Swiss hockey player Ronny Keller paralyzed after hit into board (Video)

A terrible tragedy took place during a Swiss hockey game earlier this week, as a player named Ronny Keller was reportedly left paralyzed after a brutal hit that sent him flying head-first into the boards. The play happened during overtime of a Nationalliga B playoff game between Olten and Langenthal.

As you can see from the video above, Keller stopped short a few feet from the boards as he was chasing down a puck when Langenthal’s Stefan Schnyder lowered his shoulder and delivered a hit. The play happened very quickly and Schnyder clearly intended to hit Keller, but I highly doubt he ever envisioned the result that followed.

Keller is currently in the ICU of the Swiss Paraplegic Centre in Nottwill, where the hospital’s chief physician has determined that he has been left paralyzed.

“Following the serious injury of the fourth thoracic vertebra, Ronny Keller will be a permanent paraplegic,” the doctor explained according to Tages Anzeiger. “There is neither head nor brain injuries.”

Schnyder is currently being investigated for any criminal complaint that might be filed against him. The hit could certainly be classified as boarding but, again, I’m sure Schnyder feels horrible about the result. We see massive hits like this all the time in the NHL, but fortunately instances of serious injury and paralysis are very rare. Unfortunately, they are not unheard of.

H/T Puck Daddy

Brewers GM Doug Melvin hospitalized after scorpion sting

General managers beware. What started out as an offseason filled with bizarre injuries to players has turned into an assault on some of the MLB’s front office guys. Milwaukee Brewers general manager Doug Melvin spent several hours in a local hospital in Arizona on Wednesday night after he was stung by a scorpion in at his condo.

According to the Journal Sentinel, Melvin said he reached down to pick up what he thought was a harmless bug with a tissue when he was stung on the middle finger of his left hand. He had actually grabbed an Arizona bark scorpion, and Melvin immediately began feeling some numbness in his arm. After Googling scorpion stings, he decided he had better take a trip to the emergency room.

“I spent three hours in an emergency room in Scottsdale,” Melvin explained on Thursday morning. “My arm is still totally numb. It stung me right through the Kleenex. My arm started swelling and then the numbness started going up my arm, like when you hit your funny bone. I was wondering if it might go all the way up my arm and go to my heart. I got nervous when it got up to my shoulder, so I went to the emergency room.

“They gave me (pain medication) and just watched me for a couple of hours. They said your vision can go blurry from that. It was more an education on it but my arm is still numb. First off, they tell you it’s not fatal. But you can have an allergic reaction to it and need an anti-venom injection.”

Talk about some scary stuff. Melvin’s scorpion sting came just days after New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman suffered this gruesome injury while skydiving, so for whatever reason the injury bug has decided to start biting (pun intended) general managers. We’ve featured a ton of weird injuries over the years here at LBS, but they typically involve players. This has to be the first time two GMs have fallen victim in the same week.

H/T Eye on Baseball

Stephen Strasburg hits Chase Utley, Roy Halladay throws behind Tyler Moore

Roy Halladay has better control than most starting pitchers in baseball, but at least one pitch got away from him during Wednesday’s spring training game between the Philadelphia Phillies and Washington Nationals. Or did it?

Stephen Strasburg hit Chase Utley in the calf with a pitch in the third inning. Halladay responded in the fourth by throwing behind Nationals outfielder Tyler Moore.

“Yeah, that slipped,” Halladay said after the game.

The right-hander then elaborated, basically admitting that he was sending a message.

“We do need to protect our guys to an extent,” Halladay continued. “I’m not saying that’s what happened — it slipped — but I think that’s important. We’ve had a lot of guys hit over the years and I think as a staff we need to do a good job of protecting those guys. Spring training I don’t think you’re necessarily trying to do it, but it wouldn’t have been the worst thing had (the pitch hit Moore).”

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Bronx high school track team members charged with violent sexual abuse for disturbing hazing

Three track team members from the Bronx High School of Science have been charged with violent sexual abuse after they allegedly hazed a younger student in disturbing fashion. According to CBS 2’s Hazel Sanchez, the three students have been charged as adults with forcible touching, assault, hazing in the second degree and harassment.

The suspects were all teammates of the alleged victim’s and have been identified as as Thomas Brady, 16; Boubacar Diallo, 16; and Pier Berkmans, 17. The victim said his teammates began assaulting him in December when one of them allegedly told him, “You need a good fingering, you freshman,” and proceeded to penetrate him through his clothing.

In January, the victim says the suspects threatened to rape him if he did not allow them to touch him sexually. The boy also said he was held down and sexually assaulted and that the older boys struck him in the genitals with water bottles. According to the complaint, the most recent attack took place last week when the victim was held on the ground and sexually assaulted. He said he told the assaulters they were hurting him, to which one responded, “Don’t resist, we won’t hurt you.”

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JJ Redick: I’ll be surprised when Dwight Howard starts taking responsibility

Dwight Howard attempted to improve his public image by sitting down for a recent interview with KCAL/CBSLA, but the Los Angeles Lakers center may have actually done the opposite. Howard has angered a lot of his former teammates by saying the Orlando Magic was a team “full of people nobody wanted” and that he led it with a smile on his face. JJ Redick is one of those former teammates.

“I’m not surprised by it,” Redick told ESPNLosAngeles.com Wednesday. “I would be more surprised when Dwight starts taking responsibility. That would be the most negative thing I can say, but that’s the truth.

“You can’t take all the credit and not accept any of the blame.”

Jameer Nelson ripped Howard for the comment on Wednesday, and Rashard Lewis also seems to have taken offense to it.

“We helped Dwight become the player he was,” Lewis told the Orlando Sentinel on Wednesday. “We made a good run. Hell, look at those (conference and division) banners hanging in the stands. They don’t say Dwight Howard on them …”

Realizing that his interview has gained so much negative attention, Howard attempted to clear the air.

“My statement was just to say that our team that I played with in Orlando, we were the underdogs,” Howard said after the Lakers’ win on Wednesday night. “Nobody really talked about our team. It was underrated. Everybody overlooked us for the whole time I was there in Orlando and I hated that. We all hated that. We thrived off that. My comments were never to say anything disrespectful to those guys. Those were my teammates for years. They helped me become the player that I am today and we all got to the Finals because of that.

“It was never intended to disrespect or downgrade any of those guys. I would always tell them I wouldn’t trade them for the world. That’s how I viewed it. For the most part, those guys know that. They know who I am and they probably just heard something and people twisted it and turned it in different ways. I’m not that kind of guy. I would never disrespect those guys. It just kind of got blown out of proportion.”

If Dwight’s former teammates really knew he had their back, they would have defended him and said the comments got blown out of proportion. Instead, many of them were angered by it. In my opinion, that says all you need to know.

LeBron James, Savannah Brinson set wedding date

LeBron James and his fiancee Savannah Brinson have finally set a wedding date.

TMZ reports that the couple has plans to get married the weekend of Sept. 13-15 in San Diego. TMZ obtained the “save the date” notes sent to invitees (seen above), which depict LeBron, Savannah and their two sons as caricatures.

James and Brinson have been dating since high school. James proposed to his longtime girlfriend at a New Year’s party last year. They have two sons together — LeBron Jr. and Bryce (who were last seen rocking awesome haircuts).

The timing of the wedding announcement might not be coincidental; there were recent rumors that the two were having relationship problems. The rumors stemmed from Brinson’s absence at NBA All-Star Weekend and the Miami Heat’s January visit to the White House. Maybe things aren’t that bad if the two are proceeding with their wedding.

Jon Jones begins jiu-jitsu training at Gracie Barra to address ‘weakness’

Jon Jones began jiu-jitsu training at Gracie Barra in New Mexico this week to address what he calls his “weakness.”

Already the UFC light heavyweight champion and considered one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, Jones comes from a wrestling background. He was an All-American wrestler at Iowa Central Community College. He is also an outstanding striker, and he embraces many Muay Thai techniques, winning several of his fights with knee and elbow strikes.

Jones has said for a while that he needs more work on his jiu-jitsu, and admitted last year that he doesn’t practice it daily. He signed up to train at the Gracie Barra school in Albuquerque to address it.

He tweeted about his experience Wednesday:

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Lakers fake out Hornets on inbounds play, get key basket (Video)

The New Orleans Hornets blew a 25-point lead and lost to the Los Angeles Lakers 108-102 Wednesday. After committing supremely idiotic plays like this one, you can’t help but say they deserved to lose.

The Lakers faked out the Hornets on an inbounds play with 25.5 seconds left in the game by lining up on the side of the court they were defending, not the one they were attacking. This strange move by the Lakers tricked the Hornets into thinking they needed to defend the wrong basket, so their players all stood closer to the wrong goal. The positioning of the Hornets’ players allowed Kobe Bryant to break free to the basket, and Steve Blake threw him a pass that led to a fastbreak dunk.

The Lakers went up 106-102 thanks to the ingenuous play (and blunder by New Orleans). The Lakers closed the game on a 20-0 run. That was probably the dumbest sports play we’ve seen since this one.

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Syracuse University Twitter account mistakenly shares link to article about Jim Boeheim retiring

Syracuse had to do some damage control after a tweet sent from the university’s official Twitter account suggested that basketball coach Jim Boeheim would be retiring.

Here’s the tweet sent following Syracuse’s 78-57 home win over DePaul on Wednesday that caused the confusion:

The tweet links to a post on a Syracuse blog that was written by a Florida community college student, who says the longtime coach was asked by the school to retire.

The tweet was later deleted, and the school moved quickly to clarify:

#OrangeNation: Earlier tonight a tweet was mistakenly sent. Nothing in the tweet was true or accurate and we apologize for the confusion.

— Syracuse University (@SyracuseU) March 7, 2013

Boeheim has been the school’s basketball coach since the 1976-77 season. He has won one national championship, reached three Final Fours, and he is second on the Division I career wins list with 913. Syracuse’s last regular season game is Saturday at Georgetown.

H/T Deadspin

Jamal Crawford sets Blake Griffin up for sick alley-oop (Video)

Jamal Crawford decided to have some fun as the Clippers began to pull away from the Milwaukee Bucks late in the fourth quarter on Wednesday. After the Clippers got a steal, the ball was fed ahead to Crawford who went between his legs and then threw up a pass for a trailing Blake Griffin, who jammed down a sick alley-oop.

Seriously, that’s better than most of the dunks in the Slam Dunk Contest.

Griffin said after the game that he was surprised by what Crawford did.

“I was telling him I had no idea what he was about to do,” he told FOX Sports Prime Ticket. “I thought he was going to throw it off the glass. I saw him toss it up a little bit, so I tried to put something special at the end.”

Crawford had 25 in the win while Griffin had 23, 11, and 11 for his third career triple-double. I think they were just trying to impress Aaron Rodgers, who was sitting courtside next to Clippers owner Donald Sterling:

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