🥅 NHL Season Begins

LeBron James to miss start of season, NFL Coach Apologizes, Blue Jays beat Yankees to advance, and more!

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Sportie Newsletter
October 10, 2025

🏒 Hockey

Hockey season begins as Panthers raise Stanley Cup banner

The Florida Panthers opened up the 2025-26 NHL season by raising their second consecutive championship banner at Amerant Bank Arena on Tuesday night.

The Panthers will likely be without captain Aleksander Barkov for the entire regular season — and potentially the playoffs — as he recovers from major knee surgery.

The defending champs have just the sixth-best odds to win the Stanley Cup this year.

Connor McDavid reveals why he agreed to shocking Oilers contract

Connor McDavid’s bargain extension is about one thing — winning in Edmonton. 

The Oilers superstar spoke out Wednesday about the new two-year, $25 million contract he signed with the team that drafted him a decade ago. 

“I said I was committed to winning here, and I meant that,” McDavid said, via The Athletic. “Two years makes a lot of sense. It gives us a chance to continue chasing down what we’ve been chasing down with the core guys that have been here.”

Entering the final year of his previous deal, McDavid opted to keep the same average annual value he’s been making since his eight-year, $100 million contract kicked in before the 2018-19 season rather than seek a well-deserved raise. 

The short-term extension gives McDavid and the Oilers a couple of years to get the superstar’s elusive first Stanley Cup. 

⚾️ Baseball

Blue Jays win ALDS Game 4 to eliminate Yankees from playoffs

The Blue Jays, who last reached the ALCS in 2016, came to New York intent on closing the series.

The Blue Jays, afterthoughts in the AL entering the season and even still to some as they romped to a division title, used eight pitchers in Game 4 -- none who secured more than five outs -- to stifle a Yankees lineup that led Major League Baseball in runs scored this season.

"They beat us this series, simple as that," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "It doesn't make it any easier."

Dodgers defeat Phillies in a wild, instant-classic walk-off to reach the NLCS

With the bases loaded in the 11th in Game 4 of the National League Division on Thursday, that’s how the Dodgers secured a 2-1 walk-off, series-clinching win that sends them to the NL Championship Series.

On a throwing error from Kerkering, who initially booted the broken-bat grounder before retrieving the ball in front of the mound.

On a toss home that went sailing to the backstop, even as catcher J.T. Realmuto motioned for Kerkering to throw to first.

On a brutal, confounding decision from the Phillies reliever, one that allowed Hyeseong Kim to score from third and pandemonium to be unleashed inside Dodger Stadium.

🏀 Basketball

LeBron James to miss start of 2025-26 season due to sciatica

LeBron James will miss opening night of his record 23rd NBA season due to sciatica that will be re-evaluated in three to four weeks, the Los Angeles Lakers announced Thursday.

The 40-year-old superstar will be sidelined at least until the end of October with sciatica — pain in the nerves running from the buttocks and down the back of the legs — on his right side

NBA games back in China for first time in 6 years

The US National Basketball Association (NBA) will return to China this week for the first time since 2019.

Two pre-season games are scheduled for Friday and Sunday between the Brooklyn Nets and the Phoenix Suns at an arena in Macau's Venetian casino and hotel.

China effectively froze the NBA out six years ago when one of the organisation's managers wrote in support of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, a former British colony that has seen a clampdown on civil liberties.

🏈 Football

Ex-NFL quarterback Mark Sanchez stabbed multiple times

ormer NFL quarterback Mark Sanchez was pepper-sprayed and stabbed multiple times during a late-night altercation with a 69-year-old truck driver in a downtown Indianapolis alley, which resulted in criminal charges against the Fox Sports analyst, according to court records filed Sunday.

Based on hotel video footage of the altercation early Saturday and the driver's statement to police, a police affidavit alleges that Sanchez, smelling of alcohol, accosted the driver of a box truck that backed into a hotel's loading docks, leading to a confrontation outside the vehicle that prompted the driver to defensively pull out a knife.

Cardinals head coach apologizes following heated sideline exchange

Arizona Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon said he apologized to Emari Demercado after a heated sideline conversation following the running back's costly, unforced fumble during a 22-21 loss to the Tennessee Titans on Sunday.

"I woke up this morning and didn't feel great about it, honestly," Gannon said Monday. "So in the team meeting I addressed it, I apologized to Emari, apologized to the team. I just told them I let the moment of what happened get the better of me."