Whipped Cream Difficulties

Jim Montgomery out as head coach of the Boston Bruins hockey team.

They were 120-41-23 in “three seasons”. 20 games into the current season, they’re 8-9-3.

The Bruins have been one of the NHL’s most notable disappointments this season. They’re 31st in team offense (2.40 goals per game) and 28th in defense (3.45 goals against per game).
Previously dependable aspects of the team have malfunctioned, in particular the goaltending. The team traded former Vezina winner Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators for goalie Joonas Korpisalo. The Ullmark deal broke up the best goalie tandem in the NHL with 26-year-old Jeremy Swayman, who missed training camp during a bitter negotiation before signing an eight-year contract that will pay him $66 million.

(Apologies for the ESPN link, but I flat out cannot get around the various Boston media paywalls/”disable your ad blocker” prompts.)

There’s been a lot going on. I’m sorry to be linking so much to ESPN, but I’m having trouble finding local coverage for some of these.

Tom Herman out at Florida Atlantic. 6-16 in two seasons, and 0-6 in the AAC this season.

Don Brown out at the University of Massachusetts. 6-28 over “two plus seasons”, and they’re 2-8 so far.

Phil Longo out as offensive coordinator of the Wisconsin Badgers. I have not heard anything about mushrooms or the snake.

Stan Drayton out at Temple. 9-25 in “two plus” seasons, 4-18 in the AAC, and 0-15 on the road. But they actually won (in overtime) Saturday.

Noted: “Temple’s firing of Stan Drayton should open the door to dropping the football program“.

Mike Bloomgren out as head coach of Rice.

24-52 in seven seasons, 2-6 this season with four games left.

As you know, Bob, I prefer to link to local coverage when I can, but I couldn’t find any. Not in the HouChron, not on the Fox station, not on KHOU, nothing.

Christie Sides out as coach of the Indiana Fever, which is your WNBA team featuring Caitlin Clark.

33-47 in two years, 20-20 this year, and they got swept in the playoffs. ESPN.

Latricia Trammell was fired on Friday as head coach of the Dallas Wings.

The team was 9-31 this season.

In case you were wondering- and it took me longer to figure this out than it should have – the Dallas Wings are a WNBA team.

The Wings franchise started in Detroit in 1998 and won three WNBA championships there before moving to Tulsa in 2010. After six seasons in Oklahoma, the team relocated to Dallas in 2016 and became the Wings.

On a related note:

This season the WNBA will lose $40 million, a bit better than the $50 million forecast and reported by several media outlets months ago but still a loss, sources said.
Starting in the 2026 season, the WNBA will get up to $2.2 billion over 11 years as part of the new basketball media contracts.

…

But the players are expected to opt out of the current collective bargaining contract by a Nov. 1 deadline and, if they do, that means salaries are likely to rise, which would eat into that potential $60 million 2026 profit by the league — the $100M in television revenue turning the projected $40M loss into a $60M gain.

The Cincinnati Reds fired manager David Bell yesterday

Bell joined the Reds for the 2019 season and posted a 405-456 record over the last six seasons. He guided the Reds through COVID, managed a playoff team in 2020 and received his first of two contract extensions with the Reds in 2021.
In 2022, the Reds lost 100 games and went through a full rebuild. The Reds broke through in 2023 and were in the playoff race until the final weekend of the season. Bell received a contract extension last July as the young core impressed, but that momentum didn’t carry into 2024.

The Reds are currently 76-81, and have been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention.

ESPN.

I am seeing reports that the Seattle Mariners are going to fire general manager Scott Servais.

Right now, this is all just “sources” and nobody’s reporting anything definite yet. The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network isn’t even covering the story.

Realistically, it was the culmination of two months of losing and failure following that apex day June 18.
Since that high-water mark above .500, the Mariners have posted a 20-33 record, losing their 10-game division lead in a span of 24 games and now trailing the Astros by five games. Only the hapless Chicago White Sox have had a worse record over that stretch (10-43).
Following Wednesday’s 8-4 loss in which they were swept in a three-game series by the Dodgers in Los Angeles to close out the trip, the Mariners fell to an even 64-64. The previous time the Mariners were at .500 was April 24 when they were 12-12.

When I see something beyond “sources say”, I’ll update here.

(I’m trying to keep the White Sox posts to one per week.)

Edited to add 8/23: official now. The Seattle Times story was updated in place, but here’s the ESPN story.

Blake Anderson was fired as football coach of Utah State yesterday.

Their season starts August 31st. Should be interesting to see who they find to coach.

The reason?

Utah State said an external investigation found Anderson did not comply with the school’s Title IX policies, which require timely reporting of sexual misconduct and domestic violence and bar employees from investigating reports of sexual misconduct themselves. The school also fired deputy athletic director Jerry Bovee and football staff member Austin Albrecht for violating university policies connected to the reporting of domestic and sexual violence. Bovee last week announced his intention to file a grievance, pursuant to university policy, and said he and two other Utah State employees reported an incident that occurred in April 2023 to the university’s Office of Equity.

There’s a second day story that gives more specifics. Apparently, Coach Anderson decided he was going to play Perry Mason (or was it Paul Drake):

Anderson contacted the girlfriend and roommate of a Utah State football player in April 2023 after learning that the player had been arrested due to an alleged domestic abuse incident, according to an investigation commissioned by the university. Anderson said he was on a “fact-finding mission” to determine if the player should be suspended or if they needed to take any further action, according to an investigative report obtained via public records request.

…

“Most egregiously, you engaged in investigative efforts regarding the domestic violence arrest, including meeting with and collecting written statements from the potential victim and another witness,” the letter states. “You undertook these actions following an arrest and while a criminal investigation was ongoing.”

Coach Anderson, of course, says the university was out to get him, the charges are unfounded, and he did nothing wrong or in violation of policy.