As a kid growing up in Mexico loving soccer is part of your childhood. Since I can remember, soccer matches where a must see in my family home, and it’s a tradition that persists today.

I was 10 years old during the 2006 World Cup in Germany when David Beckham appeared on my TV screen and caught my attention—and 12 years later I am still watching.

For those unfamiliar with the World Cup, it all began in 1930 with the first World Cup being played in Uruguay. The tournament is played every four years, with teams from all over the world competing for the top spot. The tournament normally lasts a month.

Each continent is their own confederation, and host their own eliminations. The best of each plays in the World Cup. Overall, the World Cup consists of 32 teams.

The World Cup has been held 20 times since its inception, and only eight countries have won. Brazil with five, Germany and Italy with four, Uruguay and Argentina twice and Spain, England and France once.

For years, these countries have been a strong influence in the world of soccer with their own leagues. But maybe this World Cup will add a new champion to the list.

Being played in Russia, this year's World Cup can be described as unexpected. Germany lost against Mexico, Brasil tied against Switzerland and Argentina against Iceland. Even the games that have gone as planned like Belgium versus Panama and England versus Tunisia, have not been played smoothly. So far, the best game was Spain against Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal.

At this point, I do not know who can be a favorite to win because the trophy is up for grabs. Predictions have been destroyed, and everyone is just going one game at a time.

With three weeks left to go, the uncertainty will probably grow, but that is the magic of soccer. No matter the statistics, player names and bigger teams, everyone can win and that keeps it exciting.

Stay tuned every Thursday morning for my weekly update on World Cup action!

Maria Angulo is a Northern Arizona University journalism student and Tucson Local Media intern.

With the US national team not playing in the World Cup, you are probably wondering which team you should root for, well I have an option for you.

Iceland-The Underdog

The Vikings are ready to make history, playing in the World Cup for the first time, a country of a population of 348,580 (Tucson, by comparison, has a population of 530,706), being the smallest country to ever participate in the tournament.

Before becoming assistant manager in 2011, Heimir Hallgrimsson was a dentist in his village.

This team has now become famous for the ‘Viking War Chant’, their signature move with their fans at the end of every match.

One of their biggest moments was when an Icelandic commentator lost it after Iceland beat Austria in the 2016 UEFA EURO Cup when they moved forward in the tournament.

Iceland got into the semifinals by winning against England in 2016 but sadly lost to France.

Sports are all about the little team who made it and that is what Iceland did in the last Eurocup, getting further than teams like Spain, Italy, and Germany.

So do not count them out, it may be their first time in a competition in the World Cup but they may surprise you.

Pima Community College Chancellor Lee Lambert laid out the future for the Tucson campus’s scaled-back athletic program from a lectern tucked inside a glass-enclosed lecture hall.

Lambert, who less than a day prior had formally announced the elimination of the school’s football team, along with one of the two tennis and golf programs, said such a decision was a matter of simple economics.

“I think it's very important that we not lose sight that the college is facing tremendous amount of
challenges and pressures that are helping us to make some very difficult decisions,” Lambert told the crowd of journalists. “Our enrollments had been declining for a period of time. This year, fortunately, for the first time, our enrollments were up. But because of the enrollment challenges, it impacts other aspects of our operation and athletics is not immune to that.”

Lambert and Athletic Director Edgar Soto fielded questions about the college’s decision to cut some $600,000 from its $2.6 million athletics budget.

Lambert said their decision to cut the school’s 100-man football squad, which started in 2000, came down to its outsized costs ($406,000 in 2017) and the lack of local competition.


The latter part of that equation became a reality earlier this year when the Maricopa County Community College District announced the elimination of football in 2019 at Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa and Glendale community colleges.

What could be better than spending a mid-summer's night under the florescent glow of stadium lights in the Old Pueblo?

If any of the above tickles your twine, then you're in luck, as the Sun Belt College Baseball League is returning to Tucson.

The league, which consists of eight teams, comprised of recently graduated high school players and college stars from Southern Arizona and other parts of the country, plays under the lights of Kino Veterans Memorial Stadium (2500 E. Ajo Way) between now and July 4.

This year's league includes six teams of Tucson and Southern Arizona players, as well as a squad from Boulder, Colorado and Mexico—starting on Thursday, June 14 through Wednesday, July 4.

Admission to the Tucson festivities is $5 for adults (cash only) and free for kids 12 and under, with free parking for all games.

Game times are at 7 p.m. for single game nights, and 5 p.m. for doubleheaders on June 15 and 16.

Attendees can reap the gut-busting benefits of $1 hot dogs on Tuesdays and half-off sodas and popcorn on Thursdays, with appearances by fan favorites Woody the Woodpecker and Daffy Duck every Thursday through Saturday night.

The Sun Belt season crescendoes with the third annual Fourth of July Diamonds in the Sky Celebration at 5 p.m., which includes an all-star game featuring league players, as well as a convert by Rhythm Edition and postgame fireworks.

Tickets for the year-end celebration are $4 in advance for adults (free for kids 5 and under), with tickets going on sale on June 18, with advance ticket purchases covering parking costs. 

Jordan Morgan received the news he’s waited his whole life to hear at a summer football camp at Northern Arizona University last weekend.

Morgan, who’s been a larger-than-life figure on the Marana Tigers’ offensive and defensive lines over the last two years, was gifted the opportunity to play the sport at its highest collegiate level.

The 6-foot-5-inch, 265-pound lineman—the younger brother of former Tiger and current Pima Aztec John Morgan—has the opportunity to continue his playing career, receiving an offer at the NAU camp to play for the University of Arizona.

Morgan’s good fortune came during the camp, when first-year offensive line coach Joe Gilbert pulled him aside, sending the rising senior into a state of euphoria.

“He told me that he was going to offer me a full ride scholarship to U of A, and I was speechless,” Morgan said. “It was pretty mind blowing. So yeah, it's a pretty big step forward for me.”

A lifetime of figurative gut-punches and premature playoff exits came to an end late Thursday night in Sin City.

I’m talking about the five-game Stanley Cup championship earned by the tough-luck Washington Capitals—who rolled over the Las Vegas Knights in the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup Final, four games to one.

It was a night I’d long waited to witness, growing up in the D.C. suburbs to a mother born at George Washington Hospital, mere steps from Capitol Hill.

It was a night to shed two-plus decades of playoff scar tissue, after a seemingly endless reign of playoff failure—including three-straight defeats at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round of the playoffs.

This year was different, thanks to a cast of Capitals players that many couldn’t ID with a gun pressed against their temples.

It was the exploits of castaways, like Devante Smith-Pelly—a 25-year-old journeyman forward who was cut by the Montreal Canadians and New Jersey Devils in successive seasons.
Smith-Pelly dazzled this postseason, scoring as many goals (7) in 24 playoff games as he did in 75 regular season contests.

The Ontario native capped off his remarkable postseason with a highlight reel goal in the third period of Thursday’s slugfest—shimmying past a Knights’ defender to get a net-rippling shot past goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.

That goal, which tied the game at 3, gave the Capitals the energy they needed to launch a late-game offensive.

The franchise-changing tally came some three minutes later, when 29-year-old Danish forward Lars Eller was gifted a scoring chance that he’ll never forget.

The chance, which wound up being the straw that broke the Knights back, involved a shot by teammate Brett Connolly, which Fleury stopped.

That shot somehow squirmed past the veteran goalie’s pads, resting behind him—mere feet away from Eller.

This is getting real. It's getting realer by the day.

It was an unlikely twist on the evening of Saturday, April 14, as a cavalcade of maroon-clad fans poured into the airy entrance of the Tucson Arena.

The twist, which seemed impossible a few years ago, was the thought of playoff hockey happening in the heart of the second-largest desert in North America.

More than 10,000 people found their way to the venerable arena to catch the final regular season home stand of the Tucson Roadrunners’ regular season.

The Roadrunners, in their second season of existence, clinched the American Hockey League’s Pacific Division crown on Friday, beating rival San Diego 3-2, thanks to an improbable off-balance goal by Swedish winger Mario Kempe.

Not to be outdone, the Roadrunners came back and clinched the last hurdle in their way the following night, earning the top spot in the AHL’s 15-team Western Conference in a 6-3 win.

The team, under first-year coach Mike Van Ryn, finished the regular season with an eye-popping 42-20-6 record.

They enter this week’s opening round of the playoffs with a red-hot 7-2-1 record in their last 10 games, winning three straight games against San Diego to cap off the season.

Van Ryn’s squad finishes the regular season with the second-best road winning percentage (.750), allowing the fewest goals of any of the league’s 30 teams on the road (78).

Tucson has a legitimate shot at making a deep playoff run, thanks to a youthful front line of Dylan Strome, Mike Sislo and Michael Bunting—who scored 68 goals combined this season.

They enter this week’s opening round matchup against fourth-seed San Jose with a full gust of confidence at their backs, seeking to become the first Tucson team to win a conference championship since the Tucson Sidewinders won the Pacific Coast League crown in 2006.

Van Ryn expects a battle against the Barracuda, the lone team that the Roadrunners had a losing record against in the 68-game regular season.

“It's going to be a be a hard-fought series. I mean, they've played us well all year,” Van Ryn said. “I think we’ve got to be ready for them. And we’ve got to put together maybe a better game plan than we have in the past, and our executions got to be better. And we're getting to work already on it. So, we just go to be ready to go. And we've got guys rested now, and we'll try to give them our best.”

Van Ryn said his team’s confidence has gone through the roof during the course of the regular season, coinciding with their continued success.

“Coming in, I think we just were like, ‘Oh, let's try to make it in the playoffs, and give the young guys a taste of what that's like’,” Van Ryn said. “And you know what? They just kept growing. I think from day one, they bought in. We pushed them hard, and they accepted.”

That drive to succeed has resulted in a regular season few will forget, including winger Tye McGinn, who’s scored 10 goals this season.

McGinn is impressed by the team’s ability to weather the highs and lows of the season, and how they’ve coalesced as a unit entering the month-and-a-half-long marathon that is the AHL playoffs.

“Our forecheck is very strong and we turn over a lot of pucks and that goes a long way,” McGinn said. “It's tough for teams to break out in it. As you could see against San Diego here last couple games, it really wore them down. And I think our team is very strong with that and it's going to be an exciting first run.”

That excitement was mutual for the 4,000-plus fans that stuck around after Saturday’s finale to watch members of the team skate around the rink, tossing T-shirts to the legions of converts.

It’s a bold new era for the Roadrunners and the city alike, with the wonder of playoff hockey coming for the first time at 7:05 p.m. on Wednesday, April 25.

Van Ryn is well-aware of the gut-churning anxiety that playoff hockey presents, playing 26 postseason games during his 12-year NHL career.

He’s ready to see what his players are capable of when pressure reaches its fever pitch, and the luxuries of the regular season go out the window.

“This is what you worked for all year. The division championship and winning the west is all great, but it's the playoff wins,” Van Ryn said. “It's trying to win that trophy at the very end is what matters. And that's what you strive for.”

BOISE—Members of the Arizona Wildcats gathered around the semi-circular row of lockers tucked deep inside Boise's Taco Bell Arena, ahead of their final walkthrough on Wednesday.

The fresh-faced cadre of stars assembled in the undersized, sterile locker room will soon do battle with an undersized, scrappy cast from far-away Buffalo, but for now strike a relaxed, confident tone.

Take, for instance, 7-foot Serbian center Dusan Ristic, who's lounged out in the corner of the locker room, shooting the breeze with anyone that passes.

Then there's the unmistakable presence that is freshman Deandre Ayton, who's cracking jokes and his trademark ear-to-ear smile in the center of the room.

It's hard to tell that these dozen or so personalities are some 27 hours away from the cruelest, most exciting three-week spectacle in American sports, the NCAA Tournament.

Battling the Bulls

That tone will change by 7:40 p.m. local time tonight, when the Wildcats' will get down to business in the first round against the Bulls.

For Ristic, it's been a dream senior season, on the court at least, earning an All-Pac-12 Second Team selection, thanks to averaging 12.1 points and 7 rebounds per game this season.

The most wonderful weekend of the sports calendar tips off Thursday, when dozens of teams will start their three-week odyssey to win college basketball’s ultimate prize.

The teams, taking part in the annual tradition colloquially known as March Madness, will engage in all-out war for 40 minutes, with one side breathing a sigh of relief as the other weeps at a premature end of their season.

The event, which brings in an eye-popping $10 billion in sports wagers (only $3 billion of which is done legally), features a myriad of storylines, too many to count.

For the hometown Wildcats of Arizona, there’s any number of options, from the team’s run-ins with the FBI, to the health of players like Rawle Alkins and the issues that arise from trying to prepare for an unfamiliar foe in 72 hours.

The Wildcats’ quest to snap the program’s well-known 17 year Final Four drought begins at 6:40 p.m. local time Thursday in far-flung Boise.

Raging Bulls

Their quest as the fourth seed in the tournament’s South Region starts with The University of Buffalo Bulls, winners of the Mid-American Conference.

The Bulls, who are 26-8 this season, feature a high-powered offense that scores 84.8 points per game, good for eighth overall in the nation.

They feature a cast of blue-collar, experienced players, with a six-man rotation that features four juniors, one senior and one sophomore.

Four Bulls average more than 10 points per game, led by junior guard CJ Massinburg, who averages an eye-popping 7.4 rebounds per game.

That stat is all the more incredible when you realize that Massinburg is all of 6-foot-3-inches tall and 194 pounds.

Massinburg, who hails from the Dallas, Texas area originally, is the driving force and heartbeat for Coach Nate Oats’ squad—dictating the pace of both the team’s offensive and defensive schemes.