Chris Wenk

summer-league-magic

Summer League Magic

spurs-vs-kings-photos

Spurs vs. Kings Photos

game-one-shootaround

Game One Shootaround

Clarissa Hernandez was texting her mother when it happened: a sudden and mysterious pull in her lower abdomen followed by a discharge of blood. An ambulance arrived. Sirens wailed. Hernandez stopped breathing as paramedics rushed her to the emergency room.

“I died twice,” she says. “They had to resuscitate me twice. I have all the papers.”

During surgery, doctors found a rare tumor -- placental site trophoblastic -- in her uterus. They also found cancer that had spread all the way up to her chest.

That was two years ago. Hernandez, 35, recalls the details while lacing up a pair of ice skates at the AT&amp;T Center Tuesday night. She’s about to join approximately 100 breast cancer survivors and the Rampage hockey team on a new pink ice surface.

To honor breast cancer survivors, the Rampage invited them to skate with players on the colored surface in advance of Friday’s fourth annual Pink in the Rink Night, presented by Cancer Therapy &amp; Research.

“It means a lot to me to be around other people who have battled and survived breast cancer,” Hernandez says, her 8-year-old daughter, Miranda, standing by her side. “To go out there with the players is awesome.”

Survivors and family members will pour into the AT&amp;T Center Friday night to watch the Rampage play the Toronto Marlies in a game to fight breast cancer.

Custom pink ribbon-themed jerseys will be auctioned after the game. A portion of the proceeds and ticket sales will benefit breast cancer research and awareness. The game on Feb. 1 last year set a franchise attendance record with a sell-out crowd of 16,205. The Rampage have raised more than $116,000 through the annual Pink in the Rink.

Cindy Matteson, a breast cancer survivor for nearly a decade, has attended every Pink in the Rink. Tuesday, she skated with the team, including four players who were wearing special pink jerseys: Greg Rallo, Bobby Butler, Jed Ortmeyer and Colby Robak. “It’s a wonderful experience,” she says. “It means a lot to me.”

Eight years ago, doctors told her she had Stage 3 breast cancer two days after Christmas. She underwent a double mastectomy, reconstructive surgery and months of chemotherapy. She endured weeks of radiation. She had additional surgeries, 10 altogether. While battling the disease, she became an aggressive fundraiser and advocate for research and awareness.

“I’ve been without evidence of the disease for five years,” she says.

Matteson is a cancer-fighting veteran, a hard-driving woman grateful for the fundraising efforts of the Rampage. Hernandez is a newbie, two years into a battle that’s astounded doctors.

She thought she was pregnant. So did doctors. But what was growing inside her body was a tumor that pulled on an artery, causing her to hemorrhage. “By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost a lot of blood,” she says. “I went into emergency surgery.”

Hernandez sweeps a hand from her stomach up to her breast. “That’s when doctors found I had cancer in my uterus, my chest, everywhere.”

She receives monthly treatments at the MD Anderson Clinic in Houston. “They don’t see any new cancer cells,” Hernandez says. “I pray every single day that those cells will stay away.”

Hernandez stands to look at the rink. “I feel blessed and grateful to be here,” she says before stepping onto the pink ice, “and to see another day.”

Help us make an impact in the fight against cancer. Click here to buy tickets to the fourth annual Pink in the Rink game on Friday, January 31. Together we can find a cure.

pink-in-the-rink

Pink in the Rink

(On seeing a former player like Gary Neal struggle with a new team…) 
“You hope the best for everybody, but each situation is different, and there are things you can’t control. Players change teams, anything can happen. I don’t know what the situation is in Milwaukee for him, but we always wish people the best.”

(On what drew the Spurs’ interest in signing Marco Belinelli…)
“He’s always somebody that I’ve enjoyed watching because I think he’s fearless. He’s not the greatest athlete in the world, but he’s fearless. He’s not afraid to take big shots. He’ll make big plays. Skill-wise, he’s obviously a good shooter. I think people don’t realize how good of a passer he is. He’s a good person. He’s a heck of a teammate. When I saw the opportunity that he was available at the end of last season, that was our main goal to try and sign him.”

(On how quickly Marco Belinelli has adapted to the system…)
“He’s obviously highly intelligent, but he’s had absolutely no trouble figuring things out. In fact, he’s figured out quicker than any new guy we’ve ever brought in I think.”

(On Kawhi Leonard not getting many shot attempts versus Portland…)
“We probably could have called his number a little more, but you’ll see that often with players. For whatever reason in a quarter or half, he’ll get more shots than you might have thought or less. You can’t control it completely. He’s not going to be the guy we go to in most situations. It’s going to be Timmy (Duncan), it’s going to be Manu (Ginobili), or it’s going to be Tony (Parker). You don’t get to the fourth choice a whole lot, so he’s going to get things mostly out of how the offense flows, what happens in transition, and that kind of thing.”

(On not overlooking a struggling team like Milwaukee…)
“Every game is important because we’re trying to improve. We’ve got a long way to go to be ready for the playoffs. It doesn’t really matter who we’re playing. It’s a matter of trying to get better in a variety of areas. We expect them to play tonight as if we were playing Miami. It doesn’t matter who the opponent is.”

coach-pop-pregame-media-availability-spurs-vs-bucks-2

Coach Pop Pregame Media Availability - Spurs vs. Bucks

SAN ANTONIO - The San Antonio Spurs today announced that they have assigned guard Nando De Colo to the Austin Toros of the NBA Development League.

This will mark De Colo’s sixth assignment to the Toros this season. In five previous games in Austin, he has averaged 24.6 points, 6.2 rebounds, 6.6 assists and 3.40 steals in 37.8 minutes. He has appeared in 12 games this season for the Spurs, averaging 1.8 points, 1.3 rebounds and 1.2 assists in 7.0 minutes.

De Colo and Malcolm Thomas, who is also currently assigned to the Toros, will both be available when Austin takes on the Erie BayHawks at the 2014 NBA D-League Showcase in Reno, Nev. Tip-time is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. CT inside the Reno Events Center.

spurs-assign-de-colo-to-toros

Spurs Assign De Colo to Toros

Tom Rowe once told his wife he would never become a coach. That was 12 years, five teams and 191 victories ago.
 

When he broke into the NHL as a right wing in 1976, Rowe never imagined that he’d be a scout, broadcaster or assistant general manager, either. But he has.
 

His is a career of serendipity and firsts. How many guys score their first NHL goal in the first shift of their first game? Rowe did. How many Americans had scored 30 goals in one season before Rowe netted 31 for the Washington Capitals in 1978-79?
 

As Rowe settles into his newest role -- coach of the San Antonio Rampage -- he does so with a perspective unlike any in pro hockey. Rowe has worked every angle of the game, including one that nobody can teach.
 

On Sept. 7, 2011, a plane carrying a Russian hockey team -- Yaroslavl Lokomotiv -- crashed shortly after takeoff into a riverbank, killing all 37 players, coaches and support staff aboard. Rowe was asked to rebuild a traditional power.
 

He arrived in Yaroslavl, a city of 600,000, 160 miles northeast of Moscow, and began a task for which there is no manual to follow, no person with experience to consult. The victims included several former NHL players -- Pavol Demitra, Ruslan Salei and Karel Rachunek among them. Also among the deceased was Rowe’s friend, head coach Brad McCrimmon.
 

“I knew him really well,” Rowe says. “I played against him in the National Hockey League. And I interviewed him for a head coaching job a long, long time ago when I was running Lowell of the AHL.”
 

Rowe himself had been out of coaching for a year. He left a scouting job with Carolina in the NHL for a city riven by devastation. The crash occurred as Lokomotiv was leaving to start the 2011-12 season in the Kontinental Hockey League. Other teams offered players. Yaroslavl declined and canceled its season.
 

“The incredible part of the story is just how important that team was to the city Yaroslavl,” Rowe says. “The people live and die with the team. They follow it like I’ve never seen before. It was just an incredibly close-knit community. That was a real tragic part of it.”
 

Rowe walk into a surreal mix of heartbreak and passion. The people of Yaroslavl wanted to cheer again, wanted to pull for a team that had won three Russian Super League championships since 1997, but they first needed to find a way to grieve.
 

The franchise found ways to help. The team posted portraits of players and coaches inside its arena. Fans placed flowers beneath the photographs. A black ribbon with the date of the crash was affixed to each Yaroslavl jersey. Before each home game, a Yaroslavl bell was lowered above the ice and sounded three times to honor the victims. Tears flowed.
 

Building a new team was another challenge. Rowe cobbled together a blend of Russians, Scandinavians and locked-out NHL players. He combined the best features of the Russian and North American games with a roster that ranked among the league’s youngest. The average age of his players: 24 to 25.
 

Most on the new team knew players who had perished. When Lokomotiv left for its first away game in 2012, players looked out the plane windows. The bank of the Volga River tributary came into view. Hearts fluttered with emotion. Minds raced.
 

“We flew right over the spot where the team crashed,” Rowe says. “It made for a very somber travel day.”
 

Remarkably, Lokomotiv began piling up victories -- nine straight at one point -- and attracted international media. The Globe and Mail from Toronto visited. The New York Times dispatched a reporter to Russia. The headline: “Still Grieving, Locomotive is Winning Anew.” The Times gave much credit to Rowe.
 

“We didn’t have the most talented group,” Rowe says. “But everybody knew the importance of why we were there and that’s why we had a great regular season and went to the playoffs. I don’t think anybody expected that.”
 

Rowe asked 18- and 19-year-olds to deliver in big games. He implemented a defense-first philosophy. The team bought in. As Lokomotiv’s Niklas Hagman, a three-time Olympian from Finland, told The Times, “I don’t know if I’ve ever been a part of something like this, where we’re winning all the games like 2 to 1 and 1-nothing.”
 

Yaroslavl lost Lokomotiv to tragedy one season. The next season, the citizenry was cheering a playoff team. Lokomotiv lost in the first round. But Rowe emerged with yet another mark of distinction. He coached a miracle team.
 

Now he’s in San Antonio and embracing a new challenge. “I had a bunch of scouts call me and tell me the Rampage is one of the better teams in the league,” Rowe says. “I’m absolutely loving the guys and their personalities. They want to work and win. And I’ve told them: The expectations are to win championships. That needs to be everybody’s goal.”
 

In Yaroslavl, Rowe set out to build hope and recovery. What he never imagined was how far hope and recovery would spread. In every road venue, opposing fans chanted “Loko.” During the national anthem, they sang the name of Rowe’s team. “That was pretty amazing,” he says.
 

In 1973, Rowe played his first pro hockey game for the London Knights. Forty years later, he’s still in the game, living a story that turns like no other.