Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Team USA won its fifth straight women’s world hockey championship on Sunday, but not without controversy. (Important note: “Controversy” is the way to say it if you’re from the winning country and don’t want to admit the Americans got lucky and the Finns got robbed.)

The start of the NBA playoffs always brings a series or two that, when seen on the schedule, elicits a collective cry from fans all over the world: “Can we just skip this one?” At first glance, the Bucks-Pistons series, which has the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed going against a Blake Griffin-less 8 seed, falls into…Read more...

A pair of discounted robo vacs, a J.Crew flash sale, and a Millennium Falcon LEGO set lead off Monday’s best deals from around the web.Read more...

He was finished. He was disgraced, hobbled, and eaten alive by the ravages of both fame and time. His story was over; it was simply a matter how clumsily it would end and how long it would take for that end to finally arrive.

“We’re still playing Tuesday. We’re still alive.” That’s Lightning head coach Jon Cooper giving an exhaustive list of everything positive about this opening-round series for Tampa, which could indeed end on Tuesday, just not in a way he or anyone else could have ever predicted.

Today only, Amazon’s discounting Dockers khakis, shirts, jackets, and accessories to help you freshen up your wardrobe for the spring. Just note that this is a Gold Box, so these prices will only stick around for a day. So if your work gear has more than a few holes or slightly-noticeable pizza stains, don’t wait.Read more...

One of the hallmarks of surprise wins in the NBA is when the last player a team expects comes out of the woodwork with a sudden burst of talent that they’ve never displayed before and causes all sorts of pandemonium with their presence. For the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday, the unexpected spoiler was Enes Kanter.…Read more...

The illustrious green jacket is back on the shoulders of Tiger Woods for the first time since 2005. After battling the likes of Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Xander Schauffele all day, Woods won the whole damn thing with a score of -13. As if everything that had been building to this moment wasn’t enough to make…Read more...

Caron Butler went on national television with a brand new head of hair on Saturday like nobody was going to notice, but people certainly did.

Good day to you, hoop-sport friends! It’s time for the second part of our extremely on-time and thorough preview of the 2019 NBA playoffs. Today we’ll discuss the important topics of the first-round series that begin, uh, today: When and where they’re on TV, who’s in ‘em, how they got here, and of course, most…Read more...

The Bruins took Game 2 against the Maple Leafs on Saturday with a 4-1 win in Boston. Though they won with a large margin of victory on the scoreboard, the game was much closer in terms of physicality.Read more...

When it came to the Warriors-Clippers series, the prevailing prediction seemed to be that the Clippers hardly had a snowball’s chance in hell of stealing at least one win from Golden State. However, the caveat to that pessimistic prediction was that Los Angeles could at least make things interesting. Both parts of…Read more...

The beginning Spring means blowout deals on yard equipment. Today’s Amazon Gold Box is lowering the price on a number of Snapper lawn care gear. Just note these prices will only stick around for a day, or until sold out. So, if you’re looking to retool your lawn care plans, visit the main page to see all of your…Read more...

The Orlando Magic are an enigma. The designation has nothing to do with a complex scheme that coach Steve Clifford has put together, or an analytics heavy-approach to selecting undervalued free agents that other teams would ignore. No, the Magic are an enigma simply because it makes no sense how this collection of…Read more...

Holy Sweet Mother Mary that was an incredible 100 minute sprint from green to checkers this fine Saturday afternoon. It’s been a hot minute since we’ve seen sports car racing put on this kind of short-course spectacle, but the wait was worth it. The Bubba Burgers Sports Car Grand Prix of Long Beach was a great event…Read more...

When Caris LeVert went down with his gruesome-looking foot injury in November, the initial assumption was that his season was over. It made sense at the time. When you combine his history of foot injuries, and the fact that he had to be taken off in a stretcher, the projections tend to be pessimistic. But then LeVert…Read more...

Down 4-3 in the second period, the San Jose Sharks had an opportunity to tie up the game when they were awarded a power play. But as the countdown clock for the penalty reached its final 30 seconds, it was Vegas that would end up with the goal-scoring opportunity. Reilly Smith passed the puck from the boards to Cody…Read more...

Well hello there, casual basketball fan! Welcome back... to the crucible of champions. The NBA playoffs are upon us once again, probably within minutes or possibly even before I actually finish writing this very long (and good) blog. Oh crap!Read more...

A historic weight was lifted off of Chris Davis’s shoulders on Saturday. After 54 consecutive at bats without a hit—a streak that started in September of last season—Davis did the unthinkable and finally smacked one into the outfield for a single. The unfortunate soul who helped Davis break the streak was Red Sox…Read more...

That is Padres pitcher Adam Warren with quite a goofy grin on his face in the bottom of the eighth inning against the Diamondbacks on Friday. Why is he smiling from ear to ear? Because his teammate Manny Machado had just done this:

Tottenham handily defeated an already-relegated Huddersfield Town squad, 4-0, thanks to a hat-trick from Brazilian winger Lucas Moura. After the game, he decided to celebrate the moment with his adorable son on the pitch. He put a soccer ball to his son’s feet and told him to kick it to him. Every time the sports baby…Read more...

Now that the Columbus Blue Jackets and Tampa Bay Lightning have played two playoff games against each other, let’s check in on the team that Vegas all but guaranteed would have a spot in the Stanley Cup final:Read more...

It’s safe to say that the Pittsburgh Penguins are not happy about being down 2-0 to the New York Islanders. This became evident in the waning seconds of their 3-1 loss that took place in front of a raucous crowd at Nassau Coliseum on Friday. Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin started to goon things up a bit with a cross-check…Read more...

A new set of physicians’ rules has been approved for the NFL concussion settlement, and while those rules do not explicitly alter the criteria for a qualifying diagnosis, they do include a number of wholesale changes that could make it more difficult for ex-players to obtain settlement payments, just as some…Read more...

Magic Johnson didn’t want to be the one to do it, so he quit, but it was going to get done anyway, and now it’s official: The Lakers have canned head coach Luke Walton.Read more...

We see a lot of deals around the web over on Kinja Deals, but these were our ten favorites today.

Palm Beach County prosecutors conceded today in court that there is no evidence of human trafficking in the case at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa that ensnared billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. The admission represented a change in law enforcement’s rhetoric from when the charges were first announced,…Read more...

WrestleMania week is invariably a dizzying experience, and the one that recently sprawled over the course of a full week in and around New York City was no exception. There were way too many shows this year spread across too many locations, and even sleeping in my own bed every night, not attending any WWE events (a…Read more...

This is Cactus, a Moroccan runner who completed the grueling Marathon des Sables through the Sahara Desert earlier this week. He is talented and he is also a dog.Read more...

Release clauses in soccer are oftentimes more symbolic than anything else. Clubs with leverage will often drop a sky high release clause (the amount of money they would have to accept for a player, whether they want to sell him or not) on a promising young player mostly just to scare off interest from the vultures of…Read more...

A visibly frustrated Joel Embiid said he “has no idea” if he’ll play tomorrow in Game 1 of the Sixers’ first-round series versus the Nets, due to pain in his left knee. Seems bad:Read more...

The force has awoken. The last of the Jedi has relit the spark for a new generation beyond him. And now it’s time for the Skywalker Saga to come to a close with The Rise of Skywalker, 42 years after we first stepped into the galaxy far far away—and we finally have our first look at the film.

Today is a great day if you want robotic vacuum options. Right now Amazon’s got the Samsung POWERbot R7040 for $278, an all-time low price for this model.Read more...

You wouldn’t want a news cycle to pass without something to read about Michael Avenatti, and lord knows he wouldn’t either. Because he cares, and because he’s apparently been on an IRS watch list for a decade, that will never happen.

Let’s start with this: the Sacramento Kings will never not be the Sacramento Kings. There will never be a time when this is not both painfully accurate, and just painful:

Bryson DeChambeau leads the field after shooting six under par in the opening round of The Masters. Despite this, he has as much reason as anybody to feel bitter about how the course treated him on Thursday.

A T3 hair dryer, V-Moda headphones, Breville citrus press, and Dark Souls

Game of Thrones is, finally, coming to an end, with the show’s eighth and final season set to premiere on Sunday night after a nearly 18-month hiatus. The meme generator masquerading as a prestige television program has been on the air since 2011 and, in the eight years since, has ridden the dragons of murder, sex,…Read more...

The Flames led the West with 107 points and yet are not what anyone would call favorites to come out of the conference. That’s perhaps unfair, perhaps unwise, but a team as explosive as the Flames still tends to amount to nothing much if it doesn’t have competent goaltending. One game is just one game, but Mike Smith…Read more...

Flames winger Andrew Mangiapane decided that the best time to show Calgary he was worth calling up on the last day of 2018 was in Game 1 of his team’s series against the Colorado Avalanche. With less than six minutes left in the second period, the 23-year-old was able to deke his way past three defenders, toy with…Read more...

Just because the championship monkey is off the backs of the Washington Capitals doesn’t mean the team has forgotten where it came from. In Game 1 of the series with the upstart Carolina Hurricanes, the Caps showed flashes of the team’s former self best known for handing momentum right back to postseason opponents…Read more...

After going down against the Boston Bruins early, the Toronto Maple Leafs spent a majority of Game 1 (so far) effectively defending seemingly every scoring opportunity their opponents got. The Leafs have now gotten to the point where they’ve been able to turn that strong defense into some magical offense.Read more...

Reading the headline pretty much gives all the information to which I am privy, but the manual siphoning of blocked milk ducts is a thing that happened in the Cavallari/Cutler household.

io9 This Avengers: Endgame Teaser Features a Rousing Captain America Pep Talk | Kotaku PlayStation Is Really Bad At Suggesting New PSN Names | Jalopnik 2019 Audi S6 Avant Diesel: Bow Before Your New Wagon-God With 516 LB-FT of Torque | Lifehacker Take Photos of Your Airbnb Before Leaving | The Takeout Arby’s offers $6…Read more...

Cross the ball, head the ball, score a goal. It is the simplest tactic in soccer. It is what practically all teams resort to when the need for a goal is at its most dire. It is a strategy without frills or subtlety. When it works, it is nearly unstoppable. However, it very rarely works—rarely in a sustained way, at…Read more...

Netgear’s Arlo home security cameras are among the few that can run completely on battery power, and these models add additional touches like HD, night vision, motion detection, records and alerts, and weatherproofing. So if you’re ready to start monitoring your home like a paranoid person, Amazon will sell you the…Read more...

After signing Ronald Acuña to a team-friendly deal worth at most $12.4 million annually over the next decade, the Atlanta Braves have locked up another one of their young players with a dirt-cheap extension that’ll last beyond arbitration and through his entire 20s. Second baseman Ozzie Albies, currently at the…Read more...

It is a sad fact of life: there are just more questions in the Funbag than there is time to answer them in the average Deadcast. All your horrible thoughts, your deeply considered curiosities about peeing and pooping, and NFL football, and peeing and pooping vis-a-vis Donald Trump—lost, like tears in rain. Except...Read more...

Our beloved colleague Dave McKenna tells good stories. He’s done a lot of cool shit, met many weird people in weird ways, and had his run-ins with the law. And after selfishly squirreling all his stories away in Slack and our brains for years, we’ve realized we have a societal obligation to share.Read more...

Former Notre Dame and NFL running back Cierre Wood, 28, was arrested Wednesday and is facing charges of child abuse, child neglect, and murder, according to the Las Vegas Metro Police Department.Read more...