But while Lidstrom won the Norris Trophy because the NHL's best defenseman a whopping seven times during his Hall of Fame profession, Vlasic was never even near being a finalist. The Norris is more about point production, and Vlasic, who has been used primarily within the shutdown role in his 18-plus seasons, only received votes for the award 4 times.

Vlasic doesn't mind, but he has a suggestion for the NHL.

“I hope they award two trophies later,” he said.

The Norris and one other for one of the best shutdown defender within the league.

“I find it absolutely absurd,” said Vlasic, who celebrated his 1,three hundredth on Thursday. could play an NHL game when the Sharks play the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena.

Currently, the NHL has a handful of awards for forwards: The Art Ross Trophy goes to the producer with essentially the most points, the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy goes to the league's top scorer, and the Frank J. Selke Trophy goes to the league's best defensive forward League. Chris Pronger was the last defenseman to win the Hart Memorial Trophy because the NHL's most respected player in 2000.

Even goalkeepers have two awards: the Vezina Trophy goes to one of the best individual goalkeeper, and the William M. Jennings Trophy is awarded to the goalkeeper(s) who played a minimum of 25 games for his or her team and scored the fewest goals.

But there isn’t a second award for defenders – aside from Norris.

“They have a Vezina and a Jennings. They have two goalkeepers,” Vlasic said. “They have one for D-men, two for goalkeepers and the rest are forwards. That doesn’t make any sense.”

According to NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly, the thought of ​​creating an award for one of the best defensive defensemen was never seriously considered.

“No, I don’t think this was ever seriously considered,” Daly wrote in an email to this news organization.

The most up-to-date individual awards for players were the Rocket Richard Trophy, established by the Montreal Canadiens in 1999 in honor of their franchise icon, and the Mark Messier Leadership Award, created by the NHL and first presented in 2007.

Daly said the creation of a brand new league award would generally begin with a suggestion from league and/or club executive directors to the Board of Governors.

“The Selke give it to him, of course. The best defensive striker,” said Vlasic. “But there’s (no defensive award) for D-men, which is outrageous. Outrageous.”

If there had been a shutdown defenseman award, Vlasic probably would have been a strong candidate for several years.

Vlasic averaged nearly 22 minutes of ice time per game from 2006 to 2020. During that time, he was the Sharks' leading penalty taker in terms of average time on ice (2:34 per game) and also blocked 1,766 shots in 1,035 games.

Vlasic was greatly missed by the Sharks in the 2014 playoffs when he was injured in Game 5 of their first-round series against Los Angeles, as the Kings rallied from a 3-0 series deficit to win in seven games. As a sign of his worth, Vlasic, who usually faces the opposition's best strikers, won Olympic gold with Team Canada earlier this year.

When the Sharks reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2016, Vlasic and his partner Justin Braun held then-Kings forward Tyler Toffoli, who scored 31 goals that year, to one assist in five games in the playoffs Nashville Predators Filip Forsberg, who scored 33 goals, was required to score one goal in seven games, and Vladimir Tarasenko, then with the St. Louis Blues, was only allowed two goals in six games achieve. This year he scored 40 points.

After being drafted by the Anaheim Ducks in 2019, Sharks defenseman Henry Thrun requested clips of Vlasic and Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin from the team's director of player development Todd Marchant to study. Marchant now holds the same position in San Jose.

“Marc was probably the best defensive player in the game,” Thrun said. “Someone who really understands the ins and outs of the game and still understands it. … He's like he has a different coach out there. Such a calm demeanor and understanding of every aspect of the game.”

Vlasic could have reached that milestone last season, but was a healthy scratch in 22 of the Sharks' first 41 games. But starting with a game in his hometown of Montreal on January 11, 2024, Vlasic played 38 of 41 games in the second half of the season. The three failures were due to injury.

This season, Vlasic was considered a non-roster player until earlier this month. He was injured before the start of training camp and needed extra time to build up his conditioning as he prepared for a return, according to the Sharks. The Sharks' coaching staff was impressed with Vlasic's work ethic, professionalism and willingness to improve during this time.

Vlasic has played in three of the Sharks' six games in the new year, getting more ice time each game. On Tuesday against the Detroit Red Wings, Vlasic played 17:49, set up Nico Sturm's shorthanded goal in the first period and made a regular substitution in the third period in the Sharks' 6-3 win.

The Sharks are 3-0-0 with Vlasic in the lineup.

“You can just feel his presence,” Vlasic’s defense partner Jan Rutta said on the Sharks Audio Network. “Almost 1,300 games, the game is pretty easy with him.”

“He knows how to play the position at an extremely high level. He’s done it his entire career,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “He stabilizes us a little bit back there.”

Warsofsky, who played defense in college and had a brief professional career, also believes the NHL should have a defensive defense award.

“If you asked any coach in this league, the defender they pick for their team might be the guy that stabilizes the back end by just being easy, finishing and finishing plays,” Warsofsky said. “So I would be 100% in favor of the NHL adding a (defensive defenseman award).”

“This has been talked about for so long,” Vlasic said. “Yet no one has made any adjustments.”

Originally published: January 15, 2025 at 2:15 pm PST

This is the time of patriotism in Latin America, as in lots of other countries commemorate their independence from colonial powers. From July to September, public squares in countries from Mexico to Honduras and Chile fill with crowds dressed and painted in national colours, in parades participants are dressed as independence heroes, fireworks fill the sky and schoolchildren reenact historic battles.

Beneath these nationalist representations ripples an uneasy tide: the colonial legacies that also link America to its Iberian conquerors. And because the calendar turns to October, one other holiday highlights similar tensions – Columbus Day.

Since 1937, the USA has… celebrated the vacation on the second Monday of the month to commemorate the explorer's arrival within the New World in 1492. It stays a federal holiday, although many states and cities rename it.Indigenous Peoples Day“and rejected Christopher Columbus as a logo of imperialism.

Most Latin Americans now know October twelfth as “Día de la Raza,” or race day, which also celebrates the arrival of Columbus within the New World and the following flood of Iberian conquerors. But the commemoration of this event is much more vital in these lands, where the Spanish Empire is home to essentially the most lucrative territorial assets and far-reaching spiritual conquests. A number of days before she takes office in September 2024: Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum reiterated the demands of her predecessor that the King of Spain apologizes for the genocide and exploitation of the conquest 500 years ago.

As a historian of Latin AmericaI paid attention to how calendars signal a nation's “official” values ​​and the way countries wrestle with the meaning of those holidays.

Columbus Day

The first encounter between the Aztec emperor Montezuma and the conqueror Hernando Cortés took place on November 8, 1519 – the latter supported by an entourage of 300 Spaniards, hundreds of indigenous allies and slaves, and a whole bunch of Africans, free or not.

This moment of contact initiated Mexico's 500-year transformation right into a “mestizo” nation: a hybrid identity with largely European and indigenous roots. During the colonial era, racial differences were codified in law those with “pure” Spanish bloodlines enjoyed legal privileges over the racially mixed categories subordinate to them. The nineteenth century brought independence from Spain and liberal ideas that in principle promoted racial equality, but in point of fact European influence prevailed.

That was Spain first suggested the Día de la Raza, held on October 12, 1892 to commemorate the four-hundredth anniversary of Columbus' arrival within the Americas – a celebration of Spain's contribution to mestizo racial mixing.

The celebration was a part of an try and boost nationalism in Spain because the fading colonial power continued its retreat from the hemisphere it had controlled for nearly 4 centuries. Spain also hoped to export the invented holiday to America, strengthening transatlantic cultural affinities that were being tested by the growing influence of the United States. Across America, Día de la Raza became synonymous We have a good time European influence.

In Mexico, the commemoration of 1892 empowered members of the political elite, who promoted European investment and culture as a model for the country's modernization. They took the chance to praise the civilizing influence of the “madre patria”.“or motherland” and justified conquest and colonialism as a time of benevolent rule.

Mestizo nationalism

Just just a few years later, nevertheless, the U.S. victory within the Spanish-American War swept the last remnants of the Spanish empire from the hemisphere. Spain's exit paved the best way for doubles and duel phenomena: rising patriotic spirit in Latin American countries, even within the face of accelerating economic pressure and cultural influence from the United States

The Mexican Revolution of 1910 ignited Mestizo nationalismwhich soon spread to other countries. In Nicaragua within the Nineteen Thirties Augusto Sandino launched a revolution to expel the occupying U.S. Marines while calling for the unification of the “Indo-Hispanic race.” Now a Peruvian mental Jose Mariategui envisioned a contemporary nation built on the ideals of a collective, reciprocal society, modeled on the Inca ayllu system. And in Mexico, beauty pageants The appreciation of local peculiarities was very talked-about amongst social classes who were used to browsing for Parisian imports in department shops.

However, there was still a bent to emphasise Spanish cultural ancestry reasonably than indigenous ones. In the late Nineteen Thirties, for instance, the October issue of the Mexican children's magazine Palomilla celebrated the arrival of Columbus a heroic appearance This gave the region a typical language and religion.

Pan American Day

Meanwhile, the US viewed pan-Hispanic sentiments as a threat: Spanish economic goals were obscured Racial and cultural solidarity.

To strengthen loyalties within the hemisphere, Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed a brand new holiday on April 14, 1930: Pan-American Day, or Día de las Américas. The vacation wanted compensated for the stories of each Columbus Day and Día de la Raza and marked that of the US government The focus of the Good Neighborhood Policy is on Latin America – a gentler type of imperialism that, a minimum of on the surface, promoted solidarity and brotherhood.

The Pan-American Union, an inter-American organization based in Washington, saw the brand new date as a chance to forge shared traditions across the hemisphere. It vigorously promoted Pan American Day celebrations, especially amongst school childrenby which teachers are asked to implement games, puzzles, pageants and songs created within the offices of the Pan American Union.

The holiday received an enthusiastic response within the United States. People from the Midwest Hats on for parades, and Spanish-speaking clubs in California held pageants celebrating the flags of American nations.

But Latin American commemoration has been lukewarm at best. The Organization of American States, the successor to the Pan American Union, still recognizes it Pan American Day. However, it never gained traction in Latin America and faded away within the United States during World War II.

Last layer

Latin America's ambivalence toward holidays commemorating colonizers has taken a turn since 1992. The five hundredth anniversary of Columbus' arrival corresponded with this yet one more type of colonialismwithin the eyes of many Latin Americans, as a brand new wave of multinational corporations worked with heads of state to tap the continent's oil, lithium, water and avocados.

Activists used the commemoration to spotlight the continued economic, social, racial and cultural inequalities. The anniversary was particularly inspiring Indigenous rights movements – a few of them commemorated an “anti-quincentenary celebration” to have a good time “500 years of resistance”.

Día de la Raza has since been renamed to reflect anti-colonial sentiments, just like Columbus Day within the United States. Ecuador calls October twelfth Day of Interculturality and Ethnic Identity; Argentina celebrates it as Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity; Nicaragua now refers to it as Day of Indigenous, Black and Popular Resistance; in Colombia it’s Ethnic and Cultural Diversity Day; and the Dominican Republic celebrates it as Intercultural day.

In some places, the renaming of the vacation has drawn attention to indigenous rights and culture. Bolivians, for instance, draped a statue of a European monarch in a standard “Aguayo” robe that transforms her into an indigenous woman. But critics say removing the vacation's reference to the colonizers would erase a vital reminder of the conquest and its painful legacy.

Like within the USA, Monuments to colonizers fall – including the Columbus monument, which stood in a conspicuous place on La Reforma, certainly one of Mexico City's busiest foremost thoroughfares.

In its place is a brand new installation: a purple silhouette of a Girl with raised fistin honor of Latin American women activists. She declares one New era of statues that line La Reforma, and heroes for the long run – not mired within the colonial legacies of the past.

San Jose began clearing a part of one among its largest and most dangerous homeless encampments on Tuesday, moving about 40 tents, vehicles and makeshift shelters out of the flight path of San Jose Mineta International Airport.

In recent years, authorities have repeatedly evicted homeless people from the Columbus Park area in downtown San Jose, but with a scarcity of emergency shelters or overnight parking, the town has been unable to search out a everlasting solution.

City officials said they were clearing the two-block area on the north side of Asbury Street on the direction of the Federal Aviation Administration. The concern, officials said, is that smoke from campfires could obscure pilots' visibility and that birds drawn to the trash within the camp could fly into the engines of planes landing on the airport.

Before the eviction, the town said it had worked with its nonprofit service provider, HomeFirst, to supply housing to anyone who could be forcibly faraway from the camp. However, officials couldn’t say how many individuals had accepted the offer. It was unclear where those remaining within the camp might find yourself next.

The move to clear the camp got here after San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan urged the town to crack down on the encampments while also organising small emergency shelters, secure parking and approved camping sites for the roughly 6,300 homeless people.

In a press release, Mahan said dismantling a part of the encampment in Columbus Park was obligatory to make sure the protection of residents. The city didn’t have an estimate of how many individuals will should be relocated or what number of will remain within the encampment overall.

“There are certain cases where a warehouse is so unsafe and violates so many laws that we cannot wait until our solutions are scalable,” Mahan said.

Camp residents say drug use and the usage of firearms are commonplace on the premises, which apparently houses about 100 people. In February, two people were charged in reference to a fight that resulted in a fatal stabbing on the camp.

On Tuesday afternoon, yellow police tape cordoned off a part of the camp while work crews filled green dumpsters with trash and debris. A handful of social staff offered food and water to camp residents. Local authorities had not ordered anyone to depart the realm, although some residents had driven their RVs and vans onto a cross street that was not scheduled to be cleared. Officials said most vehicles had voluntarily left the sweeping area throughout the day.

A resident of the camp who said her name was Raelene sat outside her sun-bleached RV, clutching a dark glass pipe and a red Bic lighter. After authorities taped a cease-and-desist order dated Aug. 29 to the side of her RV, she and her boyfriend at the moment are considering moving to Merced, where she has family.

She said she was uninterested in the shooting and “thefts” within the camp. “Not tasty, not my favorite,” she said.

Raelene, who said she couldn't remember her last name, wasn't sure if officers had offered her a bed within the shelter or a secure place to park. Homeless people sometimes turn down shelter for a wide range of personal reasons, from health and safety concerns to an unwillingness to obey curfews.

The raid follows Gov. Gavin Newsom's executive order last month directing state agencies to work with cities to shut encampments, then threatening to chop funding to local governments that fail to get more people off the streets. In June, a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling gave cities broad authority to clear encampments without first offering homeless people shelter.

Another camp resident, who calls himself Termite, said he has been evicted from the realm about five times since becoming homeless seven years ago. He said the eviction of the camp might be traumatic for homeless people, as their vehicles are sometimes towed or their belongings thrown out. He added that there is usually a rise in violence within the camps after evictions.

“It just lowers morale,” he said, “and it causes a lot of friction between people.”

Originally published: September 3, 2024 at 3:52 pm

New England Revolution

The Revolution's four-game winning streak led to a one-sided 5-1 Losing to reigning MLS Cup winners Columbus Crew on Saturday at Gillette Stadium.

However, after a great begin to the sport and an early goal through a lovely lob from Emmanuel Boateng, New England was unable to contain Columbus's high-caliber attack and conceded several goals through counterattacks and self-inflicted errors.

The final result reflected Columbus's complete dominance, and the Revolution may have much to learn from rewatching the tape.

Here are some insights:

The pressing worked well at first and led to the opening goal.

New England needed to face the defending league champions without Carles Gil and Dylan Borrero (each were out earlier within the week as a consequence of injuries) and swapped the same old 4-2-3-1 for a 4-3-3.

Under such circumstances, it was clear that it will be a troublesome fight against Columbus, but the primary 20 minutes went surprisingly well for the house team.

The Revolution's defensive pressing worked well, forcing the visitors to lose the ball several times in the primary half. One example of this was Boateng's opening goal, which resulted from a series of opportunistic passes that Columbus – after winning the ball back – couldn’t defend:

New England was in a position to apply pressure several times within the early stages of the sport, but Columbus' clever midfield eventually got things under control.

Once the revolution took the lead, it faltered and paid the worth.

After working feverishly to achieve an unlikely lead over Columbus, the Revolution lost the initiative. And not surprisingly, the talented opposition took full advantage.

As New England midfielder Matt Polster noted after the sport, the issue was simply that the players had taken their foot off the gas.

“I think we started really well. The game plan went according to our plans. We positioned ourselves correctly, won the ball high and pressed really well, which put them under a lot of pressure. We scored a nice goal, but from then on we stopped doing exactly what we had been doing before,” explained Polster.

When asked whether it was a strategic decision to drop deeper after taking the lead and stop pressing, Polster said it was simply as a consequence of the weakness of the players on the sphere, who didn’t persist with the sport plan.

“We did really well. We did what we were supposed to do and then no, we shouldn't have let up and given up possession and space on the field,” Polster said. “We should have continued to pressure them – which worked – and we didn't do that.”

Despite the end result, Polster believes New England showed the flexibility to upset even a top opponent, if just for a small portion of the sport.

“We showed for 20 minutes that we can make even the best teams look mediocre sometimes, but in the end they were the better team over 90 minutes,” he concluded. “They were simply better than us, but I think those mistakes were because we didn't carry on like we did in the first 20 minutes.”

Giacomo Vrioni fell back to his form from the beginning of the season and missed several probabilities.

After scoring two crucial goals to assist New England to a giant away win against FC Cincinnati per week ago, center Giacomo Vrioni transformed himself back into the unsuccessful striker he had been for a lot of the 2024 season on Saturday.

Vrioni had several good scoring opportunities but didn’t put the ball in the web.

The comparison to his counterpart in Columbus, Cucho Hernández, only underscores that Vrioni still has an extended option to go to change into a consistent force for New England.

Hernandez not only scored the Crew's first goal, but additionally provided two assists (including the third goal on a devastating counterattack) and led the sport with 75 touches. His ability to seek out the play and play a central role (even from an occasional more wide position) showed a level that Vrioni has not displayed.

And while Hernandez ended up being probably the most involved player in the sport, Vrioni only had 17 touches and 6 successful passes. That wouldn't necessarily be an issue, but he also shot six times and didn’t rating.

Especially if Gil and Borrero are out for an extended period, Vrioni (because the only healthy Designated Player) may have to perform higher than he did in Saturday's defeat.