Dave Hannigan: The highlight reels of childhood fade as cherished sporting heroes fall We have no real right to mourn the passing of people we don’t know. But we do because a part of our childhood disappears with themWed Dec 25 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: For years the New York Yankees could afford to be smug. Perhaps not any moreAhead of Juan Soto decision, entitled Yankee minds thought nobody could ever possibly choose the New York MetsThu Dec 19 2024 - 06:00
Motorcycle Mary finally bows out after a long life of spills and thrills Short ESPN documentary captures the essence of genuine trailblazer Mary McGee who led a truly epic lifeThu Dec 12 2024 - 05:15
Despite his latest disgrace, Conor McGregor will be welcomed back with open arms StatesideThe United States has become a nation where allegations about attacking women are no longer regarded as career-enders, more as colourful entries on a resumeWed Dec 04 2024 - 17:17
Dave Hannigan: Behold a version of golf that’s fun and weirdly cool - but still ludicrously expensiveTopgolf gaining popularity in the US, especially among young people, and you don’t have to be any good at it to have a ballThu Nov 21 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: Katie Taylor’s presence lends a modicum of dignity to sporting farrago Dubious bill in Texas topped by the clash of Jake Paul and Mike Tyson akin to one of those 19th century carnival sideshowsWed Nov 13 2024 - 15:00
Messi and the soccer show ponies thrive as slick suits shore up the shillsAstronomical gap between what Designated Players (high-profile imports) and ordinary pros take home is a troubling issue since the Beckham years in Los AngelesThu Nov 07 2024 - 06:00
Inside the Rumble in the Jungle: Ali’s extramarital affair, Foreman’s ‘drugged water’ claimAs the boxers retreated to their corners to hear the first bell, a billion people around the globe were watchingWed Oct 30 2024 - 06:05
Dave Hannigan: Mark Cuban doing his best to expose Donald Trump for what he isNobody has spent more time this past few weeks pointing out that the wannabe emperor has not now or never had any clothesThu Oct 24 2024 - 06:00
Bananas baseball: a travelling circus or potential saviour of America’s national game?The crowd-pleasing stunts of the Savannah Bananas are bringing in fans and piquing the interest of the po-faced Major League gameThu Oct 17 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: Kris Kristofferson’s sporting passion and exploits just another aspect of his unique characterThe former Golden Gloves boxer was still showing off the relics of old baseball and football scars in his eightiesThu Oct 10 2024 - 06:00
Eight deaths in first month of high school football season all part of the demented gameExcessive machismo of preening adults in coaching roles often places kids in grave dangerThu Sept 26 2024 - 06:00
Mauricio Pochettino lands in the USA full of hope, but World Cup glory looks a long way offThe Argentinian’s task is to figure out a winning formula for a squad that has continually added up to less than the sum of its partsThu Sept 19 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: Phenomenal Caitlin Clark changing the face of American women’s basketballSuch is Caitlin Clark's extraordinary impact both on and off the basketball court, comparisons with the transformational impact of the likes of sporting icons Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan are validThu Sept 12 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: Smyth and McAtamney in curious sporting limbo as they await shot at big timeNew NFL season brings tantalising opportunity for two Ulster men, Charlie Smyth and Jude McAtamneyThu Sept 05 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: Farewell to Scott Bloomquist, the king of the dirt track racers who embodied the outlaw spiritWith his swagger and flowing locks, Bloomquist, who died earlier this month, looked like a singer from a 1980s metal band, but was a big noise on the racing circuitThu Aug 29 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: College football, the rancid corner of the American sports worldCollege Football Classic is coming to Dublin this week. It is astonishing Irish authorities are involved in welcoming this meat grinderWed Aug 21 2024 - 14:00
Boxing loses another piece of its soul as it hands more of itself over to Saudi ArabiaChairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority (GEA) Turki Alalshikh has somehow been inducted into Nevada Boxing’s Hall of FameThu Aug 15 2024 - 06:00
A new Trump plan: to get stock car drivers to revamp the US armyWhenever Trump trains his blunderbuss on any corner of sport it’s difficult to decipher whether he is deadly serious, trying to generate instant outrage, or just heading off on ramble of random insanityFri Aug 09 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: Olympic Games just another venue for Snoop Dogg to hawk his many waresThe once notorious rapper turned businessman Snoop Dogg is now highly popular with the major American TV networks who can’t get enough of his unique schtick at the OlympicsWed Jul 31 2024 - 15:03
Johnny McEntee: The Project 2025 adviser and former college quarterback who worked his way into Trump’s inner-circleJohnny McEntee is a member of Donald Trump's inner sanctum and is senior adviser to Project 2025, the ultra-right wing group preparing the radical policies of the next republican administrationThu Jul 25 2024 - 06:00
Maybe ‘Rattle’ Barrett chopped off his nose and stuck it back on. It is hard to separate the man from the mythsCorkman Frederick Whitfield Barrett won gold and bronze in polo at the Olympics before training the winner in the Scottish Grand National, part of an epic life that encouraged others to append legends to his nameSat Jul 13 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: Why does Lance Armstrong’s cheating not seem to matter to so many in cycling?The greatest con artist in the history of cycling is back in the mainstream media fold, and many current cyclists seem happy to cosy up to himThu Jul 11 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: Conor McGregor eager to weigh in on the side of bare-knuckle fightingConor McGregor happy to invest in the rebirth of the bareknuckle genre as the thuggish tomfoolery of MMA seemingly deemed not violent enough in USAThu Jul 04 2024 - 06:00
Bill Belichick becomes a punchline as new relationship with 24-year-old woman comes to lightLegendary NFL coach is dating Jordon Hudson, almost 50 years younger, leading to tabloid fodder and roasts from Tom BradyWed Jun 26 2024 - 14:49
Dave Hannigan: A spin down memory lane and where it started for Muhammad Ali ‘Don’t bother your head about that stupid house … One of these days they’re liable to make it a national shrine’Thu Jun 20 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: I despise youth sports and don’t enjoy watching my sons play competitivelyWe introduce our children to the company of sports with the best of intentions, but somewhere along the way this gift becomes a curseThu Jun 13 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: Jaylen Brown, the Boston Celtics star considered ‘too smart’ for the NBAEschewing the groupthink, the Boston Celtics regarded Jaylen Brown's polymath tendencies as a positive and have been rewarded accordingly on-court as they bid for NBA gloryThu Jun 06 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: The Chicago Bears are owned by billionaires. They want taxpayers to fund their new stadiumA club that turns an annual profit of around $200m is seeking funds and tax breaks from a cash-strapped city, where two-thirds of children drink contaminated tap waterWed May 29 2024 - 19:00
Dave Hannigan: The antediluvian gospel according to NFL star Harrison Butker Kansas City Chiefs kicker's address to college graduates was like a papal encyclical dating from before Vatican IIThu May 23 2024 - 06:00
Too much too young? Beware the hype around teen soccer prodigy Cavan SullivanThe 14-year-old Philadelphia Union star is being loudly tipped for greatness, but no one seems to recall the cautionary tale of Freddy AduThu May 16 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: Fever is growing around Caitlin Clark - but can women’s basketball handle the heat? The college basketball star is already one of the most famous faces in the sport, but now that she’s turned professional, she could bring it to a new levelThu May 09 2024 - 06:00
The policemen who met in a unique edition of the Cork-Kerry rivalry, for Olympic glory Kerryman Ned Barrett, holder of an All-Ireland winner’s medal for hurling, beat Corkman Con O’Kelly to claim the title of British heavyweight wrestling champion in 1908. The stakes were even higher when the pair clashed again later that year ...Sun May 05 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: Grotesque Tyson-Paul spectacle the very antithesis of a real sporting eventMike Tyson v Jake Paul: The shame of all involved in presiding over or taking part in such a freak show should endureThu May 02 2024 - 06:00
The least famous best player the NBA has ever had: ‘I really wish nobody knows me’His name is Nikola Jokic, he is 29-years-old and playing at a preternatural level that has seen him compared to all-timers from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Magic Johnson to Larry BirdThu Apr 25 2024 - 06:00
Trading places: The baseball stars who swapped wives, kids and even their petsWhen New York Yankees pitchers Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich announced their unusual ‘life swap’ 50 years ago, it was shocking even for the permissive 1970sThu Apr 18 2024 - 06:00
As the Masters begins, golf grapples with a Trump problem in the post-Tiger eraThe splintering of the sport with the advent of the LIV Tour could not have come at a worse time for golf as generation beige fail to move the needle in the post-Tiger Woods eraWed Apr 10 2024 - 17:05
Controversy around LA Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani and his interpreter shows strange relationship US has with sports betting The controversy around the LA Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani and his interpreter shows the strange relationship that America has with betting on sportsThu Apr 04 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: US college football stars finally getting some share of lucrative pieWhile the likes of feted ex-coach Nick Saban became multimillionaires, until 2021 college football players never received a cent for their effortsThu Mar 21 2024 - 06:00
Humble, cool Cillian Murphy has more than a touch of Jimmy Barry Murphy about himWith his graceful demeanour amid incessant public attention and his deft handling of praise, the Oscar winner has the unmistakable air of Jimmy Barry Murphy, Cork’s original matinee idolTue Mar 12 2024 - 17:00
Laughs, love and basketball - three things for which Richard Lewis never lost his enthusiasmThe actor and comedian had a lifelong devotion to the New York Knicks and dark humourThu Mar 07 2024 - 06:00
Florida Man Games: just like the Olympics but funnier, drunker and stupiderAmerica’s sunshine state has a hard-won reputation for grotesqueries, and a proudly silly new competition will only add to itThu Feb 29 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: Blind loyalists eager to rehabilitate Paterno’s tarnished reputation Supporters bid to name Penn State's football stadium after ‘secular pope’ Joe Paterno who was removed as head coach in 2011 following a child sex abuse scandalThu Feb 22 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: Gotti family still making headlines for all the wrong reasonsDaughter-in-law and granddaughter of the notorious ‘Teflon Don’ John Gotti facing assault charges after brawl in the stands at high school basketball gameThu Feb 15 2024 - 06:00
Mysterious deaths of Kansas City Chiefs fans found frozen in back garden baffles AmericaAs the Kansas City Chiefs prepare to bid for their third Super Bowl in five years, back in Kansas the search for answers to to the recent death of three fans is ongoingThu Feb 08 2024 - 06:00
Commercialisation of sport in the US is like being hit over the head with a baseball batDave Hannigan: It costs up to $10,000 a year for a child to join a competitive baseball or softball team. These outfits then require huge spending on out-of-state tournaments and weekend stays in hotelsThu Feb 01 2024 - 06:00
The luxuriant ritual of magazine-reading is a leisure activity rendered utterly obsoleteGlossy magazines are a relic from a bygone era, a leisure activity rendered utterly obsolete by technologyThu Jan 25 2024 - 06:00
Dave Hannigan: Caitlin Clark ready to extend the boundaries of women’s basketball Phenomenal Iowa Hawkeyes college star Caitlin Clarke will fill arenas across the US when, as expected, she joins the WNBA but the women's game remains a work in progressThu Jan 18 2024 - 06:00
Franz Beckenbauer was a US hit even if he didn’t quite sweep New York off its feet Dave Hannigan: Given everything else he achieved, his time at the New York Cosmos is often overlooked, but the German made his mark in the Big AppleThu Jan 11 2024 - 06:00
US sports talk loudmouths delight in blaming Taylor Swift for Travis Kelce’s dip in formPatchy form of Kansas City Chiefs’ player grist to the mill for business of commercially astute indignationThu Jan 04 2024 - 05:00
