MILAN — Johnny Gaudreau was working hard to make the U.S. team heading to the 2026 Winter Olympics. He and brother Matthew watched the event growing up in South Jersey, always with eyes on playing in it.
“It was their dream,” Jane Gaudreau said her sons.
Johnny and Matthew died on Aug. 29, 2024, when they were struck by an SUV while riding bicycles near their hometown of Salem County on the eve of their sister Katie’s wedding. Their deaths shocked the hockey community, and the Gloucester Catholic High School graduates have been honored since by retired numbers, a memorial 5K, and more.
An elite player a decade into his NHL career and the all-time U.S. leading scorer in international play, Johnny Gaudreau was on track to be in Milan for the tournament that wraps up Sunday when the Americans play rival Canada for the gold medal. Guy Gaudreau said USA Hockey was gracious enough to tell the family their oldest son was on the projected roster.
“He wanted to be on this team,” Guy Gaudreau said during the third period of the U.S. semifinal win on Friday night. “And it would’ve been nice if he’d been here.”
The U.S. is honoring the Gaudreau brothers with a tribute to them in their locker room at the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena. A blue No. 13 Gaudreau jersey hangs there as a reminder of the player known as “Johnny Hockey,” who was beloved by so many on the national team and beyond.
“It means everything — we all know he should be here with us,” said Dylan Larkin, who played with Gaudreau at multiple world championships. “He should be with us. We love him, and I like that we continue to think about him and I wouldn’t imagine it any other way.”
Jane and Guy Gaudreau, along with Johnny’s widow, Meredith, and their two oldest children arrived in Milan on Friday. The Gaudreau parents had been planning a trip to Las Vegas and initially hesitated after USA Hockey invited them to attend.
The family of Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau is in the building tonight while Johnny's jersey hangs in the Team USA locker room…
“Our two daughters, for 24 hours, they just kept at us: ‘You have to go. The boys would want you to do this. This would mean so much to John,’” Jane said. “It just means so much to our family, and we’re so excited to remember what our boys meant to hockey.”
The Gaudreau family connections to players on the roster run deep, from Boston College to the NHL. In addition to the world championships, Johnny played with Noah Hanifin on the Calgary Flames and Zach Werenski on the Columbus Blue Jackets.
“Johnny was close to a lot of guys in that room,” Hanifin said. “We know he’d be here with us, so we’ve been thinking about him and carrying him with us.”
Werenski said after he and his teammates advanced to the final that Meredith reached out to his wife a few days earlier to let them know they were coming.
“It’s great having them here, and it’s super special,” Werenski said. “We’re happy that we made it to the gold-medal game so they can watch that and be a part of it. It’s on us to make them proud.”
Not that it would have been much of a debate, but coach Mike Sullivan confirmed what management told the Gaudreaus: Johnny would have been on the team if he were still alive, based on his body of work and how well he has played in a U.S. uniform.
“He was one of America’s very best,” Sullivan said. “He’s just a good person on the ice and off the ice, and I think he’s an inspiration to our players to this very day.”
Players still talk about Gaudreau, and “all the stories are funny,” according to Charlie McAvoy, who played alongside him at worlds.
“Just an amazing person, just an infectious personality,” McAvoy said. “The detail, really, with our staff and our equipment staff especially to make sure that he’s always with us, little reminders of him in the room, and they just go a long way. You always see them. They’re just gentle. They’re right there. But we know that he’s always with us.”
Along with Johnny’s No. 13 jersey is that number on the wall alongside Matthew’s No. 21. It’s similar to what USA Hockey did a year ago at the 4 Nations Face-Off, when Guy Gaudreau took part in practice as a guest coach.
This would have been Johnny Gaudreau’s first chance to play at the Olympics after the NHL did not participate in 2018 and 2022. But it almost certainly won’t be the last time his jersey hangs in the U.S. locker room at the game, a tradition that could continue for years to come.
CLEARWATER, Fla. — From his third-floor office overlooking the Phillies’ spring-training ballpark, John Middleton can see clear sky for miles.
Never mind the creeping storm clouds.
“We’re way too far away from it,” Middleton said Friday. “I don’t know when in the next nine months, or whenever the heck it is, we’ll have a clearer sense of the landscape. But we sure as heck don’t have it now.”
So, why worry? Yes, baseball is barreling toward a labor battle that is expected to get nasty. The particulars: Many owners want a salary cap, similar to the NFL, NBA, and NHL; players have historically opposed all limits on wages. The collective bargaining agreement will expire Dec. 1, and a lockout seems inevitable, with the possibility that it could eat into next season.
But that’s 283 days away. There are 162 regular-season games from here to there, with an All-Star Game to host in July. And it will be another expensive season for Middleton and his ownership partners.
Last year, the Phillies’ luxury-tax payroll totaled $314.3 million, fourth-highest in the sport after the Dodgers, Mets, and Yankees. The Phillies paid a club-record $56.1 million in taxes and are bracing for a similar bill at the end of this year.
“Higher,” Middleton said.
Indeed, the projected payroll is $317 million. It will be the fifth consecutive season that the Phillies have gone into luxury-tax territory and the second year in a row they cleared the highest threshold ($304 million for 2026), which carries a 110% tax rate. Middleton said they’ve also budgeted $80 million in local revenue (tickets, concessions, media deals, etc.) for revenue sharing.
John Middleton and the Phillies missed out on signing Bo Bichette this offseason.
“Do the math,” he said. “You’re pushing $140 million in spending essentially [for] being taxed. If I had $140 million back, could I have a higher payroll? Yes. But that’s not happening, so I don’t think about that fantasy. But it’s a lot of money. It really is.”
It’s also life among the big spenders in baseball’s current economic system. Middleton doesn’t sit on the owners’ labor policy committee, which is headed by the Rockies’ Dick Monfort and includes the Yankees’ Hal Steinbrenner, and said he’s restricted by the National Labor Relations Act from speaking publicly about negotiations with the players’ union that are set to begin in late March.
But in a wide-ranging conversation with The Inquirer, Middleton said the Phillies’ offseason spending wasn’t impacted by the looming labor uncertainty. If anything, it was business as usual.
They re-signed Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto and added reliever Brad Keller and right fielder Adolis García. They were ready to make a seven-year, $200 million offer to free-agent infielder Bo Bichette, who signed a short-term (three years), higher-annual-salary ($42 million per year) deal with the Mets.
In all, the Phillies spent $227 million on free agents, then paid $19.2 million for Nick Castellanos to play elsewhere.
“Any time you get to the end of a collective bargaining agreement, you just never know what the next one’s going to look like,” Middleton said. “And the rules have changed [over the years]. So, you could make decisions in the year or two preceding a new CBA that you look back and you say, ‘Hmm, had I known this was going to be the new CBA with this new rule, I maybe would’ve done something different.’
“I just think the problem, if you give that too much weight, you don’t do things that you should be doing in today’s world with today’s sets of rules to win today. So, I would say we were aware of it, we talked about it, but it didn’t change any of the decisions that we made.”
Because Middleton is chasing that (dang) World Series trophy. It’s been 18 years since the Phillies won it. They went on an unexpected ride to Game 6 of the World Series in 2022 but haven’t won a postseason series since ‘23. They’re 2-8 in their last 10 postseason games.
Owner John Middleton wasn’t angry about the Phillies’ exit in the NLDS last season against the Dodgers.
Middleton, 70, has the sensibilities of a lifelong fan who grew up watching Dick Allen in the 1960s and the competitiveness of a former collegiate wrestler. He was disappointed after last year’s exit in the divisional round. But unlike the previous October, he wasn’t angry.
The Phillies went toe-to-toe with the vaunted Dodgers, holding them to 13 runs and a .199 batting average in four games. Their three losses came by a total of four runs. And don’t even get Middleton started on umpire Mark Wegner’s missed strike call on a 2-2 pitch to the Dodgers’ Alex Call with one out in the seventh inning of Game 4. Call walked on the next pitch and scored the tying run. Wegner later admitted that he got it wrong.
“Assuming he made the correct call, all of a sudden that’s a strike, [Call is] out, [the run] never scores, we win the game, we go to Game 5 two days later in Philadelphia,” Middleton said. “I’m not telling you we would have beaten the Dodgers because they beat us twice at home. But the Dodgers didn’t want to play us in Game 5 in Philadelphia. There’s not a chance in the world that they were looking forward to that prospect.”
Middleton acknowledges that the Dodgers, owned by Guggenheim Partners, have inherent financial advantages that only Steve Cohen, the billionaire hedge-fund manager who owns the Mets, can match.
The Phillies have won more regular-season games in each of the last four seasons. Attendance to Citizens Bank Park has risen from 2.23 million fans in 2022 to 3 million in 2023, 3.36 million in ‘24, and 3.37 million last season.
But in 2024, Middleton also added three new investors to the Phillies’ ownership group. At the time, he said it would “allow us to pursue our strategic growth opportunities and long-term goals.”
“Look, when Hal Steinbrenner publicly says the Yankees can’t do what the Dodgers are doing — and the Yankees for decades have been the team that can do pretty much whatever it wants — that’s telling,“ Middleton said. ”[The Dodgers] are smart, competent people, which makes them fierce competitors. And the fact that they’ve got some financial clout, particularly clout that other teams can’t match, it makes them even tougher competitors.
“But the division series that we lost was the first time in three years, I think, that we lost a series to them. We were 5-1 against the Dodgers in series prior to that. So, it’s not like we haven’t beaten the Dodgers consistently.”
Middleton touched on other subjects, with answers lightly edited for brevity and clarity:
Phillies owner John Middleton (right) says president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski (left) and Bryce Harper hashed out their differences recently.
Q: What was your perspective on Dave Dombrowski’s comments about whether Bryce Harper is still elite and the baseless rumors that followed about possibly trading him?
A: I just kind of chuckled to myself like, ‘Well, I guess they know something that I don’t know.’ The good news is Dave and Rob [Thomson] and Bryce talked it through after the last set of comments that Bryce made down here, and they’ve agreed that everything’s fine. I’m happy that they’ve reached that point, and I’m comfortable, confident that everything’s behind us now.
Q: You have a close relationship with Bryce. Did you personally call him to make sure everything was OK?
A: Nah. I’ve talked to Bryce over the years about other issues. But in Dave, you’re talking about one of the truly historically great GMs in the history of baseball. People in my position should not undermine their GMs and their head coaches, their managers. And when you have the background and the track record that Dave does, it’s particularly important that you understand your limitations [as an owner].
There have been times when Dave and I are talking about something, and he’ll look at me and say, ‘I’d like you to talk to the player.’ If he thought I needed to talk to Bryce, he would have been the first person to raise his hand and say, ‘John, it would be helpful if you talked to Bryce.’ He didn’t do it. Because Dave asked me to do it, I spent most of a day in Kyle Schwarber’s living room, at his kitchen table, because Dave said it would be helpful. And I talked to J.T. I’ll do whatever I need to do to be helpful, but I’m not going to force myself into a situation where I’m not needed.
Q: What’s your reaction to the narrative that the Phillies are “running it back” again with the same core that keeps falling short in October?
A: I understand the frustration. I will also tell you I do talk to a lot of fans, and there are clearly fans who voice the issue that you did. But I would tell you most of the fans understand. They look at it and they say, ‘OK, I get it. You were a missed call away from probably winning Game 4 and going on to Game 5.’ Not everybody’s going to acknowledge that. But it’s also not like we didn’t try. First of all, we re-signed Kyle. We could have let him go like the Mets, let [Edwin] Díaz go or [Pete] Alonso go. We re-signed J.T. We tried to sign Bichette. We actually thought we had a deal. At 11 o’clock that night, we had a deal, in our opinion. Not finalized. And the Mets did nothing that we wouldn’t have done and haven’t done, so I don’t blame the Mets. But you went to bed at 11 o’clock thinking we had a deal, and I woke up at 8 o’clock worried we didn’t have a deal, and two hours later, I knew we didn’t have a deal. So, it’s not like we didn’t try. We did try to tweak the team.
But go back to that [Phillies] team in ’76, ’77, ’78, they missed the World Series three years running. They go out and sign Pete Rose after the ’78 season. They promptly finish fourth in ’79 with theoretically a better team, and they ran it back in ’80. Now, that doesn’t mean we’re going to win the World Series in ’26 because the ’80 Phillies won the World Series after four tries. But you certainly don’t blow up teams. And it’s hard with a team that was good as that team was and our job is to improve it. You can look at certain places and say, ‘Well, you can improve it here or you can improve it there,’ but that means you have to go out and find the better player and bring that player in. Look, we tried to do that with Bichette. So, I get the frustration. I’m frustrated. I mean, Dave’s frustrated. Rob’s frustrated. A lot of the players are frustrated.
Going back to the Dodgers series, our players executed. You look at ’23 and ’24, even ’22 frankly a little bit, I think there were execution problems in those three years. I don’t feel that way about ’25.
Q: The Phillies have had a top-five payroll now for five years. Could you have ever envisioned a $317 million payroll?
A: So, the answer is yes. And I’d say yes because I think we have such a spectacular fan base. I trust the fan base. I have confidence in the fan base that, if we put the right team on the field, they’ll respond. And that doesn’t always happen. There’s plenty of examples in not just baseball, but other professional sports where there’s a team that’s really, really good and the fans yawn. And I knew that was never going to happen in Philadelphia. New York’s clearly a bigger market than Philadelphia, and they have higher prices than Philadelphia, so their seats sell for more, their hot dogs sell for more, their suites sell for more. But I always thought we could get reasonably close to them from a revenue standpoint, and then hopefully outcompete them. And look, I still feel that way.
Q: What has the ramp-up for the All-Star Game been like? How hectic are the next few months going to be?
A: I think we and MLB are better organized that I wouldn’t say it’s hectic. But there are a lot of details you have to get from the planning stage and the early conversation stage to a final decision and getting that decision implemented. And we’re kind of down that path so that we’ve kind of made final decisions on most everything. But now we’ve got to implement them, and that’s a whole other set of challenges. So, yeah, it’s nerve-wracking. I’m excited. I’m looking forward to it. I think of it like my daughter’s wedding. I’m excited, I’m looking forward to it, and I know I’ll be really happy the day after when I wake up and it’s done.
There haven’t been any giant “DELCO” flags in the stands at the Olympics, at least as far as we’ve been able to tell from home. But there is a Broomall native, Taylor Anderson-Heide, going for a bronze medal in women’s curling for the United States on Saturday.
The U.S. lost to Switzerland in the semifinals on Friday, in a match that was tightly contested throughout. You have to tip your broom to the outstanding shot by Swiss veteran Alina Pätz, a six-time world champion, that clinched the win.
So the Americans are playing Canada for bronze, adding another chapter to their long rivalry. Unfortunately, most of it is live just on Peacock, but USA Network will pick up coverage at 9:30 a.m.
Saturday is the last full day of Olympics action, but some other major Americans will be going for gold. We start in women’s bobsled, where the two-woman event has its last two runs.
Americans Kaillie Humphries and Jasmine Jones were in third after Friday’s first two runs. Kaysha Love and Azaria Hill were in fifth, while monobob champion Elana Meyers Taylor and Jadin O’Brien were in 12th.
NBC has the first run live at 1 p.m. and the second run live at 3:05 p.m.
Kaillie Humphries and Jasmine Jones starting one of their bobsled runs in the first rounds on Friday.
Then there’s speedskating’s mass start, with Jordan Stolz in the men’s event going for his fourth medal in Milan. It’s an unusual 6,400-meter distance, 16 laps of the oval, and Stolz has admitted it’s “more like a bonus” for him. But it’s certainly a show, because as the name implies, it gets very crowded.
Instead of the usual two skaters on the track, the mass start has a lot of them all at once. The top eight finishers in each semifinal advance to the final. Coverage of the finals starts at 9 a.m. on USA Network, then moves to NBC at 10 a.m. when the network comes on air for the day.
As a general rule, our schedules include all live broadcasts on TV, but not tape-delayed broadcasts on cable channels. We’ll let you know what’s on NBC’s broadcasts, whether live or not.
NBC
10 a.m.: Speedskating — Men’s and women’s mass start finals
1:30 p.m.: Freestyle skiing — Women’s halfpipe final
2:55 p.m.: Figure skating — Gala
3:15 p.m.: Bobsled — Two-woman final run
3:50 p.m.: Back to the figure skating gala
4:30 p.m.: Freestyle skiing — Mixed team aerials (delayed)
5:15 p.m.: Bobsled — Four-man first and second runs (delayed)
8 p.m.: Prime time highlights including bobsled, freestyle skiing, speed skating, and figure skating
11:30 p.m.: Late night highlights including bobsled, speed skating, and freestyle skiing
USA Network
4 a.m.: Bobsled — Four-man, first run
4:45 a.m.: Freestyle skiing — Mixed team aerials final
6:10 a.m.: Cross-country skiing — Men’s 50km
7:30 a.m.: Ski mountaineering — Mixed relay final
8:15 a.m.: Biathlon — Women’s 12.5km mass start
9 a.m.: Speedskating — Men’s and women’s mass start finals
9:30 a.m.: Curling — United States vs. Canada women’s bronze medal game (joined in progress)
2:40 p.m.: Ice hockey — Finland vs. Slovakia men’s bronze medal game
CNBC
1:05 p.m.: Curling — Switzerland vs. Norway bronze medal game
How to watch the Olympics on TV and stream online
NBC’s TV coverage will have live events from noon to 5 p.m. Philadelphia time on weekdays and starting in the mornings on the weekends. There’s a six-hour time difference between Italy and here. The traditional prime-time coverage will have highlights of the day and storytelling features.
As far as the TV channels, the Olympics are airing on NBC, USA, CNBC, and NBCSN. Spanish coverage can be found on Telemundo and Universo.
NBCSN is carrying the Gold Zone whip-around show that was so popular during the Summer Olympics in 2024, with hosts including Scott Hanson of NFL RedZone. It used to be just on Peacock, NBC’s online streaming service, but now is on TV, too.
Every event is available to stream live on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app. You’ll have to log in with your pay-TV provider, whether cable, satellite, or streaming platforms including YouTube TV, FuboTV, and Sling TV.
On Peacock, the events are on the platform’s premium subscription tier, which starts at $10.99 per month or $109.99 per year.
Ashley Morton stopped posting the hours on the door of her Mayfair boutique. There’s no point, she said. It’s impossible for the business owner to hold consistent opening times when her son is one of Philadelphia’s best high school basketball players. There always seems to be a game or tournament for the mom to attend.
“My customers say, ‘Is the store going to be open?’ I say, ‘Sorry, we got a game’,” Morton said. “So we just do pickups now. People can order online and schedule a pickup. It just became too much.”
That’s the price you pay when your son — Father Judge’s Derrick Morton-Rivera — is a win away from a second straight Catholic League boys’ basketball title.
“I’m just going to wait until everything is completely finished,” Morton said. “Then we’ll open back up.”
The mom opened Ashley’s Kloset 12 years ago after a dress she made with a Wal-Mart sewing machine and a $2 piece of fabric from Jo-Mar received attention on social media. Morton was self taught — “I went on a wing and a prayer,” she said — and figured it out. She had enough of her job at a men’s suit store and decided to do her own thing. So her mom helped her launch the business in Olney before it moved to Mayfair.
“My mom said, ‘We’re going to get you a store,’” Morton said. “Mind you, I don’t have any money. My mom doesn’t have any money. I’m like, ‘How are we going to get a store?’ Don’t you know she came up with that money and found me a store.”
She put a basketball net in the back of her store for her son, who seemed destined to be a hooper ever since he dribbled a ball when he was just 10 months old.
Derrick Morton-Rivera and his mother, Ashley, after his first ever basketball game.
“My mom dropped the spaghetti,” Morton said. “She was cooking ground beef and she was like, ‘Oh my god.’ He was bouncing the ball before he could even walk. You know how they have that little wobble? The ball was bouncing while he was off and then once it stopped bouncing, he fell.”
The son is signed to play at Temple and showed why on Wednesday night when he willed Judge back from an early 16-point deficit against Archbishop Wood in the semifinals. He scored 27 points and had the 9,000 fans at the Palestra in the palm of his hand.
Morton was not trying to shape a basketball player when she opened her store. But she did show her son everyday the hard work that comes with chasing a dream. Perhaps that prepared him to chase his own.
“My mom is always working,” said Morton-Rivera. “The only time she really takes off is to see me play. Knowing how hard she works, makes me work even harder.”
Derrick Morton-Rivera, who will try Sunday to win a second straight Catholic League title, is signed to play at Temple.
The Potato State
Customers asked Morton about her shop’s hours in the summer and she said she had to first check the AAU schedule.
“I don’t have a schedule,” she said. “I just have his. This is going to be the first summer without it. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.”
She traveled with her son to basketball tournaments throughout the country, crossing off states she never dreamed of visiting.
“What’s the Potato State? Idaho,” she said. “It was the most boring place ever. Even their downtown was a ghost town. But we can say we’ve been to Idaho, you know what I mean?”
Morton poured everything into her son, even the hours of her own shop. She had help, too. If Morton works late, her mother stops by to cook dinner and do the laundry.
“She even washes my clothes,” Morton said as it took a village to raise a basketball star.
Morton designs and sews all of her own women’s clothing in the ALM Collection, specializing in plus sizes and fashion for taller women. She does enough online orders — the shop ships around the world, she said — that she can close the doors to watch basketball.
Something that started on a whim has grown into a full-time operation. The mom willed her dream into existence.
“I remember one time he was like, ‘Mom, all you do is work.’ And I started crying,” Morton said. “Because he doesn’t know what I’m working for. Every time he turned the light on, the light came on. Anything he asked for, I was able to provide. He’s like, ‘Alls I see is the back of your head because you’re just sewing all the time.’ I said, ‘Mir, you have to understand.’ Now, I think he gets it.”
Derrick Morton-Rivera’s mom owns a boutique in Mayfair, Ashley’s Kloset.
‘Mom, just calm down’
The crowd at the Palestra roared as Judge mounted its comeback on Wednesday. And the fans will be even louder on Sunday when Judge plays Neumann Goretti. But Morton-Rivera, whose father, D.J. Rivera, won a Catholic League title at Neumann Goretti, plays like he can’t hear anything. He handles the frenzy of a sold-out arena the same way he does when Chick-fil-A forgets his sauce.
“I’m like, ‘They forgot the sauce,’” Morton said. “And he’s like, ‘Mom, just calm down. Relax. Ask her for it.’ He calms me down. He inspires me to have patience, be humble, and just breathe.”
The kid who watched his mom spend hours behind the sewing machine seems just as fixated on the basketball court. He followed his dad to gyms as a kid and always found time to work on his shot.
Judge’s coaches organized a practice Friday afternoon but that wasn’t enough for Morton-Rivera, who stayed in the gym with a few teammates for another 90 minutes. Like mom, he’s always working.
“It’s just about ‘How bad do you want it?,’” he said. “We have a lot of guys on our team who want it. Even if they’re tired, they’ll stay after practice to get their shots up. Those are the little things that show when the game starts.”
His mom signed him up to play when he was 3 years old as he was tall enough to play with the 6-year-old kids at the Lawncrest Rec Center. They told the parents to make sure their kids came with a drink. So Morton sent her son with a Capri Sun pouch.
The mom figured it out. It was the start of her son’s basketball journey, one that felt so rapid as he started to dunk as a teenager and played in the Potato State. And now he has a residency at The Palestra with a college scholarship secured.
“My sister was like, ‘Ash, that’s really your son,’” Morton said. “And I say, ‘Yes, it is.’ It’s just been so amazing. I’m so proud of him.”
Judge’s basketball season could extend another month if it marches deep into the state playoffs. Until it’s finished, Morton’s business will be online only.
“I’m getting my inventory ready to be fully stocked,” Morton said.
Julius Erving, an all-time 76ers great whose No. 6 is retired by the franchise, will celebrate his 76th birthday on Sunday.
As the basketball legend marks a milestone, here’s a look back at the 10 best moments of Erving’s career with the Sixers:
The Doctor is in
The Sixers acquired Erving from the New York Nets at the start of the 1976-77 NBA season, the first season after the league’s merger with the American Basketball Association was completed. The ABA’s Nets, one of four teams incorporated into the league, were forced to move on from Erving in order to pay the fees associated with entering the NBA.
The Sixers paid the Nets $3 million to acquire Erving, who was already a three-time ABA MVP by the time he joined the Sixers. The forward was also a season removed from winning the 1976 ABA dunk contest with a legendary leap from the free throw line.
All-Star MVP
Erving got off to a good start in his first NBA season with the Sixers, averaging 19.9 points before the All-Star break in 1976-77. But that season’s All-Star Game in Milwaukee was a point of arrival for the former face of the ABA.
Erving scored 30 points and nabbed 12 rebounds in 30 minutes, earning the game’s Most Valuable Player trophy despite the East losing to the West, 125-124. Erving, who was named an All-Star in each of his 18 ABA and NBA seasons, won the NBA’s All-Star MVP again in 1983.
Finals slam
Erving led the Sixers to the NBA Finals in his first season with the team, averaging 21.6 points and 8.5 rebounds in 1976-77. One of the high-flyer’s most memorable dunks came in Game 6 of the Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers. In the second quarter, Erving dribbled through three Trail Blazer defenders, leapt toward the rim and threw down a right-handed jam over the outstretched arms of Bill Walton.
Despite an NBA playoff career-high 40-point outing from Erving, Walton’s Blazers won Game 6, 109-107, to claim the 1977 NBA championship.
Baseline scoop
Walton wasn’t the only Hall of Fame center Erving antagonized in the NBA Finals. His iconic “baseline scoop” move against the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980 Finals was a crafty way of getting around the shot-blocking ability of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
In the fourth quarter of Game 4, Erving drove to the right side of the basket, leapt while underneath the backboard and tossed an underhanded shot that hit the left side of the backboard and rolled in.
“I didn’t realize how long I had been in the air, but I knew I didn’t have any legs left and I didn’t have any hang time left, so I fell on the floor,” Erving said to ESPN in 2019. “Just another move.”
The scoop was two Erving’s 23 points scored in Game 4, helping the Sixers to a 105-102 victory that evened the series at two games apiece. The Lakers won the series, 4-2.
Most Valuable Doctor
Erving won his lone NBA MVP award in the 1980-81 season. At the time, Erving was the second Sixer to win the league’s top individual honor alongside Wilt Chamberlain.
Erving finished top-five in MVP voting five times as a Sixer, but the three-time ABA MVP only won the award once after the merger. Erving averaged 24.6 points, 8.0 rebounds and 4.4 assists in the 1980-81 season. He led the Sixers to a 62-20 regular season record, tied for the NBA’s best with the Celtics. The Sixers lost the 1981 Eastern Conference finals to Boston, which would go on to win the title that season.
Rock the baby
Another iconic Erving dunk, the “rock the baby” slam, came against the Lakers at the Spectrum in January 1983. Erving picked up a loose ball along the sideline just past center court, drove toward the rim and cradled the ball with his right hand before bringing it up to the rim for a dunk over Michael Cooper.
The Sixers held on for a two point win in overtime against the Lakers in what turned out to be a preview of the 1983 Finals.
Four, five, four
Moses Malone was the Sixer that predicted a full sweep of the 1983 Playoffs — “four, four, four” — after the team earned the top seed with a 65-17 regular season record, but Erving helped his center’s postseason prediction (almost) come true as the Sixers marched to the third championship in franchise history.
Erving and the Sixers were 12-1 in the playoffs, including a sweep of the defending champion Lakers in the 1983 Finals. The Sixers’ only loss was to the Bucks in the Eastern Conference finals. Erving averaged 18.4 points in the Sixers’ 13 playoff games, including a 21-point, six-assist performance to complete a sweep of the Lakers in Game 4.
At the time, the Sixers were the only team to complete a postseason with one loss. The 2001 Lakers and 2017 Warriors are the only teams since to take only one loss in the postseason.
Downing Dallas
Erving sank two game-winning shots at the horn during the final stretch of the 1985-86 regular season, which was his penultimate NBA season. The first shot came in Dallas on Feb. 28, 1986.
With two seconds remaining in a tie game, Erving inbounded the ball from the sideline to Maurice Cheeks. Cheeks passed it back to Erving, who launched a heave from beyond half court. The shot went in, and the Sixers won, 123-120.
Beating Boston
Erving’s next game winner came a little more than a month after his heroics in Dallas. Erving’s Sixers were down two to Larry Bird’s Celtics at the Spectrum on April 6, 1986.
The Sixers fouled Bird with seven seconds remaining, sending the league’s best free throw shooter to the line with a chance to make Boston’s lead four. Bird missed both, leaving the door open for the Sixers to win the game, 95-94, on an Erving three-pointer as time expired.
Jersey retirement
After the Sixers’ opening game of the 1986-87 season, Erving announced he would retire at the end of the season. In total, Erving played 11 seasons for the Sixers and averaged 22 points over 836 games with the team.
At the time of his retirement, Erving was the third-leading scorer in Sixers history, though he has since been passed by Allen Iverson. Erving is still the franchise’s all-time leader in blocked shots with 1,293 rejections in a Sixers uniform. The franchise retired his No. 6 jersey on April 18, 1988, in a ceremony at the Spectrum.
Erving also had his No. 32 retired by the Nets in honor of his ABA career, making him one of 16 players in NBA history to have their jersey retired by multiple franchises. Erving was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993.
When they eventually install microcameras into the corneas of our eyes, we’ll still be watching this hockey highlight.
This was Kerri Strug vaulting on one leg in 1996. Bob Beamon shattering the long jump in Mexico City in 1968. Sid the Kid in 2010, only much, much cooler.
It was more than historic. It was iconic.
In overtime of the gold-medal game at the 2026 Winter Olympics, Team USA defenseman Megan Keller deked Canadian defender Claire Thompson and left her in the dust, flailing with her stick.
Keller then beat goalie Ann-Renée Desbiens with a backhand to the short side.
It’s hard to compare this Olympic moment with Romania’s Nadia Comăneci, who scored gymnastics’ first perfect 10 in 1976 at the age of 14. It’s not really the same as Usain “Lightning” Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter who broke Michael Johnson’s world record in the 200 meters in 2008 or Michael Phelps, who, at those same Beijing Games, swam his way to eight golds; their moments were parts of aggregations. And it certainly lacks the social significance of Black sprinter Jesse Owens, who won a then-record four golds in 1936 in front of host Adolf Hitler.
Jamaica’s Usain Bolt celebrates as he wins the men’s 200-meter final with a world record during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
I was there for Bolt and Phelps. All of those moments took your breath away the way only great moments in sport leave you breathless.
None was quite as magical as Keller’s golden goal.
Sidney Crosby did something similar for Canada in 2010, and he did it against Team USA, and I was there for that, too. But Crosby’s goal was simpler: He carried the puck in, had a weak shot deflected away, got it back, went to the boards, passed to teammate Jarome Iginla, skated away from suddenly inattentive defenseman Brian Rafalski, got the pass back from Iginla, and snapped a shot past goaltender Ryan Miller.
Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky and film legend Donald Sutherland, both great Canadians, were sitting right behind me. They’d probably disagree with my assertion here.
Keller’s goal isn’t quite the same event as Team USA’s upset of the Soviets in 1980. That was a true underdog story, mostly U.S. college kids playing an elite set of professionals who’d won the last four golds. It might be the biggest upset in sports history — but it wasn’t an overtime game, or even a gold-medal game, and there was no defining, game-ending moment like Keller’s.
Pity poor Thompson, but not too much. She’d been a hero in China with 11 assists and two goals, an Olympic record for defensemen, when the Canadians won the gold in 2022.
There are plenty of caveats surrounding what should be the play of the year. None of them of Keller’s making.
Megan Keller celebrates after scoring one of the best golden goals you will ever see in hockey.
Crosby scored his goal in a four-on-four setting, but overtime rules were changed ahead of the 2022 Olympics to make it three-on-three.
The teams in 2010 were more evenly matched, while the U.S. team in Milan, Italy, was heavily favored, having outscored opponents, 31-1, in a 6-0 run that included a 5-0 win over Canada in the preliminary round. However, Canada’s strategy and execution Thursday had the reigning champs holding onto a 1-0 lead before American captain Hilary Knight tied the game with 2 minutes, 4 seconds left in regulation.
Finally, no teams besides Canada (five) and the U.S. (three) have won a gold medal, and they have met in the gold-medal game seven of the eight times it has been played. To date, it is not a sport in which the field offers the titans much resistance.
This should not diminish the moment. Keller and her teammates can only beat opponents they meet.
This golden goal is one of the best plays you will ever see.
In fact, as a spontaneous athletic maneuver of incomparable audacity and breathtaking skill, seizing the biggest moment in a player’s life, I struggle to find its equal.
You never know how Jeffrey Lurie sees his team, but, after two Super Bowl trips and two post-Super Bowl disasters, it feels more than ever like there’s a one-year window in which Nick Sirianni and Jalen Hurts can save their jobs in Philadelphia.
Their chances got a lot better Thursday.
That’s when The Inquirer reported that right tackle Lane Johnson, arguably the greatest Eagle ever and inarguably the greatest Eagles offensive lineman, would return for a 14th season. The Birds are 110-57-1 with Johnson, 18-27 without. He’s the only Eagle on either offense or defense to start in both of their Super Bowl wins. Johnson considered retirement after missing the last seven games with a foot injury and after offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland resigned.
Thursday also was when both The Inquirer and former Eagles TV reporter Derrick Gunn reported that left guard Landon Dickerson, whose body has endured multiple injuries beginning in college, will return for a sixth season. Before this season, Dickerson was voted onto the three previous Pro Bowl teams.
Despite his frustrations with health issues Landon Dickerson is planning to return for the 2026 season … per source.
There has been a lot of noise since the Eagles’ season ended a month ago: A.J. Brown’s dissatisfaction; the firing of offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo; the tortuous pursuit of his replacement, who turned out to be little-known Sean Mannion; and the possibility of losing defensive coordinator Vic Fangio to retirement.
None of those issues mattered as much as the possible loss of Johnson and Dickerson.
Replacing either of them would have been difficult.
Replacing both would have been catastrophic.
That’s because Hurts has shown little capacity for success in the NFL unless he plays behind an elite offensive line. When the Eagles went to Super Bowls after the 2022 and 2024 seasons, the offensive lines were elite and stable. They were markedly less so in 2023 and 2025, seasons in which the Eagles lost their first playoff game.
Not coincidentally, Sirianni’s offenses have flourished when Johnson, Dickerson, & Co. have been healthy and wisely utilized, relying on a turnover-averse run-first attack.
Eagles guard Landon Dickerson blocks Detroit Lions linebacker Derrick Barnes.
When healthy, Johnson and Dickerson, both athletic freaks, are voracious run-blockers.
An ancillary benefit of Johnson returning relates to the departure of Stoutland. “Stout” is the only offensive line coach Johnson has ever had in the NFL; for that matter, that’s true of every other Eagles starter.
But no other Eagles lineman has either the base of knowledge or capacity to impart that knowledge on teammates like Johnson. He founded and runs an annual offensive line offseason camp every summer in Texas called OL Masterminds.
Almost every lineman that has ever played with him testifies that Johnson has, at some point, acted as a sort of assistant coach when Stoutland or his offensive line assistants weren’t fully able to get their message across.
More than anything, Johnson brings a level of intensity and professionalism to every game and practice that few others in the NFL can match. It is why he is great, and that sort of greatness is contagious. Certainly, Dickerson has benefited.
So, their return not only could save the 2026 season, but it also could extend the Philadelphia shelf-life of both coach and quarterback.
Granted, there are contingents of fans and pundits who would rather that either one or both leave the employ of Lurie sooner than later, and so this development on the offensive line might not be met with unrestrained joy.
But one never should be thankless for news that is, on the whole, good for their own self-interests.
Mike Nardi turned 41 a few weeks ago, and considering he arrived on Villanova‘s campus as an 18-year-old freshman in 2003, played under Jay Wright for four seasons, then joined Wright’s staff in 2015 after seven years playing professionally overseas and remained on the bench through the end of last season, Villanova basketball was basically all Nardi knew for most of his adult life.
He was there in the nascent days of Wright’s dynasty as a player and was back on the bench in time to enjoy the two national championships he laid the groundwork for.
Xfinity Mobile Arena has been the site of many memories. Villanova fans still recite Sean McDonough’s “Nardi for three and the lead” call during an ESPN Big Monday broadcast on Feb. 13, 2006, with reverence. Nardi, who had missed the previous two games with tonsillitis, drilled a transition three-pointer from the right wing in front of the Villanova bench during a 22-4 run that erased a 12-point deficit and gave fourth-ranked Villanova its first win over No. 1 UConn in three years.
A year earlier, the building was where Villanova, during a freshman season that saw Nardi make the All-Big East rookie team, announced its arrival on the national stage with a blowout victory over second-ranked Kansas.
Nardi is returning to that building Saturday night. It’s the latest installment of the Villanova-UConn rivalry (5:30 p.m., FOX). But Nardi will be on the visitor’s bench, and he’d like nothing more than to prevent Villanova from getting its best win of the season over his fifth-ranked Huskies.
Mike Nardi joined Jay Wright’s staff in 2015.
“I had a great experience, but the emotions for me now are, ‘Hey, it’s competition,’” said Nardi, who was hired by Dan Hurley to be an assistant coach after Villanova brought in Kevin Willard last year. “I’m competing and I’m at a place where we want to win. The emotions and all of that, I’ve never been a guy to get caught up in that kind of stuff. There’s a task at hand and we want to go there and get a win and that’s the most important thing.”
Nardi already got some of those feelings, if there were any to begin with, out of the way during Villanova’s trip to Connecticut in January. He caught up with Ashley Howard, JayVaughn Pinkston, and Nick DePersia, the only holdovers from Kyle Neptune’s staff; longtime radio voice Whitey Rigsby; athletic director Eric Roedl; and longtime sports information director Mike Sheridan. Then it was all business. Villanova was Nardi’s scouting assignment for each of the matchups this season. He exchanged his pleasantries, said his hellos, and then he helped coach a UConn overtime victory.
“I was sad to see it end, but I landed in a place where, again, it’s like the standard of college basketball,” Nardi said. “I’m working for another Hall of Fame coach, a guy who has won at every level. For me, it’s a great learning experience because I played at Villanova, I coached at Villanova, and besides going overseas and seeing different systems and playing for other coaches, I really haven’t had a chance to branch out and see a different system and learn the game a different way.”
If it were up to Nardi, this story probably wouldn’t be written. He returned a reporter’s call Friday in part, he said, out of respect for Villanova. He doesn’t want Saturday night to be about anything more than UConn trying to go on the road against a good team in a tough environment and get a win in its pursuit of a Big East regular season title.
“I don’t want to make this about me,” he said. “It’s really not Mike Nardi and coming back to Villanova. This is about UConn and Villanova. That’s what’s most important to me.”
Former Villanova coach Kyle Neptune (left) and assistant coach Mike Nardi shown during the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden last March.
It didn’t take very long to get over being on the other side of the rivalry despite all his history with it. The good and the bad. He made that crucial three to earn his first win over UConn in 2006, then watched the meaningful portion of the 2024-25 season end at the hands of Hurley in the Big East tournament, only to have his friend, Neptune, fired a few days later.
Nardi respects winning, he said, and respects excellence. He always viewed Connecticut in that light, from Jim Calhoun’s teams to Hurley’s. It was a good landing spot for him for basketball reasons and because Hurley, he said, respected everything Nardi was about, from playing for St. Patrick High School in New Jersey against Hurley’s father’s St. Anthony, to playing and coaching in the rivalry.
Nardi wasn’t asked to stay by Willard, he said, and never expected to be.
“I never felt slighted. I never felt a certain way,” Nardi said. “I kind of knew there was a slim chance of me being asked to stay. And that was OK. I didn’t take that the wrong way. I think I’m good at what I do. I think I could’ve been an asset, but I never ever looked at it like this is messed up, why aren’t you keeping me? That’s not how this works.”
Hurley, meanwhile, thought Nardi could be an asset in Connecticut. The Huskies are 24-3 after a Wednesday night home loss to Creighton, and they’re pursuing a third national title in four seasons. Villanova, meanwhile, is 21-5, 12-3 in the Big East, and in line to snap a three-season NCAA Tournament drought.
Nardi was happy, he said, that Willard got the job. He wanted the school to hire someone who cared about the program, and Willard fits that description. Part of him is happy to see Villanova back in the mix, but he’s not watching Villanova games in his free time with his old No. 12 jersey draped over his shoulders.
“It’s good to see them doing well,” Nardi said. “It’s obviously good for the league. I think that’s a big piece of it. But I’d be lying to you if I said I was rooting for them. I don’t root for anybody else in the league. I’m rooting for UConn and that’s it.”
NEW YORK — The New York and New Jersey World Cup host committee has canceled its fan festival that had been planned to be held at Liberty State Park in Jersey City.
The committee scrapped plans for the weekslong festival that would have been held about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, where the final will be played on July 19.
The FanFest was announced in February 2025 by Tammy Murphy, wife of then-New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and chair of the New York/New Jersey host committee’s directors, who said it would be open for all 104 matches of the tournament, which starts June 11.
The committee said in a statement Friday an “expanded network of fan zones and community celebrations across 21 counties in New Jersey will serve as a cornerstone of the region’s official fan engagement program.”
Mikie Sherrill, Murphy’s successor as governor, announced a $5 million initiative Thursday to fund community World Cup initiatives.
Tickets for the FanFest had been put on sale in December.
Plans for a FanFest in New York City’s Corona Park in Queens did not move forward. One is now planed for the U.S. Tennis Association’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens from June 17-28 and a fan village is scheduled for Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center from July 4-19.
Fan fests with large video screens have been a part of each World Cup’s organization since 2006.
FIFA is running the World Cup itself unlike in the past, when a local organizing committee was in charge of logistics. The host committees are limited to sponsorship agreements in categories not reserved by FIFA.
MILAN — Zach Werenski and his U.S. teammates tried not to look ahead to a potential gold-medal game against Canada at the Olympics. After each went unbeaten in group play, there was no way the North American rivals could meet before the final, but there was work left to do.
After routing Slovakia 6-2 in the semifinals on Friday night, the much-anticipated but never guaranteed U.S.-Canada showdown for gold is on.
“It’s the matchup everyone wanted,” Werenski said after his three-assist performance against Slovakia. “Now that it’s finally here, we can kind of shift our focus to Canada.”
The two top seeds in the tournament, who went in as the favorites, will meet Sunday. It comes a year after the U.S. and Canada played two memorable games against each other at the 4 Nations Face-Off.
“It’s the final that we wanted and the team that we wanted to play,” winger Matt Boldy said. “It’s exciting for the fans and for hockey and everything like that.’’
That NHL-run event ended a drought of nearly a decade without an international tournament featuring the best hockey players in the world. Three fights in the first 9 seconds of the first meeting put the 4 Nations in the spotlight, and the epic final won by Canada in overtime only built the anticipation for the Olympics.
“Now that it’s all set in stone, everything happens for a reason,” said Brady Tkachuk, who along with brother Matthew and J.T. Miller, was involved in the 4 Nations fisticuffs. “We’ll be looking forward to this one. You guys have been talking about it for a while. Now you get to enjoy it.”
After Canada did its part by rallying to beat Finland earlier in the day, the U.S. had no trouble against the Slovaks, who made an improbable run and were simply overmatched. They’ll face the Finns for bronze on Saturday night, looking for just the second hockey medal in the country’s history after getting the first with a third-place finish in Beijing in 2022.
The U.S. is playing for gold after the semifinals were a much easier go than the quarterfinals against Sweden, when overtime was needed to survive a scare. Dylan Larkin, Tage Thompson, Jack Hughes, and Jack Eichel scored the four goals on 23 shots that chased Samuel Hlavaj out of Slovakia’s net past the midway point of the second period.
Thompson, one of just a handful of newcomers who did not play at the 4 Nations, exited later in the second after blocking a shot and did not return. Coach Mike Sullivan said Thompson “was held out for precautionary reasons more than anything.”
“We’ll see how he recovers, but I anticipate him being ready for game time,” Sullivan said.
Hughes got his second goal of the game just after a power play expired, and Brady Tkachuk scored on a breakaway with just over nine minutes left to provide some more breathing room.
The U.S. cruised in the semifinals with a 6-2 win over Slovakia. They’ll face Canada on Sunday for gold.
“That was definitely one of our strongest games, for sure,” said Quinn Hughes, who, along with brother Jack, has been among the best U.S. players in Milan. “For the most part, we played really well. A little bit looser there in the third, but it’s a 5-0 game and you want to get out safe and feel good for the next game.”
Goaltender Connor Hellebuyck did his job as his teammates outshot Slovakia by a substantial margin. Everything he has done at the Olympics has validated Sullivan’s decision to go with Hellebuyck as the U.S. starter over Jake Oettinger and Jeremy Swayman.
The U.S. last reached the final in 2010, when it lost to Canada in overtime on Sidney Crosby’s famous golden goal. Crosby’s status is uncertain this time after getting injured in the quarterfinals Wednesday and not playing Friday against Finland.
The last U.S. men’s hockey gold came in 1980 with the “Miracle on Ice” in Lake Placid.
“It definitely motivates us,” Werenski said. “We’ve talked about. We’re well aware of it. I don’t think it’s pressure. It’s fun. It’s exciting.”
