The Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, commonly known as the U.S. Open Cup (USOC), is a knock-out cup competition in American soccer. It is the oldest ongoing national soccer competition in the U.S. The 107th edition, to be held in 2020, will be contested by 100 clubs from the four professional leagues sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation: Major League Soccer (MLS), the United Soccer League's Championship and League One divisions, and the National Independent Soccer Association (NISA), as well as amateur clubs in the earlier rounds of the tournament after qualifying through their leagues. The overall champion earns a total of $300,000 in prize money, while the runner-up receives $100,000, and the furthest-advancing team from each lower division league receives $25,000. In addition, the tournament winner qualifies for the group stage of the CONCACAF Champions League.
3M Arena at Mariucci is the home arena for the Minnesota Golden Gophers men's ice hockey team of the University of Minnesota. The arena is located on the Minneapolis campus and seats approximately 10,000 fans. The arena opened in 1993 and is named after John Mariucci, the longtime Gopher coach who is considered the "godfather of Minnesota hockey." Under the gate is a quote from Mariucci: "Through these gates walk the greatest fans in college hockey." The ice sheet is Olympic sized. The women's ice hockey team played at Mariucci from 1997 until 2002 when they moved to Ridder Arena, which is connected to Mariucci via a tunnel.
The men's ice hockey tournament at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, United States, was the 14th Olympic Championship. Twelve teams competed in the tournament, which was held from February 12 to 24. The United States won its second gold medal, including a win over the heavily favored Soviet Union that became known as the "Miracle on Ice".Games were held at the Olympic Fieldhouse (8,000) and the Olympic Arena (2,500).
Neal LaMoy Broten is an American former professional ice hockey player. A member of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team that won the gold medal at Lake Placid in 1980, Broten was inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame in 2000 having appeared in 1,099 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season games from 1981 to 1997 with the Minnesota North Stars, Dallas Stars, New Jersey Devils and Los Angeles Kings. He is the older brother of Aaron and Paul Broten.
Sports in the United States are an important part of American culture. American football is the most popular sport to watch in the United States, followed by baseball, basketball, and ice hockey. Soccer, tennis, golf, wrestling, auto racing, arena football, field lacrosse, box lacrosse and volleyball are also popular sports in the country. Based on Olympic Games, World Championships, and other major competitions in respective sports, the United States is the most successful sports nation in the world.
Sports in Pittsburgh have been played dating back to the American Civil War. Baseball, hockey, and the first professional American football game had been played in the city by 1892. Pittsburgh was first known as the "City of Champions" when the Pittsburgh Pirates, Pittsburgh Panthers, and Pittsburgh Steelers won multiple championships in the 1970s. Today, the city has three major professional sports franchises, the Pirates, Steelers, and Penguins; while the University of Pittsburgh Panthers compete in a Division I Power Five conference, the highest level of collegiate athletics in the United States, in both football and basketball. Local universities Duquesne and Robert Morris also field Division I teams in men's and women's basketball and Division I FCS teams in football. Robert Morris also fields Division I men's and women's ice hockey teams.
Sports in Chicago include many professional sports teams. Chicago is one of ten U.S. cities to have teams from the five major American professional team sports. Chicago has been named as the Best Sports City by Sporting News three times in 1993, 2006 and 2010.
Sports in Minnesota include professional teams in all major sports, Olympic Games contenders and medalists, especially in the Winter Olympics, collegiate teams in major and small-school conferences and associations and active amateur teams and individual sports. The State of Minnesota has a team in all five major professional leagues. Along with professional sports, there are numerous collegiate teams including the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers in the NCAA Division I, Minnesota State Mavericks in NCAA Division I and NCAA Division II and many others across the Minnesota public and private colleges and universities.
The Minnesota Golden Gophers men's ice hockey team is the college ice hockey team at the Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota. They are members of the Big Ten Conference and compete in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I ice hockey. The Golden Gophers have won five NCAA national championships, in 1974, 1976, 1979, 2002 and 2003. The team also shared the 1929 National Intercollegiate Athletic Association championship with Yale. and captured the national Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) championship for amateur hockey in 1940. The Gophers are currently coached by Bob Motzko. Under Don Lucia the Gophers earned a spot in the NCAA tournament in eight seasons during a nine-year time span, including five number 1 seeds and three appearances in the Frozen Four. The team's main rivalries are with the University of Wisconsin and the University of North Dakota, although several other schools claim Minnesota as their archrival.
College ice hockey is played principally in the United States and Canada, though leagues exist outside North America.
Pond hockey is a form of ice hockey similar in its object and appearance to traditional ice hockey, but simplified and designed to be played on part of a natural frozen body of water. The rink is 50 to 80 percent the size of a standard NHL-specification rink, and has no boards or glass surrounding it; usually only a barrier of snow keeps the puck in play. In addition, because there are no protective barriers behind the goal to contain high errant shots, the top of the goal is lower, in fact only slightly taller than the width of a puck, and the game does not have a formal goalie. Because of these differences, pond hockey places more emphasis on skating and puckhandling ability and less on shooting and checking. Non-competitive pond hockey is played with improvised goals, rinks of a variety of sizes, and no boards or snow barriers. Their can only be 4 players playing per team at a time but have many subs to sub in.
The United States ice hockey structure includes elements from traditional American scholastic high school and college athletics, affiliated and independent minor leagues, the unique "major junior" leagues, as well as other various amateur junior and youth hockey leagues. The hierarchy of the ice hockey league system forms a pyramid with many regional minor and development leagues making up the base of the pyramid and a linear progression through the professional minor leagues leading to the National Hockey League at the top of the pyramid.
The Minnesota State Mavericks are the college athletic teams of Minnesota State University, Mankato. More than 600 students participate each year in athletics for the university. Most of the university's athletic teams compete at the NCAA Division II level in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC). The men's and women's ice hockey teams compete at the Division I level in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA). Minnesota State began competition in the NSIC in 2008-09, due to the dissolution of the North Central Conference.
Major women's sport leagues in North America represent the top level competitions of team sports for women athletes. Currently, top women's leagues include Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), Liga MX Femenil, National Pro Fastpitch (NPF), Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL), National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA), and the National Ringette League (NRL). In addition, there are numerous championships in American and Canadian collegiate athletics.
Megan Bozek is an American ice hockey player currently playing for the Markham Thunder. She was named to the United States women's national ice hockey team which represented the United States at the 2012 IIHF Women's World Championship. In addition, she competed for the Minnesota Golden Gophers women's ice hockey program in the NCAA. She was selected second overall by the Toronto Furies in the 2014 CWHL Draft.
The 2015 NCAA Men's Division I Ice Hockey Tournament was the national championship tournament for men's college ice hockey in the United States in 2015. The tournament involved 16 teams in single-elimination play to determine the national champion at the Division I level of the NCAA, the highest level of competition in college hockey. The tournament's Frozen Four – the semifinals and final – were hosted by Hockey East at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts.
The city and metropolitan area of Rochester, New York has several sports teams. Rochester was named the top minor league sports market in the country by Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal in July 2005, the number 10 "best golf city" in America by Golf Magazine in 2007, and the fifth-best "sports town" in the country by Scarborough Research in September 2008.
Sports in Minneapolis–Saint Paul includes a number of teams.
The 2019 NCAA Men's Division I Ice Hockey Tournament was the national championship tournament for men's college ice hockey in the United States. The tournament involved 16 teams in single-elimination play to determine the national champion at the Division I level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the highest level of competition in college hockey. The tournament's Frozen Four – the semifinals and finals – were hosted by the MAAC at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York from April 11-13, 2019. This was the second Frozen Four in the city of Buffalo, as it previously hosted in 2003.
