjoying my life, being a dad … but yes, it would be a tremendous, tremendous honor.' Chara played his final NHL game three years ago at age 45, his 1,680 regular-season games ranking seventh in league history and No. 1 among all defensemen. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff LONG DROUGHT Canada Cupless since 1993 The question in the 1980s and '90s of whether the NHL would thrive in the Sun Belt faded into the twilight by the end of the 20th century, Dallas winning the Stanley Cup in 1999 (six games vs. Buffalo) in what remains Texas's lone star Cup. If anyone still held the romantic notion that the game is best served cold, the state of Florida has smashed such thoughts to smithereens. With the Panthers clinching the East for a third straight year after Advertisement Canada, largely due to the Oilers' powerhouse squads throughout the '80s, saw one of its teams reach the Cup Final in nine consecutive seasons, 1982-90, culminating with Since that last Oiler triumph, a Canadian team has squeezed through to the final only eight times, with the lone win in those 35 years by the Canadiens (1993). It may be Canada's game, but this drought of 30-plus years is by far the longest in its history. The list of Canadian runners up since '93 consists of: Vancouver ('94), Calgary (2004), Edmonton ('06), Ottawa ('07), Vancouver ('11), If the Oilers can close the deal now, it will be the longest distance a Canadian team has gone to get the job done. Air miles, Edmonton to Sunrise, Fla.: 2,546. ETC. Verhaeghe worth the wait Former Bruins captain Brad Marchand , wearing No. 63 for the Panthers, is headed to the Cup Final for a fourth time (with Boston in '11, '13, and '19). The Li'l Ball o'Hate, 4-10—14 in 17 playoff games this year, has suited up for 174 postseason games. Among active NHLers, his four trips to a Cup Final leave him short of only Edmonton's Corey Perry , about to begin the sixth championship round in his career. Carter Verhaeghe , Marchand's fellow Sunriser, also will be playing in his fourth Cup Final, his third with the Panthers. His first came in his 2019-20 rookie season, when the Lightning won the title. Advertisement Verhaeghe, originally a Maple Leafs draft pick (No. 82 in 2013), didn't break through to the NHL until he played four full seasons in the minors (AHL/ECHL), his talents underappreciated or ignored by three organizations — Leafs, Islanders, and Lightning — before he finally secured a full-time spot as a low-budget UFA (two years/$2 million total) with the now-powerhouse Panthers. All players develop at different rates. Some just need time to grow their game. Sometimes it's simply about right team/right fit. It was some of both for Verhaeghe, who'll possibly have his name on the Cup for a third time when he celebrates his 30th birthday in August. A left-shot center able to play the wing, he has become a consistent, vital piece of the Panthers attack. Verhaeghe in the fall will enter the first season of an eight-year, $56 million deal he signed with Florida in October. He has full trade protection for the first five years. Just the kind of glue guy Toronto so desperately needs. But the Leafs gave up on him early, bundling him into a package with four others in exchange for Michael Grabner in September 2015. Grabner played one season with Toronto, collected 18 points, then signed with the Rangers as a free agent. Carter Verhaeghe gathers the loose puck against the Carolina Hurricanes during Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Karl B DeBlaker/Associated Press Swayman high on Warsofsky Jeremy Swayman's read on Ryan Warsofsky , the Team USA bench boss at the world championship that concluded last Sunday: 'Since [the time] I walked through the door, he was incredible.' Warsofsky, who'll begin his second season as the Sharks coach this fall, was raised in Marshfield and played high school hockey for his hometown Rams, followed by a season at Cushing Academy. He moved into the top job in San Jose last summer after two years as one of David Quinn's assistant coaches. Related : With Swayman in net for Warsofsky, 'I've got nothing to say but great things about Warsy,' offered Swayman, 'the way he carried himself and he's just so well spoken. I think he takes over a room very well. Every one of the guys in there would do anything he asked — and it takes a special kind of human to get 25 or 30 guys all on the same page within three weeks. That's a testament to his coaching ability and his style.' Credit, too, added Swayman, to the entire Team USA staff for such a successful effort, including adapting to the bigger (200x100 feet) European/Olympic ice sheet. 'And you're playing against guys, a lot of them who've been playing with each other for a long time,' continued the Bruins' backstop. 'They have their game plans, know how to play on the [bigger sheet]. To see [Warsofsky] articulate the game and get us to play to our strengths … every one of us knew that we could have a serious chance of winning with him at the helm. 'That's something I'll never forget from him — and he's stuck with me for life now. We're pretty tight … that's pretty cool.' With Swayman in net, the US won its first World gold since 1933. Petr David Josek/Associated Press Shopping list The July 1 unrestricted free agent list includes 17 players, including Marchand and the Oilers' Trent Frederic , who were once property of the Bruins. The list also includes Ryan Lindgren , drafted by Boston at No. 49 in 2016, but dealt to the Rangers (for Rick Nash ) before ever wearing the Spoked B. A look at the pending UFAs, including their most recent team and cap hit (by descending order): Forwards: Marchand, Florida $6.125 million; Reilly Smith , Vegas, $5 million; Sean Kuraly , Columbus, $2.5 million; Frederic, Edmonton, $2.3M; Ryan Donato , Chicago, $2 million; Pat Maroon , Chicago, $1.3 million; Craig Smith , Detroit, $1 million; Curtis Lazar , New Jersey, $1 million; James van Riemsdyk , Columbus, $900,000; Tomas Nosek , Florida, $775,000; Cole Koepke , Boston, $775,000; Justin Brazeau , Minnesota, $775,000. Defensemen: Dmitry Orlov , Carolina, $7.75 million; Lindgren, Colorado, $4.5 million; Matt Grzelcyk , Pittsburgh, $2.75 million; Derek Forbort , Vancouver, $1.5 million; Mike Reilly , NY Islanders, $1.25 million. It's not out of the question that two or three alums could be offered deals to return. Keep in mind, the Bruins were negotiating with Marchand before Donato, 29, is coming off a career season (31-31—62) with the moribund Blackhawks (five consecutive playoff DNQs). That kind of goal production should bring him at least $4 million a year for 3-4 years. The Bruins need goal production, and Donato, who played at Harvard, was still on good terms here when dealt to the Wild for Charlie Coyle ( Grzelcyk, 31, delivered 1-39—40 (career bests for assists and points) this season with the Penguins , who are yet to name a new coach to replace Mike Sullivan . He would not answer the Bruins' need for a power-play quarterback, but he's a good puck mover and defends well with his feet and stick. Maybe two years/$5 million total? Kuraly, 32, left to go home to Columbus in the summer of '21 for a sweet four-year/$10 million deal. A solid citizen with size (6 feet 2 inches, 215 pounds), he'd be a good, heavy bottom-six addition on a one- or two-year deal at, say, $1.4 million per. Maroon, by the way, announced his retirement as his season came to a close with the Blackhawks — his eighth NHL employer over a career that included 848 games and three Cup rings. Loose pucks Marco Sturm , then 27, proved to be the best of the three assets (along with Wayne Primeau and Brad Stuart ) the Bruins acquired from San Jose in the infamous Nov. 30, 2005, deal that sent Jumbo Joe Thornton to the Sharks. Also known as 'The German,' Sturm remained in Boston for four more seasons, then was dished to the Kings early in 2010-11, in what was the season the Bruins won the Cup. Among the candidates believed to be interviewing to be the next Bruins bench boss, Sturm, 46, in the spring wrapped up his third season as coach of the Ontario (Calif.) Reign, the Kings' AHL affiliate. They were knocked out, 2-0, in a best-of-three vs. the San Jose Barracuda in the Calder Cup playoffs … Thornton, like Zdeno Chara , has been out of the NHL for three seasons and likely will be a first-ballot shoo-in to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Jumbo (1,539 career points) never won a Cup. His only trip to the Final was in '16, Henri Richard (Montreal), Jean Beliveau (Montreal), Red Kelly (Detroit, Toronto), Maurice 'Rocket' Richard (Montreal). Henri Richard, aka The Pocket Rocket, took home a ring from 11 of those 12 visits … Former forward Jeff Halpern (976 games) just wrapped up his seventh season as one of John Cooper's assistants in Tampa. Seems the Lightning's two Cups and three trips to the Final with him on the beat should be getting the '99 Princeton grad some head coach looks … The rumor mill in recent days has had Mitch Love (Capitals assistant), Jay Woodcroft , and Sturm all certain to be the Bruins' next coach. With apologies to Chief Brody, looks like you're gonna need a bigger bench. Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at
Los Angeles Times
3 days ago
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
UC Irvine baseball fails to capitalize on chances in NCAA regional loss
Jacob McCombs had been arguably UC Irvine's best hitter all season. The sophomore transfer from San Diego State transformed into an all-Big West selection with his .350 batting average and team-high 1.070 on-base-plus-slugging percentage. So when he came up to the plate in the bottom of the fifth, down one run and against a taxed Arizona State southpaw in Ben Jacobs — McCombs provided a real chance to break open the game in favor of the second-seeded Anteaters with runners on first and second. Coach Ben Orloff called for McCombs to bunt. A picture-perfect tap toward third base sent both runners into scoring position with one out — and the Irvine dugout into raucous cheers. When his team needed it, one of its stars stepped up. It didn't matter to Jacobs. Facing the pressure, the former UCLA Bruin — pitching back at Jackie Robinson Stadium, where he played in 2023 — shut down Chase Call with a strikeout and forced Blake Penso — his former battery mate at Huntington high — to weakly fly out to right field on the 105th pitch of the lefty's night. McCombs' small-ball heroics were for naught. When Irvine's offense worked another opportunity to score in the bottom of the eighth after Penso placed down a sacrifice bunt, Alonso Reyes hit into a 4-6-3 double play with the bases loaded to end the rally. It was one of those nights for the Anteaters, at a time of year when it matters most, as UC Irvine fell 4-2 to third-seeded Arizona State in the Friday nightcap of the Los Angeles Regional. UC Irvine moves to the loser's bracket where it'll face fourth-seed Fresno State at noon Saturday. To win the Los Angeles Regional, the Anteaters will have to win out — four games across Saturday, Sunday and Monday — if they want to reach the NCAA super regionals. While UC Irvine's offense could only produce one run and mustered just five hits, Trevor Hansen — their ace — tried his best to put the Anteaters on his back. Despite giving up solo home runs in the second inning to Jacob Tobias and Isaiah Jackson, the right-hander settled down to toss 6⅓ innings, giving up six hits and three earned runs while striking out eight and walking two. Hansen turned the ball over to Big West Pitcher of the Year Ricky Ojeda with runners on first and second in the seventh. Ojeda made quick work — inducing a ground out and a strikeout — to escape the inning. The lefty pitched through the ninth, giving up one run on 40 pitches overall, which could impact his availability in Saturday's win-or-go-home contest against the Bulldogs. Ojeda threw on back-to-back days just once in 2025, tossing 32 and 35 pitches against UC San Diego on May 3-4.
Boston Globe
4 days ago
- Sport
- Boston Globe
Panthers and Oilers are now more alike as their Stanley Cup Final rematch arrives
'These are the two nastiest teams left,' 2003 Cup winner Mike Rupp said. 'They don't seem to get rattled, they play with a lot of intensity — sometimes they cross the line. They just defend well. There's a lot of things that they're different than one another about, but at the core of it, they're pretty similar to each other.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Comparing the two Advertisement Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl haven't gone anywhere, but they've also been through the heartbreak of forcing Game 7 against the Panthers and falling short of the goal they've been hunting over the past decade together. With former Bruin Trent Frederic, Jeff Skinner, John Klingberg, and Jake Walman, the Oilers are bigger and more seasoned for this. 'They're meaner,' said retired defenseman Jason Demers, who like Rupp is now an NHL Network analyst. 'They have a little bite to their game — a lot more bite than last year where they were a little bit more speedy.' Florida can be speedy, opportunistic and dangerous — and has been over the past few postseasons — winning 10 of 11 series since coach Paul Maurice took over and winger Matthew Tkachuk arrived after a trade from Calgary. Advertisement The Panthers are in the final for a third consecutive year, losing to Vegas in 2023 only after Tkachuk, defenseman Aaron Ekblad and others were banged up to the point that they had nothing left in the tank. They were the underdog back then. With one successful Cup run complete and with Seth Jones and former Bruins captain Brad Marchand added to the core led by Tkachuk and captain Aleksander Barkov, they now look unstoppable. Related : 'They're a heck of a team,' McDavid said after beating Dallas to win the Western Conference Final. 'Obviously, it's their third finals. They're a special group. We're a special group. It's going to be fun.' Rough and tumble It also could be physical. The Oilers lost hard-nosed winger Zach Hyman to a long-term injury late in the series against the Stars, but they are more prepared now to play the rough-and-tumble style Florida has won with. The fact that it's a rematch in the final — the NHL's first since Pittsburgh beat Detroit in the second of their back-to-backs in 2009 — only spices things up. There have only been four rematches in the Final since 1968. 'I don't think there'll be any weeding out or wading into that series,' Demers said. 'I think it's going to be gun shot, explosions right off the bat.' Going down two games to none last year led to McDavid's profanity-laced outburst in the locker room, a moment caught on cameras that wasn't quite enough to turn around the series. The memory of going down 3-0, clawing back to cross the continent again for a Game 7 and not winning is still fresh in his mind. Advertisement The Oilers have been through that trip to the final and feel the pain now, something the Panthers endured before winning. Now it's time to see if they learn the same lesson and change the result. 'Edmonton now, I think they needed to experience last year to get to where they're at now and they're kind of unflappable,' Rupp said. 'I think that's a weapon for them.'
San Francisco Chronicle
26-05-2025
- Sport
- San Francisco Chronicle
Warriors beat included Hawaii and Harvard, beats and Batman, Curry and coffee
The game had ended in Philadelphia but the fight hadn't yet begun in New York, perfect timing for the boxing fans who played this season for the Golden State Warriors. Gary Payton II purchased the pay-per-view — Gervonta 'Tank' Davis versus Lamont Roach Jr. for the WBA lightweight championship — and a team staffer linked it through a laptop to a television. The emptying visitors locker room in Wells Fargo Center was a spacious living room that Saturday night. A boxing scribe during my tenure in Las Vegas and forever a fan of the sweet, sweet science, I sat in front of an empty locker to watch beside Pat Spencer, Kevon Looney, Moses Moody, Trayce Jackson-Davis and Brandin Podziemski as Payton bolted for the bus. Draymond Green watched it on his phone while getting treatment in another nearby room. And what a fight — and season — it was. Covering the Warriors as the Chronicle's beat writer, an honor and privilege the last 17 months, means writing about games, practices, shootarounds, and documenting the life and times of their players and staff. With organic downtime along the way, it means traversing the NBA's other 27 markets by airplane, rideshare, train, subway and foot. Since training camp opened on the northernmost shores of Hawaii's Oahu in early October, I've earmarked anecdotes and memories through which I'll remember their 2024-25 season. The happenings informing Golden State's 48-34 record and trip to the Western Conference semifinals are archived on our website already. Training camp was at BYU-Hawaii in the scenic oceanside town of Laie, but I stayed in Honolulu's Waikiki, rented a car and made the 45-minute drive to (and from) practices. Along the way under the bluest skies beside the clearest water (I think) I'd ever seen, I'd wonder if I was in or on a postcard. Then, I'd get to the quaint, charming campus, wait for media availability and watch Buddy Hield shoot for an hour after seemingly every practice. Shootarounds and practices on the road usually conclude to the tune of music of artists local to the city whenever apropos, as ensured by assistant coach Khalid Robinson. Think Kendrick Lamar in Los Angeles, Meek Mill in Philadelphia, Drake in Toronto, Scarface in Houston, Young Dolph in Memphis, etc. Not sure there's a song that was played unknown to Green. Road practices brought me to the campuses of Georgetown, Harvard and UCLA — among other colleges and universities. As sacred and as historic as they were — a bronze statue of John Thompson sits inside Georgetown's basketball complex, named for him; Looney, a former Bruin, is memorialized inside UCLA's practice gym — I'm happy I matriculated Minnesota. Makes for playful banter with Golden State's other Big Ten alums: Green, Jackson-Davis, Spencer and Looney … though I still can't believe the Bruins belong to the Big Ten. A sandwich shop in downtown Denver — where the Warriors and Nuggets played Dec. 3 — featured a painting of Batman atop a toilet with a glass of wine, his pants half down revealing Superman boxers as his dog sat beneath the bathroom window by his feet. Out the window was the 'Bat-Signal' emblazoning the nighttime Gotham City sky. Apparently amused, I photographed it — perhaps foreshadowing (internally, anyway) Golden State's Batman motif. Speaking of which, can't forget about Jimmy Butler 's team debut in Chicago, where his personal speaker played Jay-Z's 'Song Cry' among other soothing songs in a victorious visitor's locker room. Butler's impact — on the court for the Warriors and with their collective confidence — was obvious from the onset of his arrival. After a victory over Houston, Golden State's final game before the All-Star Break, he told reporters the Warriors would go streaking. Then they won 11 of their next 12 games. Included in that batch of wins was a lengthy trip along the East Coast that featured stops in Orlando, Philadelphia, Charlotte and New York for games with the Knicks and Brooklyn Nets. Every arena in which the Warriors played — including Madison Square Garden for stretches — might as well have been Chase Center East. Stephen Curry, the People's Superstar, started and finished it to chants of 'MVP.' Swung by Butler's 'Bigface' coffee storefront during Golden State's five-day stay in Miami. Nestled in the city's design district, it's chic but cozy and the coffee is tasty. The Warriors practiced at Barry University the March afternoon before they played the Miami Heat. No hard feelings — about the breakup with Heat — for the dozens of students who waited outside for a glimpse of Butler. Now we wait another four-plus months for a glimpse of the 2025-26 iteration of the Warriors. Thanks for reading about 2024-25.
