Welcome, readers of The Athletic, to the first of many every-so-often mailbags I intend to write in the coming months and years and millennia. You all submitted scores of questions, and I'll get to as ...

A hockey goal is so unlike scoring in any other major American sport. It doesn’t happen nearly as frequently as in basketball, or with the gradual march down the field in football. Even a home run ...

Hockey is loaded with unique traditions like playoff beards and handshake lines and putting team logos on the locker room floor, where they are never, under any circumstances, to be tread upon. But in ...

In the 1970s, Chicago Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz loved the sound of the horn on his yacht and decided to install one in Chicago Stadium, where the Blackhawks played. The horn soon became expected ...

When the New York Islanders scored the only goal of a 3-1 exhibition loss against the Washington Capitals, it marked the debut of Barclays Center’s new goal horn. The shrill horn was immediately met ...

A hockey goal is so unlike scoring in any other major American sport. It doesn’t happen nearly as frequently as in basketball, or with the gradual march down the field in football. Even a home run ...

*This archive was originally published by Ryan Shuvera and was most recently updated in March 2025 In the 1970s, Chicago ...