Wednesday cannon fodder: Nobel bling beard reliever

Good morning TSF! I’m super excited because I’m headed to the Washington Capitals season opener tonight. In case you weren’t aware, the Caps WON THE STANLEY CUP and will be raising a banner before the game. I’m not the only hockey fan among the staff here — what about you guys, any hockey fans out there?

The Capitals Stanley Cup rings are in
And boy are they shiny. 230 round cut diamonds. 22 princess cut. 28 taper-cut rubies. 7 specially cut star rubies. Bling bling.

Manchester United draw 0-0 with Valencia at Old Trafford
And the Jose Mourinho Doomsday Clock ticks ever-closer to midnight. You never want to see a guy lose his job (but Jose is probably doing fine either way), but I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t enjoying watching that soap opera.

Man City battle back to beat Hoffenheim 2-1
The Citizens went down 1-0, but Sergio Aguero equalized, and a late goal from David Silva stole the points. It’s a big win for City, who dropped their first group stage match to Lyon.

Ajax earn a 1-1 draw with Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena
CSKA Moscow shock Real Madrid 1-0
The two most surprising results from yesterday’s fixtures.

Donna Strickland, a Canadian physicist, becomes the third woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physics
She won it for being part of the team that discovered Chirped Pulse Amplification, which is something to do with short-pulse, high-intensity lasers. Whatever those are - way over my head. They sound really cool though.

Joe Thornton shaves his magnificent beard, is immediately placed on the World Wildlife Fund’s “Most Wanted” list for habitat destruction (probably)
Click through and just look at that thing. It was amazing. He looks like a completely different person. IMO, Thornton is one of the more underrated NHLers of the modern era.

It’s the era of the bullpen in baseball, embrace it
Relievers threw 40.1% of innings this season, a record workload. It’s in part because the statistics show that allowing a batter to face a pitcher for the third time in a game is not a good idea. It’s also (probably, my editorializing) because it’s hard to hit 100+ MPH pitches.

Streamers and esports competitors earn significant money from viewer donations
Had to give you some esports content again. There’s a good graphic in the article that gives average financial numbers - check it out. In 2016, the amount donated or “tipped” to streamers nearly doubled from the year before, to $80 million.