Until a revisionist history of the world game in the 1990s is published

BOSTON -- Derek Stepan and Kevin Hayes each scored short-handed goals, Antti Raanta made 35 saves and the surging New York Rangers beat the Boston Bruins 5-2 on Saturday night.Pavel Buchnevich added a power-play goal, Stepan had two assists, and Michael Grabner and Nick Holden also scored for New York, which won its fourth straight game and seventh in the last eight.David Pastrnak and Patrice Bergeron scored for the Bruins, who had won their last three games. Tuukka Rask made 19 saves, but lost for the first time after winning his first six starts.New York took a 2-1 lead on Stepans goal late in the first period as he broke in alone after taking a pass from Grabner. Rask poked the puck off his stick, but it caromed off both of the wingers skates and slid into the net.Hayes scored on the end of a 3-on-1 break at 2:18 of the second to make it 3-1.LIGHTNING 4, DEVILS 1TAMPA, Fla. -- Victor Hedman and Nikita Kucherov both had a goal and an assist, Brayden Point scored his first NHL goal and the Lightning beat the Devils.Brian Boyle also scored for Tampa Bay, and Ben Bishop made 37 saves.New Jersey got a goal from Damon Severson. Cory Schneider stopped 31 shotsHedman put Tampa Bay up 2-1 with 11:33 left in the second from the blue line.Shortly before Hedmans goal, Severson hit the post and Kucherov had his backhander go off the cross bar and then get swept off the goal line by Schneiders stick.Point, in his 12th NHL games, made it 3-1 at 5:01 of the third when he redirected Kucherovs shot during a power play.BLUES 2, BLUE JACKETS 1, OTST. LOUIS -- Jay Bouwmeester tied it in early the third period and Vladimir Tarasenko scored the winner late in overtime to lift the Blues to a victory over the Blue Jackets.Carter Hutton stopped 20 shots for his second win of the season, helping the Blues improve to 4-1-1 at home this season and have give them five wins in the last six meetings with the Blue Jackets at Scottrade Center.Josh Anderson scored for Columbus, who was coming off a 10-0 win against Montreal the previous night and snapped a three-game winning streak. Curtis McElhinney finished with 28 saves.Bouwmeester ripped a shot past McElhinney from the left dot at 2:16 of the third with his first goal since Feb. 22, 2016, against San Jose.Tarasenkos wrister with 43 seconds on the clock in overtime broke his seven-game goal-scoring drought.AVALANCHE 1, WILD 0DENVER -- Gabriel Landeskog scored with 9:37 remaining, Calvin Pickard stopped 32 shots for his second NHL shutout and the Avalanche beat the Wild.Landeskogs goal ended a Colorado scoring drought that lasted more than 164 minutes. He found the net on a pass from Matt Duchene and then hopped into the arms of Nathan MacKinnon in excitement.Earlier in the third period, Landeskog got into a brief scuffle with Devan Dubnyk after agitating the Minnesota goalie in front of the net.Pickard stepped in for a struggling Semyon Varlamov and kept the Wild offense in check.CANADIENS 5, FLYERS 4MONTREAL -- Tomas Plekanec scored a short-handed goal in the third period to lift the Canadiens to a win over the Flyers.Andrei Markov, Greg Pateryn, Alex Galchenyuk and Phillip Danault also scored for Montreal (10-1-1) while Carey Price stopped 34-of-38 shots.Chris VandeVelde, Shayne Gostisbehere, Claude Giroux and Travis Konecny scored for Philadelphia (6-6-1), which saw its three-game winning streak snapped. Michal Neuvirth made 12 saves in defeat.Plekanec scored the eventual winner at 10:57 while the Habs were playing down a man. Streaking down the wing, Plekanec beat Neuvirth for his first goal of the season.OILERS 4, ISLANDERS 3, SONEW YORK -- Mark Letestu scored the only goal in the shootout to lift the Oilers to a victory over the Islanders.Letestu beat Islanders goalie Jaroslav Halak to the glove side to snap the Oilers three-game skid (0-2-1) after starting the season with seven wins in eight games.Patrick Maroon, Leon Draisaitl, and Milan Lucic scored in regulation for the Oilers, and Cam Talbot made 30 saves as Edomonton beat the Islanders on the road for the first time since December 1999.Nick Leddy, Shane Prince and Casey Cizikas scored for New York, and Halak finished with 20 saves. The Islanders have lost three straight, including the last two in shootouts.Halak denied Jordan Eberle point-blank early in overtime before Talbot made a similar sprawling save at the other end.SABRES 2, SENATORS 1OTTAWA, Ontario -- Kyle Okposo and Sam Reinhart scored in the third period in the Sabres comeback victory over the Senators.Robin Lehner made 32 saves for his first win against his former team.Okposo tied it early in the period, tipping a point shot from Jake McCabe past Craig Anderson.The Sabres took their first lead when Reinhart took advantage of a turnover at the side of the Ottawa goal. Anderson stopped the first shot, but Reinhart was able to jam a loose puck in between the skate of Anderson and the post at 8:22.The Senators had an opportunity to tie it with a four-minute power play after Dmitry Kulikov got a high stick into the face of Bobby Ryan, but were unable to produce.Mike Hoffman scored for Ottawa, and Anderson made 30 saves.CAPITALS 4, PANTHERS 2WASHINGTON -- T.J. Oshie scored twice, including the game-winner during a third-period flurry, as the Capitals beat the Panthers for their fifth consecutive victory.Oshie, Alex Ovechkin and Lars Eller scored three goals on five shots in less than five minutes as the Capitals finally cracked Roberto Luongo. Floridas goaltender had flummoxed Washington for much of the game and finished with 32 saves.Jared McCann and Reilly Smith scored for Florida, which was opportunistic despite being outshot 36-24. McCanns goal was his first with the Panthers after an offseason trade from Vancouver.Capitals starter Braden Holtby made 22 saves for his sixth win of the season.MAPLE LEAFS 6, CANUCKS 3TORONTO -- Tyler Bozak scored twice and had an assist to lead the Maple Leafs to a victory over Vancouver, handing the Canucks their eighth straight loss.Nazem Kadri, Mitch Marner, Nikita Soshnikov and Jake Gardiner also scored as the Leafs won their third straight. Frederik Andersen stopped 23 of 26 shots before being replaced by Jhonas Enroth, who had three saves in his 5:08.Derek Dorsett, Henrik Sedin and Daniel Sedin scored for the Canucks, and Ryan Miller finished with 36 saves. Vancouver is 0-7-1 while getting shut out four times since beating Buffalo on Oct. 20.HURRICANES 3, PREDATORS 2, SONASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Jaccob Slavin scored the only goal of the shootout to lead the Hurricanes to a victory over the Predators.Jeff Skinner and Ron Hainsey scored in regulation for Carolina, which ended a two-game losing streak. Cam Ward finished with 25 saves through overtime and denied all three Nashville attempts in the shootout.James Neal and Matt Irwin had the goals for the Predators, losers of two consecutive games -- both in shootouts. Pekka Rinne stopped 23 shots.BLACKHAWKS 3, STARS 2DALLAS -- Patrick Kane scored the go-ahead goal and assisted on another, and the Blackhawks beat the Stars.Chicago erased a 2-1 deficit with second-period goals by Ryan Hartman at 2:59 and Kane on the power play at 7:40 against Stars goalie Antti Niemi.With Blackhawks to the left of the net occupying Niemi, Kane skated in from the right and put in a pass from Artem Anisimov.The Blackhawks scored 11 seconds into the game when Richard Panik scored his seventh goal by wristing in the rebound of a shot by Kane. Dallas took a 2-1 lead into the second period after goals by Brett Ritchie at 7:21 of the first and Curtis McKenzie at 9:49. Vapormax 97 Silver Bullet Pas Cher . Tracey comes to the Blue Bombers after spending over a decade with Queens University. Most recently he was the schools assistant football coach. Vapormax Flyknit 2 Gris . Kyle Denbrook, a soccer player from Saint Marys University, took the CIS male athlete of the week honour. Stanley, a fourth-year business administration student from Charlottetown, scored both goals in a 2-0 win over Dalhousie on Friday and tallied again in a 1-0 win over Saint Marys on Sunday. http://www.vapormaxpaschersoldes.fr/vente-air-vapormax-flyknit-2.html . Luis Suarezs double powered Liverpool to a 4-0 victory over Fulham, and Southampton easily overcame Hull 4-1 to continue the south coast clubs impressive start to the season. Liverpool and Southampton sent Chelsea down to fourth place as the west London club was held to 2-2 at home. Vapormax Flyknit 3 Homme Pas Cher . -- Jakob Silfverberg is making himself right at home with the Anaheim Ducks, scoring four goals in his first four games. Vapormax 2019 Homme Pas Cher . -- Catcher Brett Hayes has agreed to a $630,000, one-year contract with the Kansas City Royals, avoiding salary arbitration. For 21 years South African cricket fans lived in a twilight world of implausible allegiances. They supported Manchester United or Spurs, Wales when they played rugby. Some went the other way, giving the traditional New Years fixture between Western Province and Transvaal at Newlands a cachet it probably didnt deserve.Some of us - count me in this group - invented traditions and affiliations on the flimsiest evidence. Embarrassing as it now sounds, I supported Mike Gattings England as they romped through Australia in 1986-87, because I was born in Hendon, a suburb in north-west London.A year later, huddling around a small black-and-white Philips television set, I watched Will Carlings England defeat Australia 28-19 at Twickenham. A South African cricketing alternative wasnt yet in sight, and so I cheered when Simon Halliday scored Englands victory-clenching try. I had to support someone. What else was there to do?At the time I lived in a post-graduate digs in Cape Town, nursing my bursary with exaggerated care. Most mornings I went out onto the balcony of our flat to look at the harbour, where nothing much was going on. Once a week a big white Safmarine container vessel from Hamburg or Southampton moored in port, but for the most part the basin was dead, save for the trawler fleet and the odd careworn freighter.Squeezed tight by the trade, cultural and sporting boycott, Cape Town was not the chichi paradise it has become. If anything, the sleep from which it suffered seemed to be getting deeper. This was no place for an adventurous young man.Three years later I was living in London, stringing for a leftie South African weekly. They asked me to cover a match at Lords between a Transvaal Invitation XI and the MCC. The visitors were a good young side, but there was something vaguely clandestine about it all. Lords was empty that chilly midweek day, the concessions closed. The contest was devoid of tradition or large meaning. Cricket on the moon.A left-arm seamer called Graham Yates had Mike Atherton caught and bowled, and a young prodigy called Victor Vermeulen - later to tragically break his neck diving into a swimming pool - caught the eye.With Gattings ill-conceived rebel tour to South Africa a thing of the past, much of the cricket-loving world was waiting to see if South Africa would be readmitted to the ICC. It was surely too much to ask that they might also sneak into the 1992 World Cup.A couple of heady months later I discovered that the problem for a homesick South African adrift in London was that there was nowhere to watch your team when they were miraculously readmitted to the world game. The lightning 1991 tour to India had come, and gone and in search of World Cup cricket from Australasia, I pounded the Kilburn High Road, finding nothing but camping shops and dingy Irish pubs. Surely one of them would show cricket? Cold and tired, eventually I found one, dragging my girlfriend inside. We nursed our beers and watched, aghast, as New Zealands Gavin Larsen and Chris Harris tied us up in knots. It was a hopeless case, an excruciating comedown after the magic of beating Australia in South Africas opening World Cup game at the SCG.The best thing about the 92 World Cup was the overwhelming sense of gratitude. People were so happy that they cried. Steve Tshwete, the minister of sport elect, cried on Kepler Wessels shoulder in the SCG dressing room, while Kepler cried himself. Ali Bacher cried. People you wouldnt have thought of as criers had a good blub.One Sunday afternoon two years later, walking on the turf at Lords after South Africa had won the first Test by 356 runs, I cried. They were vaguely embarrassed, private tears but the game had been so emotional, so memorable - Fanie de Villiers torturing Craig White, Jonty Rhodes swatting Angus Fraser into the Mound Stand for six - that I didnt know what else to do. We were back. It aroused emotions too subtle and rare to name.Later during that series I watched the best innings Ive ever seen from a Soouth African in the post-readmission period: Daryll Cullinans 94 in a losing cause at The Oval.dddddddddddd After Lords, the teams went to Headingley, where Peter Kirsten and Graeme Hick scored tons in a drawn Test. Back in London, de Villiers, the hero of Sydney earlier that year, was foolish enough to hit Devon Malcolm square on the helmet. You guys are going to pay for this, Malcolm is reputed to have said. You guys are history.With four ducks and six single-figure scores, Malcolm gutted the South African second innings. Riding the steep bounce with courage and delicacy, only Cullinan stood firm. Some South Africans jabbed their bat down on yorkers after they were bowled; the top order scuttled back to the pavilion like the three blind mice. Cullinan was last out to Darren Gough, England galloping home by eight wickets on the fourth day to square the series.The next time South Africa played England was in Centurion, the ground close to the Jukskei River and a magnet for rain. A debut went in that first Test to Shaun Pollock, a rangy fast bowler, who, when he batted, hit the ball with careless aplomb.A year later a South Africa cap was given to Herschelle Gibbs at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. There have been more important players for South Africa in the last 25 years - Jacques Kallis grim charm, Makhaya Ntinis unflagging energy - but no two players pleased the aesthetes through the nineties and across the cusp of the fresh decade like Pollock and Gibbs.Behind this all, a darker current. On that very tour of India in 1996-97, Bacher foisted the Mohinder Armanath benefit game on a weary party at the end of the tour. The players were furious and eager to get home. Their flirtation with the possibility of throwing that game came to fruition on their next tour to India, where Hansie Cronje seduced Gibbs and others to underperform in the five-match ODI series, besmirching the sport.Until a revisionist history of the world game in the 1990s is published, well never know quite how rife match-fixing was. It is safe to say, however, that other boards handled their scandals entirely differently.On the field itself, a theme was taking shape. South Africa were losing or drawing Tests at home they might have been expected to win, while they were winning away when they might reasonably have been expected to lose. Pollock came to the fore in taking five for 37 against Pakistan in Faisalabad in 1997 (Pat Symcox scoring 55, 81, and taking 3 for 8 in the Pakistan second innings) as the hosts couldnt manage the 145 needed for victory. In 2000, Cronjes men won Tests in Mumbai (with a largely pace attack) and Bangalore. Tests were later won in Karachi (2007) in a victorious series, as well as in Ahmedabad and Nagpur on consecutive drawn series in India.South Africa have always been handy at winning away and the golden period was forged when Graeme Smith and Mickey Arthur managed to cocoon the side from increasingly dogged political interference to win back to back away series in England and Australia across six months in 2008. There have been big series wins (take the 5-0 drubbing of West Indies in 1998-99) but no more cherished prize sits on the mantelpiece of the South African game.For all the moments of magic - who will ever forget de Villiers, legs akimbo, tossing the Glenn McGrath lob into the air in 1994? - South African cricket is a protean, difficult-to-understand beast, with an almost perverse ability to confound. How, for example, can a side as well-rounded as the 1999 team to the World Cup in England contrive to lose it? Perhaps Winston Churchills famous quote about Russia brings us closer to understanding. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, but perhaps there is a key. In South Africas case that key is surely to be found in an increasingly settled country, less at odds with itself than it once was. We live in hope. ' ' '