Vancouver’s Brock Boeser was more than happy to just be at the NHL All-Star game, mingling with some of the high-profile players he grew up admiring.
Leaving Amalie Arena on Sunday as the first rookie to take Most Valuable Player honors since Mario Lemieux in 1985 far exceeded anything he imagined possible.
“Shocked,” the 20-year-old Canucks star said, describing his reaction. “I never would have dreamed this any time in life.”
Photo: AFP
Rickard Rakell had two goals, while Boeser, Johnny Gaudreau and Drew Doughty also scored to help the Pacific Division beat the Atlantic Division 5-2 in the championship game of the four-team divisional tournament played in an entertaining three-on-three format adopted for the All-Star game in 2016.
The NHL’s leading rookie scorer with 24 goals and 19 assists for the Canucks also had an assist in the final after scoring to put his team ahead for good in the Pacific’s 5-2 semi-final victory over the Central Division.
“I was definitely nervous coming into it,” said Boeser, the only rookie among 15 first-time All-Stars. “[I said] enjoy this, just have fun, smile. That’s what I did.”
Goalies Marc-Andre Fleury and Mike Smith teamed to allow just four goals in the two games the Pacific won to claim the US$1 million winner-take-all prize.
Mike Green had two goals for the Atlantic Division, one off both Fleury and Smith in the final.
Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov had three goals in the Atlantic Division’s 7-4 semi-final win over the Metropolitan Division, but the Lightning’s young star was shut out in the championship game.
“After we saw that we won the first game, we said we needed to tighten up a little bit and play a little harder there for the cash,” Gaudreau said.
“We made sure we were ready to go [because] now there’s something to play for in the finals,” said Smith, who stopped six of seven shots in the second half. “Our guys did a good job to up the tempo.”
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
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Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB