National Sports

CALGARY — It might be a fun, trash-talking, celebrity sledge hockey game but to Ryan Straschnitzki, it's no joking matter.

BOSTON — Thanks to a miscue by Toronto, the Boston Red Sox moved one step closer to clinching the AL East title. J.D.

LAVAL, Que. — Five NBA players who chose to suit up for Canada just a week before training camps open. A point guard making his first appearance for Canada in five years.

LAVAL, Que. — Tristan Thompson believes Glen Grunwald can get corporate Canada excited about Canadian basketball.

VANCOUVER — The Vancouver Canucks could be without a captain this season and they may not be the only Canadian team to forgo a designated leader.

Canada has sat out the last five editions of the FIFA U-20 World Cup so coach Andrew Olivieri is under no illusions of the challenge that his team will have in getting there.

Like the rest of the hockey world, Mike Babcock was shaken by April's bus crash that devastated the Humboldt Broncos.

OTTAWA — Hockey fans in Ottawa reacted to the news that Senators star defenceman Erik Karlsson had been traded with everything from sorrow to more-measured responses — hate to see him go, but it had to be done.

He won a Vanier Cup at the University of Saskatchewan and three Grey Cups with the Montreal Alouettes. On Friday night, Scott Flory will join the greatest football team ever assembled in Canada.

OTTAWA — The Ottawa Senators promised they were going into rebuild mode earlier this week. They weren't kidding.