The Dallas Stars forced a Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning after winning game 5 in double overtime. The Lightning currently lead the series 3 to 2 going into game six. To win the Stanley Cup team must win four out of seven games.

As the 2019- 2020 season comes to a close, hockey is ending about a week before the 2020-2021 season
would typically start in October. With an awkward break in the season due to COVID19, this year’s Playoff season has looked unlike any in the past. The 2020-2021 season will not begin until December 1 of 2020, and teams will have a break before beginning play after the covid-19 delay created an unusual season.

Starting with a round robin in pods, NHL teams played at the same venue depending on where their
conference pod was placed. Now, down to the final games of the season, the Lightning and Stars will faceoff under the same arena for all 7 with no home team advantage or fans present. After the initial round robin of games, teams were given a seeding and placed into brackets for 5 game playoff series. Teams advanced by winning 3 games, until the final two teams, Tampa Bay and Dallas face off for the Stanley Cup in a 7 game series.

Despite Challenges created by the bubble both the Lightning and the Stars have played competitive
games including two games of the series going into overtime and double overtime.

With Dallas missing key players from their penalty kill team, and at one point dropping down to 5 defencemen during the second period, they had to be more disciplined and avoid giving up power plays
during game 5. The stars had lost game 4 in over time due to a questionable penalty call and could not afford to put themselves into the same situation again in game 5.

The Lightning had 41 shots on net in the game, but only two managed to find the back of the net. The
Stars finished the night with 33 Shots on net with 3 goals. Dallas had one penalty during the first period,
and Tampa Bay had one penalty in the second period and one penalty in the third.

Dallas started the game with a goal early in the first scored by Corey Perry, followed by a Tampa Bay
goal in the second scored by Ondrej Palat. The game entered the third period tied up and Mikhail Sergachev scored for Tampa early hoping to wrap up the game in regulation, but a goal by Joe Pavelski in the minute 13 set the game up for overtime.

The Dallas Star’s Goalie Anton Khudobin has put up a strong showing throughout the playoffs and
Stanley Cup Finals and has been the Star’s go to for the series with a .917 save percentage. Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy has been equally competitive and posted a .909 save percentage during the Playoff Season.

The game winner for the Dallas Stars was scored in double overtime by right wing Corey Perry. Will
Dallas pull off the must win for game 6 and force a game 7 to have any hopes at winning the Stanley
Cup this season, or will Tampa hold on and win the Stanley Cup?

Game 6 Will be held Monday night at 8pm. Game 7 if needed will be Wednesday night at 8pm.

Sources: NHL, ESPN

Associate Athletic Director Brian Bingaman recently joined Eastern’s Athletic Program in the midst of COVID-19. Bingaman grew up in Northumberland, Pennsylvania where he grew up playing football, basketball, baseball, and threw shot put before going on to play football at Bloomsburg University.

After college Bingaman interned, before becoming a graduate assistant, at Penn State University’s Football program. After his time at Penn State, Bingaman served in varying roles in the Strength and Conditioning department at Indiana University, La Salle and Saint Joseph’s University before starting his position as Associate Athletic Director for Performance, Health, and Wellness here at Eastern University.

When Bingaman was asked if he would work with an Olympic team, he chuckled and replied that he’d love to work with all of them. Instead, he decided to pursue strength and conditioning because he enjoys facing a different challenge every day by developing a work out program unique to each player’s needs.

When he is not coaching college athletes, Bingaman spends time with his wife and two boys, ages six and two and a half. In an interview with Bingaman, he said “When I get home from work, I typically put my phone away and just spend that time in the evening with them” when talking about his family. As a family, they enjoy being outside as much as they can, and during quarantine they would often go on walks.

Every evening, they enjoy playing games such as Life Jr. or Monopoly Jr. as a family before their boys go to bed. This past year his older son began playing t-ball, soccer and basketball. As a parent, Bingaman said “I enjoy being involved in coaching my son’s teams because that’s what my parents did for me. My wife played a Division I sport and grew up with her parents coaching her too.”

He looks forward to working with Eastern Athletics to grow the Strength and Conditioning, and Health and Wellness programs where athletes call him “Coach Bing” while in the gym or on the field training. In the future, Bingaman hopes to grow into an administrative role while continuing to help develop and prepare the next generation of strength and conditioning coaches for careers in the industry. This year, the strength and conditioning department, led by Bingaman, will include a team of six with two interns and four graduate assistants.

COVID-19 has changed the shape of all communities over the course of six months. All non-essential businesses closed, including gyms, which largely impacted the exercise community. Many people make their New Year’s resolutions to go to the gym more often, get in shape, or just lead a healthier lifestyle. Gyms such as Lifetime Fitness and SoulCycle offer classes for people to go and exercise with a group. As people go to classes, they learn who is next to them in class and look forward to seeing each other in future classes.

The shutdown of gyms put an end to all these classes and left people without this community to go to the gym with. Many people shifted to working out with their families in their neighborhood or in their home created gyms. Exercise communities shifted from being those who you meet in the gym to those you live with. Another large fitness community that has been on the rise is groups formed through social media. Team leaders use social media to recruit team members to begin a workout and many times a nutrition program as well. These work out groups have formed their own community by using social media as a way to communicate with each other and complete exercises as a group. As COVID-19 continued, many people began to complete their exercises in groups around their community. They
walked outside, went to a local park, and hiked trails into mountains.

In a community in Spain, a trainer led workouts for people on their balconies from the rooftop of their apartment complex. Many gyms and trainers transitioned from in person classes to ones online via Zoom to serve their members so that they could still have some form of exercise and wellness programs from their own homes. Personal trainers were able to meet clients one on one in parks and outdoors while doing exercises that were focused on using your own body weight and practicing technique and form. Groups turned to walking or biking in their communities while maintaining social distancing which allowed them to continue encouraging each other and holding each other accountable for their
workouts.
As gyms and universities closed down, students and athletes also had their workout and exercise communities disrupted. Many students workout in groups with their friends or teammates while they’re at school, but having been sent home, they became unable to see each other and working out together became almost impossible. Students, specifically student athletes shifted their workouts to be all at home workouts that did not require the use of weights and other equipment. Coaches sent out workouts on an app for students to complete at home using household items to act as weights. This workout from home system let some people get their lives into shape while others choose not to complete the workouts, or did not have the motivation to without their community to encourage them and hold them accountable for showing up and pushing themselves to continue when things get hard.

As COVID-19 restrictions have lifted, more people are settling back into their old exercise routines, or taking the new routines they developed at home to the next level at gyms and inviting their friends to join them. New communities have formed, and others have begun to reconvene as gyms reopen and students return to their communities with universities and colleges reopening and athletics programs returning to working out with each other.

Sources: Insider

      For those of you who are about to read this article please be aware that it contains information about sexual assault and sexual offenders, and may be triggering to some people.

      Bob Kraft, owner of the NFL’s New England Patriots was charged by Florida’s with soliciting prostitution on February 25th 2019. Having no history of being involved in illicit activities outside of being punished by the NFL for the Patriots scandals of ‘spygate’ and ‘deflategate’, Kraft’s being charged in this scandal is the first time he has been charged with breaking any laws.

      Humanrights.org writes that “Under U.S. law, trafficking in persons is defined as “sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age;” or “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.”’

      According to humanrightsfirst.org, Human trafficking earns profits of roughly $150 billion a year for traffickers, according to the ILO report from 2014. Sexual exploitation accounts for 79 percent of human trafficking, according to the United Nations. An article from Interaction.org, states ‘In the United States, Enrile says, major events like the Super Bowl can draw three times the normal volume of sex trafficking.

      Similar spikes show occur around big trade shows and other venues, “particularly if that conference or convention is very male oriented.”’ when discussing how major events have a high volume of sex trafficking, and especially when the event has a high number of males in attendance.

      On a positive note, professional athletes and those in influential roles in the industry are working to overcome Sex trafficking and help survivors. According to ESPN The State of Human Trafficing and Sports, “Efe Obada of the Carolina Panthers, a survivor of human trafficking, made the final 53-man roster as the first player from the NFL International Pathway Program to do so.”

      Sources: CNBC, Interaction

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