The search for him, once hopeful, was turning desperate. Weather stoked the fear. The missing man was wearing only shorts, a T-shirt and running shoes. It was late March. Daytimes were warm, but the cold scythed through the spruce forest in the depth of night, the temperatures cutting into the 20s. For three days, rescue teams had fanned out for 50 yards on each side of the marked trails. Riders on horseback ventured through the gnarly brush, pushing past the felled branches of pinyon-juniper and ponderosa pine. An airplane and a helicopter circled in the sky, their pilots squinting above the ridges, woodlands, river canyons and meadows. “We’re in the middle of nowhere, and this guy could be anywhere,” Tom Bemis, the rescue coordinator appointed ... Continue reading →
It is not Zdeno Chara’s 108.8-mile-per-hour slap shot. Or a Steven Stamkos one-timer. Or an Alexander Semin wrister. The shot that frustrates Brodeur barely even touches the stick, and that is on purpose. Trying to save a deflected shot is akin to playing Whac-a-Mole with a toothbrush — not impossible, but not a whole lot of fun. A tipped puck dips and darts and decelerates, vanishes and reappears. As Brodeur scrambles to react in the Devils’ goal, it creates quite an unwelcome sensation. He compared himself to a jack-in-the-box. “For a second, you’re like, ‘all right, what’s going on?’ ” Brodeur said. “You don’t know what to expect. That’s the problem.” The redirection is hockey’s equivalent of a jewel heist, requiring of its practitioners cunning, ... Continue reading →
Dunbar confident despite conditionFLORHAM PARK, N.J. -- When he was young, Karl Dunbar often gazed into a mirror and tried to imagine what he was supposed to look like. What he saw wasn't really him; it was what he had become.He struggled with that through his teens, enduring countless stares, cruel nicknames, school fights and too many days in sweltering Louisiana heat when he wore long sleeves and gloves to conceal the sinister disease that was turning his black skin white.Painful memories."What you see now is the Sunday product," the New York Jets' new defensive line coach said with an easy laugh, referring to his self-confidence. "You don't see Karl Dunbar growing up as a 12-, 13-, 14-year-old kid, getting hazed by other kids because ... Continue reading →
Barton Silverman/The New York TimesStephane Matteau, center, celebrating his overtime goal that beat the Devils in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals in 1994. Revisiting the 1994 Rangers-Devils series.For Rangers and Devils fans, this does feel like 1994 again — except for the electronics. Back then, before the BlackBerry and the iPhone, before it was taken for granted that you could summon up whatever information you wanted in 10 or 20 seconds, you could sometimes be forced to live by your wits if you were trying to figure out how your team was doing.Which is what I did, in Games 6 and 7 of that 1994 series, the one that was a near-death experience for Rangers fans, like me, who were tired of all ... Continue reading →
