BRADY TKACHUK JUST GOT TRADED TO FLORIDA
WILLIAM EKLUND JUST GOT TRADED TO OTTAWA
JORDAN KYROU JUST GOT TRADED TO WASHINGTON
BUFFALO JUST GOT THE 4TH OVERALL PICK
AND OUR TEAM PRESIDENT IS ON THE FUCKING TONIGHT SHOW?!!
#NHLBruins
Every player drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs with a playoff hattrick, salary cap era:
• Nazem Kadri
• Mitch Marner
And neither of them did it in a Leafs jersey.
BREAKING: Gavin McKenna is expected to meet with State College Police tomorrow. The expectation is he request jail time instead of being drafted to the Maple Leafs.
Last successful 3-1 comeback in the NHL through 5
Game 1: Bruins
Game 2: Panthers dominate
Game 3: Bruins
Game 4: Bruins score 6
Game 5: Panthers in OT
Bruins vs Sabers
Game 1: Sabers
Game 2: Bruins dominate
Game 3: Sabers
Game 4: Sabers score 6
Game 5: Bruins in OT
#NHLBruins
If you pitched this as a screenplay, every studio would reject it for being too on-the-nose.
Fernando Mendoza was a 2-star recruit ranked 2,149th in his high school class. Zero FBS scholarship offers. Not one. He walked on at Cal, fought for a starting job, transferred to Indiana for his senior year, then led them to 16-0 and the first national title in school history. Heisman, Walter Camp, Maxwell, Davey O'Brien, Manning, Big Ten MVP. 41 TDs, 72% completion, 8-to-0 TD-to-INT ratio in the playoffs.
The Raiders took him #1 overall Thursday night. $54.56M fully guaranteed. Only the third player ever to win the Heisman, win a national championship, and go first overall the next spring. Burrow. Newton. Mendoza.
Then he skipped Pittsburgh.
The biggest stage in football, the moment every kid imagines from the second they pick up a ball, and Fernando watched the call from his living room in Florida because his mom Elsa is in a wheelchair and the travel is hard for her. She was diagnosed with MS when he was 4. She wrote a letter to her sons in The Players Tribune in 2015 promising the disease "won't affect us in the ways that matter."
The part nobody talks about: while every other top pick was on stage, Fernando announced the Mendoza Family Fund the same day. $500K personal donation to the National MS Society. Committed to raising $1M over three years. He hasn't taken an NFL snap and he's already given more to a cause than most players donate in a full career.
He and his brother Alberto have already raised $360K through the Mendoza Bros. Burger at BuffaLouie's in Bloomington. At Christmas, he handed four families dealing with MS $10,000 each for an Adidas shopping spree.
Both his parents are children of Cuban refugees who fled Castro. His dad rowed at Brown, won a Junior World Championship in 1987, and played high school football in Miami next to a teammate named Mario Cristobal. Fernando beat his dad's old teammate in the national championship game in January.
Every athlete talks about playing for their family. Fernando actually did it.