Patrice Bergeron’s injury toll: broken rib, torn cartilage, separated shoulder

Boston Bruins' Rich Peverley stands with teammates after they were defeated by the Chicago Blackhawks in Game 6 of their NHL Stanley Cup Finals hockey series in Boston, Massachusetts, June 24, 2013. REUTERS/Winslow Townson (UNITED STATES - Tags: SPORT ICE HOCKEY)

By Sean Leahy | Puck Daddy

BOSTON -- Now that the playoffs are over, the injury information will finally be revealed and we'll know exactly what kind of bumps and bruises the Chicago Blackhawks and Boston Bruins were dealing with.

When Patrice Bergeron left Game 5 after playing just 6 minutes and 6 seconds, the rumors about what happened to him ranged from a back injury to a ruptured spleen. Neither were correct as Bergeron told the media after the Game 6 loss in the Stanley Cup Final.

The Bruins forward said he was dealing with a broken rib, torn cartilage and muscles and a separated shoulder, which Bergeron said he suffered Monday night.

"It’s Stanley Cup Final, everyone’s banged up, everyone wants to help the team," he said. "Obviously I couldn't do that in Game 5. It was mostly because they were worried about my spleen being hurt, so that's why we had to go to the hospital. But everything was fine so it was just the ribs, and the muscles, and the soft tissue. So obviously I would’ve liked to stay in it but I was going through a lot of pain."

Bergeron played 17:45 in Game 6 and was 5-for-11 on faceoffs. It was noticeable during pre-game warmups how gingerly he was skating around. Now we know just what kind of pain he was dealing with, and the kind of injuries these players fight through in order to help their team win a Stanley Cup.

Eight minutes away from forcing a Game 7 only to have the Blackhawks make a dramatic comeback to win the Cup will be a hard memory to forget for Bergeron and the Bruins.

"You work so hard just to get to this point and give yourself a chance to get the Cup," he said. "And you feel like you’re right there, and you have a chance to force Game 7, and definitely it hurts. It doesn't work your way. Have to give credit to Chicago. They played a great series. But at the same time, it's the last thing you want to say.

"It hurts to see them hoisting the cup."

Utah referee Ricardo Portillo dies days after being punched in head by rec league soccer player

By Cameron Smith | Prep Rally

Prep Rally previously brought you a deeply disturbing story from Utah, where a teen soccer player had punched a recreational soccer referee in the head, landing him in critical condition at an area hospital. Now that tale has taken an even more tragic turn after the referee in question died from complications related to injuries suffered in the attack.

As reported by the Associated Press and a variety of Utah news outlets, 46-year-old Ricardo Portillo died Saturday at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah, just outside Salt Lake City. The referee had been hospitalized there since the attack on April 27, where Portillo issued a yellow card to a player in a recreational match and was attacked by the player with a strong punch to his head.

The AP has reported that the player in question was a goalie, competing in a game at Taylorsville (Utah) Eisenhower Junior High. The yellow card was connected with a play on a corner kick, where Portillo saw the goalkeeper in question push an opponent and decided the action was worthy of a formal caution. As he wrote down the goalie’s name in his notebook, the player reportedly snuck up alongside the ref and punched him directly in the head.

"When he was writing down his notes, he just came out of nowhere and punched him," Johanna Portillo, the victim’s daughter, told the AP.

Portillo’s reaction to the punch was not immediate, but was frightening. The 46-year-old reportedly said he felt fine in the immediate aftermath of the attack, but then asked to be held up because he felt dizzy. Portillo then sat down on the field and began vomiting blood, eliciting panicked calls for an emergency ambulance at the field.

The goalie in question has since been booked into juvenile detention on suspicion of aggravated assault, though he could face additional charges now that Portillo has died. There has also been an ongoing debate about whether to charge the teen as an adult, despite the fact that he is 17 and not 18-years-old.

The now-deadly attack is just the latest disturbing example of aggressive action against referees going far beyond the realm of what is even remotely acceptable. More often it has been parents attacking referees, though players have occasionally gone beyond the realm of the reasonable in their reactions as well.

Most recently, a parent of an athlete in a Nebraska 7th grade church basketball league was attacked and had his glasses snapped in half. Similarly, a March youth hockey game in Hamilton, Ontario was the site of a parental attack on a referee who had the temerity (in their eyes) to break up a potential fight between players of the teams in the game was was officiating.

Perhaps the most disturbing attack before the Taylorsville tragedy came in Florida in 2011, where a group of players and coaches violently attacked a referee at a Sarasota youth football game.

Youth and prep soccer hasn't been free of violence in the past, either. While former New Mexico women's soccer player Elizabeth Lambert remains the benchmark for aggressive and violent play, Lewisville (S.C.) High athlete Annette McCullough received an assault charge for aggressive attacking a foe in a 2012 game and, in Utah, Salt Lake City (Utah) East High senior Petiola Manu was notably caught violently kneeing a foe during a game as well.

One can only hope that the lessons from this attack -- and the subsequent jail time that the teen in question is likely to serve -- will provide ample deterrent for future athletes and parents who struggle to contain their emotions in the midst of what is just a game, even if similar incidents in the past haven't succeeded in doing so.

What Augusta and Chinese teen might mean for golf

By John Strege
GolfDigest.com | GolfDigest.com

The walls are crumbling around what was once America's most exclusive men's club, what with women and children now given the run of the place. More or less.

The Augusta National Golf Club will invite a 14-year-old boy to play in the Masters next spring, this in the wake of having conferred membership on Condoleezza Rice, its first female member. What next, public play days?

That said, the greater story here is not that China's Guan Tianlang, by virtue of his victory in the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship on Sunday, will become the youngest ever to play in the Masters. Instead, it's the latest example of what might happen should China embrace golf other than superficially.

Guan, who turned 14 less than two weeks ago, won by a stroke a tournament created by the Asia Pacific Golf Confederation in conjunction with Augusta National and the Royal and Ancient for the purpose of growing the game in the region. As an incentive, the trophy for winning is a Masters invitation.

Thus Guan will become the second Chinese 14-year-old to play in a major championship in a 10-month period. In June, Andy Zhang played in the U.S. Open at the Olympic Club. What each also has in common is that they train, at least part of the year, in Florida.

Golf remains largely an elitist sport in China, though it is growing; the number of courses there has increased from 170 to nearly 600 in the last eight years, according to a story by China Daily. We asked Dan Washburn, an expert on golf in China and a contributor to Golf Digest and Golf World for his thoughts on what impact Guan might have on Chinese golf. His email response:

"Guan's historic achievement certainly can't hurt golf's prospects for growth in China, but the obstacles the sport faces in the country are real. It will be interesting to see how much coverage Guan's Masters adventure attracts in China beyond the niche golf publications. Even Feng Shanshan, winner of China's first major, struggles for recognition in her home country.

"Golf is going to grow in China -- there is no doubt about that. Trying to predict how fast or to what heights, however, is a fool's errand. But if this drumbeat continues -- Feng, Zhang, and now Guan -- Chinese golf is soon going to be hard for the world to ignore, no matter how far from the mainstream the sport continues to be in China."

If China does begin to tap its golf potential, well, consider what happened to women's golf when Korean parents began sending their daughters en masse to train in the U.S. China might not similarly dominate a men's game that has substantially greater depth and international influence, but it might upend the balance of power and put Asia on equal footing with the U.S., Europe and Australia.

Guan, meanwhile, has been playing golf in the U.S. at least since 2005, when he finished fourth in the six-and-under division of the Callaway Junior World Championship in San Diego. He won the 11-and-12 division of the tournament by 11 strokes in 2011 and tied for 22nd in the 15-to-17 division in July.

His introduction to international golf at the elite level came last April, when he was 13 and became the youngest player in European Tour history, at the China Open (he missed the cut). The story received considerable attention in precincts other than the U.S., to the point that the British bookmaker Ladbrokes offered 1,000-to-1 odds that by his 18th birthday he'd be ranked No. 1 in the world.

Don't bet on it. Beyond that, don't bet against him. Among those Guan defeated on Sunday was Australian Oliver Goss, a quarter-finalist in the U.S. Amateur and the winner recently of the Australasia Tour's Western Australian Open.

Guan, of course, won't win the Masters in April, perhaps sparing, to which freelance golf writer Dave Andrews jokingly alluded on Twitter, Augusta National from having to serve Happy Meals at the Champions Dinner in 2014.

But he will make history and headlines, helping fulfill the Asia-Pacific Amateur's mandate, to grow the game, possibly doing so in ways that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago.

Pingpong passion stokes U.S. Ryder Cup team's competitive fires

Phil Mickelson has had a tough time measuring up to Matt Kuchar in pingpong. (Getty Images)

 

By Yahoo Sport

MEDINAH, Ill. – Perhaps the fiercest competition during this weekend's Ryder Cup will not take place on the golf course, but rather in the United States' team room.

That's where three pingpong tables have been set up in what's become a Ryder Cup tradition amongst U.S. players. The original intent was to build camaraderie, and to that end it worked – if you are to believe Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods ironed out some of their differences over a game of table tennis.

Lately, though, the games have taken on a more serious tone, with Mickelson and Matt Kuchar bringing their own paddles packed away in special cases.

"The Ryder Cup is all about pingpong, everybody," Bubba Watson declared Thursday. "When you bring your own paddles in cases, a briefcase with a paddle in it, then obviously it's about pingpong. … It's nuts."

While tongue in cheek, there is some truth to Watson's claim that the Ryder Cup is all about pingpong. When asked about how his relationship with Woods has evolved over the course of the six Ryder Cup teams they've been on together, Mickelson announced to a packed press room that while they haven't had a lot of success on the course, "as partners on the pingpong table, he and I are delivering."

"We are serving it up, and there are not many guys that can match us on the pong table."

That may be true in doubles; singles, however, is another story.

Kuchar is the unquestioned king of the table-top court. He started playing when he was young with his father. In what became a nightly routine, they'd head out to the garage, unfold the table and play.

In golf terms, Kuchar rates himself a "1 or 2" handicap in pingpong.

"It's been fun bonding, because there is that ability to kind of go out and be boys and kind of feel like you're in the locker room while you're competing against each other," Kuchar said of the pingpong competitions inside the American's team room.

Fun for most, but maybe not so much for Mickelson. According to Watson, this week Kuchar and Mickelson played five points against one another, with Kuchar winning all five.

"So he quit," Watson explained. "Phil Mickelson pouts ever time we make him play Matt Kuchar. Love you, Phil."

Watson also says that he and Jason Dufner "dominated" Mickelson and Jeff Sluman in doubles.

"Mickelson is still mad about it," Watson said. "He hates anytime I beat him because I'm just this goofy left-handed kid named Bubba.

"So anytime I can beat Phil Mickelson, I like to rub it in his face. So on that one, I do disrespect my own teammates when it comes to pingpong."

NFL Kicker Devises Noise To Summon Alligators

Written by: ThePostGame Staff

You've heard about people "speaking" to horses and even cats, but you'd be hard-pressed to find someone with a talent akin to that of Falcons placekicker Matt Bryant.

In a recent interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bryant discussed his unique and extremely impressive talent: He can communicate with alligators.

Bryant taught himself to mimic an alligator's distress call, and he has learned how to draw the animal out of the water and lead it around. He honed his skill at a retention pond behind his home in Tampa, and it comes in handy to trick friends on the golf course.

"I've had fun with it," Bryant told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Bryant, who is in his fourth year with the Falcons and is 4-for-4 on field goal attempts this year, showed off the skill to some teammates during a golf outing earlier this year in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Someone noticed an alligator in the water and encouraged Bryant to communicate with it. Sure enough, Bryant made the call and the animal came flying out of the water.

"I’ve never seen anything like that," said Falcons offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter. "… I didn’t wait to see how close it was going to get. There were some bushes there about 25 yards away, and I didn’t wait for it to get any closer. I got behind someone else so it would eat them before me."

A warning to Bryant's future golf partners: Remember to never shave strokes or move the ball, there could be dire consequences.

(H/T to Deadspin)