* It doesn’t have the glamour or publicity that goes with a Super Bowl bid, but Tampa is making a play for the 2018 World Junior Hockey Championships. Among the reported competitors: Detroit, Buffalo and Pittsburgh. About 350,000 attended this year’s tournament in Toronto and Montreal. The host city–if Tampa wins, the Germain Arena in Estero would be the second rink–will be named later this year. Tampa will host its second NCAA Frozen Four next year.
* You would have thought the onslaught of outrage and awful PR over the Jameis Winston case–and the legal battle is ongoing–would have been enough to keep Florida State football and its “student-athletes” out of the press for all the wrong reasons these days. You would have thought.
Two more incidents–players accused of hitting women–has prompted an embarrassed President John Thrasher to demand an action plan from coach Jimbo Fisher. In addition, Thrasher and State Attorney Willie Meggs will also meet with the team.
Left unsaid in any of the formal statements is who FSU recruits and how oxymoronic “student-athlete” is at high-powered programs of this caliber.