April 17, 2019

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Sports April 17, 2019

Tampa Bay Lightning Collapses In First Round of NHL Playoffs

NPR’s Audie Cornish talks with Greg Wyshynski, ESPN senior NHL writer, about how the Tampa Bay Lightning went from one of the year’s best teams to best team in NHL history to be swept in the first round.



AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Apologies to Ohio. If you’ve never heard of the Columbus Blue Jackets, you’re definitely not alone. On the flip side, the Tampa Bay Lightning wish they’d never heard of the Blue Jackets. The Lightning were by far the best team in the National Hockey League. In fact, there was a time – like, just over a week ago – that you could say they were one of the best teams ever. No team in NHL history had ever won more games in the regular season.

Now, contrast that with the Columbus Blue Jackets, an unlikely bunch. They barely squeaked into the playoffs. Their first-round matchup was supposed to be a walkover. Instead, the Lightning were overrun. Columbus won its first playoff series ever with a sweep that still has experts like my next guest wondering what happened.

Greg Wyshynski is senior NHL writer for ESPN. He’s co-host of the Puck Soup podcast. He joins me now via Skype. Welcome to the program.

GREG WYSHYNSKI: Thanks for having me.

CORNISH: Help us understand. Just how good were the Lightning before this collapse?

WYSHYNSKI: Oh, quite good. They had 62 wins in the regular season. That tied the all-time NHL record for wins in a season. This was a team that was doing historic things in the regular season. Consider this. Thirty of their 62 victories were by three goals or more. So every time they stepped on the ice, they weren’t just winning. They were blowing away their opponents.

CORNISH: So it’s safe to say any sane hockey analyst (laughter) basically would have said that the Lightning was going to win the series, right? So what happened?

WYSHYNSKI: (Laughter) Well, I think Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh put it best. Everything that they did so well in the regular season, the Columbus Blue Jackets did it better in this series. But the bigger picture is this for the Lightning. They clinched a playoff spot in early March. They’ve been on cruise control for months. The Columbus Blue Jackets had to win seven of their last eight games just to get into the playoffs. So when push came to shove and adversity hit in the series, the Lightning had a bad six days compared to a great 82 games in the regular season, and then they were swept.

CORNISH: Now, your assessment is far more kind, I think, than that of the fan base. And I’m basing that on a tweet from the Tampa Bay Lightning Twitter feed, which said this. We don’t have any words. We know you don’t want to hear them. We understand your anger, your frustration, your sadness. Everything you’re feeling, we get it. This isn’t the ending we imagined and certainly not the one we wanted. Thank you for being there the entire way.

Have you ever seen a team this apologetic?

WYSHYNSKI: (Laughter) No, but they have a lot to apologize for. I mean, the only other team in the history of the four major sports that had this kind of success in the regular season and then didn’t win a playoff game was the 2011 Green Bay Packers. They went 15 and 1 in the regular season and then lost to the New York Giants in the first round of the NFL playoffs. But in that case, we’re talking about one game. This is a team that had four chances to win a game, and they couldn’t do it.

CORNISH: And now Columbus is the toast of the NHL. Will there be a Blue Jackets bandwagon?

WYSHYNSKI: (Laughter) There might be. You know, they’re a team that plays an entertaining brand of hockey. Their head coach, John Tortorella, is entertainment in and of himself, sometimes a blustery, yelling guy. So there is something scrappy about this team. And there’s also something scrappy about this franchise. They’ve been around for a very long time, and this is the first time that they’ve even won three games in a playoff series.

CORNISH: Can they keep this going?

WYSHYNSKI: I think so. There’s no reason that this team can’t beat anybody if they can beat one of the single greatest hockey teams in the regular season that the NHL has ever seen in over a hundred years.

CORNISH: Greg Wyshynski is senior NHL writer for ESPN and co-host for the fantastically named Puck Soup podcast. Thank you for speaking with us.

WYSHYNSKI: My pleasure.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Business April 17, 2019

Why The Tragic Fire At Notre Dame Has Led People To Be So Generous

France struggled to raise donations last year when Notre Dame was crumbling and in need of repairs. Now, after a devastating fire, hundreds of millions have been pledged to save the cathedral.



AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Ever since fire ravaged the Notre Dame Cathedral two days ago, money has been pouring in to rebuild the Paris landmark. The donations already add up to more than a billion dollars. There was much less urgency and less generosity before the fire. Supporters of the cathedral struggled in recent months to raise money to make basic repairs to the crumbling eight-century-old structure. NPR’s Scott Horsley reports.

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: In the last 48 hours, friends of Notre Dame have been raising luxury suitcases full of money. The billionaire businessman behind Louis Vuitton pledged 200 million euros. The cosmetic moguls at L’Oreal did the same. With wealthy benefactors writing big checks like that, ordinary people might be expected to put their pocketbooks away, assuming the need’s already been met. But Lisa Vesterlund says in the case of Notre Dame, people have done just the opposite.

LISA VESTERLUND: If the owners of L’Oreal think that it’s important to give 200 million euros, then they’re saying this is a really important effort; we need to very quickly raise the money so that we can rebuild this amazing cathedral that we all love and enjoy.

HORSLEY: Vesterlund’s an economist at the University of Pittsburgh who studies charitable giving. She was intrigued by the big role philanthropy plays in the United States compared to her native Denmark where more is left up to the government.

VESTERLUND: Oftentimes we’re sort of puzzled by why people give. I actually find it more puzzling why we don’t give more because the need is so big.

HORSLEY: Researchers say some charitable giving is purely altruistic. But some delivers a personal reward, what economists have uncharacteristically labeled a warm glow. Would-be donors apparently weren’t feeling much of that glow before Monday, and fundraising for the cathedral lagged. But Bob Kissane, who heads a consulting firm called CCS Fundraising, says the fire changed all that, that many people now contributing to Notre Dame are getting an immediate sense of community, belonging and purpose.

BOB KISSANE: Isn’t it interesting how obvious it’s become that Notre Dame is so many different things? It’s a symbol of faith. It’s an architectural masterpiece. It’s a cultural place. It’s a tourist attraction. It’s so many things.

HORSLEY: Researchers also know people are more likely to give to charity when they’re asked.

ANYA SAMEK: News reports are the biggest type of ask. We see all over the news that Notre Dame Cathedral needs help, and then we give.

HORSLEY: Economist Anya Samek of USC says high-profile disasters often trigger an outpouring of contributions. In some cases, donations overwhelm the actual need while other less-camera-friendly charities go wanting.

SAMEK: We also see that after the news coverage has died down, disasters often still continue needing help. But yet people forget about it and are on to the next thing.

HORSLEY: One of the biggest challenges is raising money for mundane renovation projects like the one that was underway at Notre Dame. The budget for that project was only about a tenth of what’s been raised since Monday. But before the fire, funds were hard to come by. Some even suggested charging admission to the cathedral, an idea that was quickly rejected by French bishops.

Todd Stern, whose company U3 Advisors works with nonprofits, says while Notre Dame might be unique, there are countless aging churches and other buildings that play a vital role in their community and that need both physical and financial support.

TODD STERN: It’s not that you’re fixing the walls. It’s that you are preserving the sanctity of an institution that has a much higher purpose. And I think it’s really important to connect to that.

HORSLEY: The challenge is selling that message to would-be contributors before the fire starts. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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