Last Saturday, Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby was hit in the face with a teammate’s slapshot. Crosby was able to leave the ice under his own power, but sustained a broken jaw on the play and would undergo several hours of surgery to repair the damage.

We thought we’d seen the big injury of the sports weekend—until the next afternoon, when Kevin Ware’s broken leg became the big story of this year’s March Madness tournament.

The good news is that both Crosby and Ware are on the road to recovery, thanks in large part to the medical professionals who got to the athletes and provided expert care. Jim McCrossin, Sports Doc panelist and athletic trainer/strength and conditioning coach for the Flyers, shared some thoughts and recollections of dealing with serious injuries on the ice.

It doesn’t take much to get a guy’s testosterone going.

When you end your last blog post with … Time to get your game face on … and someone e-mails you back with: “I have a great idea to get ‘your game face on’” you listen because you take it as a challenge.

You’re on, I responded to Brandy Bell-Truskey, AT&T Senior Public Relations Consultant. The race was the AT&T Back on My Feet 5-Miler on Saturday morning. Great cause, serious runners.

The Bryn Mawr Running Club was formed in 1996 and is one of the oldest and largest running clubs in the Philadelphia area. The club includes runners of all abilities and fitness goals among its 400-plus members, ranging from the recreational jogger to the highly competitive road racer.

The Bryn Mawr Running Club is a social, supportive club with members of all different skill levels and goals. The club’s objectives range from reaching personal running goals, offering social running-related activities, and emphasizing the importance of running. The club hopes to use running as a means of  promoting and encouraging health and fitness for the social well being of members. In addition, the Bryn Mawr Running Club uses group runs as a positive and enjoyable way to enjoy exercise in the spirit of competition.

Groups meet on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and track workouts are on Tuesday nights. Group runs take place locally around each of the Bryn Mawr Running Company stores in Bryn Mawr, Manayunk and Media. You can also find members on the trails of Wissahickon, at Valley Green or on Kelly Drive. 

It may not necessarily feel like it, but spring is definitely upon us. With that comes warmer weather, longer days, and more opportunities to be outside. Unfortunately, advances in technology have made it far too easy and appealing for children and adolescents to remain sedentary and inactive. Recent research has shown that these technological advances have contributed significantly to childhood obesity.

One thing parents do to try to and encourage their children to be active is to enroll them in an organized sports team. Whether it be soccer, softball, or lacrosse, organized sports can be quite beneficial to a young child for many reasons: increased physical activity, social interaction, improved self-esteem and self-confidence, and promoting healthy competition.

However, often times especially at younger age levels, practices and games for these teams may only last a few hours per week. In addition, due to increased costs and necessary parental involvement, organized sports may not be a viable option for certain families.

If you saw it, chances are you’ll never forget it.

In today’s Midwest regional final, Louisville Cardinals guard Kevin Ware suffered a broken leg on a seemingly routine play in the first half against Duke. Ware attempted to challenge a jump shot and landed awkwardly in front of his team’s bench. The game was delayed for about 15 minutes as doctors tended to the fallen player.

Ware, who broke his leg in two places, was resting this morning after successful surgery, the AP reports, in which a rod was inserted into his tibia.

Weeks after the bike accident that cost her left leg, Rebecca Levenberg's aunt and uncle gave her a necklace with the famous Confucian quote: "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Yesterday, Rebecca walked her 1,000th mile—but it's far from the final step on her journey.

A group of Rebecca's friends and relatives—led by Deb Davis, PTA, on her motorcycle—arrived on bicycles in Rittenhouse Square shortly before noon Saturday. They completed a short ride from 5th and Washington—the site of Rebecca's accident—to complete her 1,000th mile since obtaining her prosthesis.

The Philly fitness scene is going transcontinental! When Paramount Pictures was gearing up for the premiere of GI Joe: Retaliation, they figured what better way to enjoy a rough and tough movie than with a rough and tough workout? So to celebrate Wednesday’s release of the film, Paramount asked Philly’s own Platoon Fitness to create a workout that embodied the “GI Joe” experience. I was lucky enough to sit down with get my butt kicked by Platoon’s Founder, Mike Smaltz, and get the scoop on how this workout was created.

So how did Platoon Fitness, out of thousands of personal training centers nationwide, get the honor? “We’ve made a name for ourselves as a real basic and primal type workout, very foundational and very functional,” explained Smaltz, a former Physical Readiness Training coordinator for the US Navy. “Plus the Platoon name itself kind of matches with the military, so I think it was an easy fit.”

In order to design a GI Joe inspired workout, Smaltz based it off of three major components: functionality, teamwork, and time restraints. “We try to gear towards what a ‘Joe’ might encounter in the field – carrying a body, moving machinery, long endurance periods of time where they’re working hard without a break.”

At approximately 10:15 p.m. tonight, the La Salle Explorers will tip off in a Sweet 16 matchup with Wichita State—a pairing that just about no one predicted one week ago when March Madness began. The winner will be just one win away from the Final Four, while the losing team’s season will end much as 52 others already have in this wacky tournament.

Dr Joel H. Fish, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Sport Psychology in Philadelphia and Sports Doc panelist, wrote earlier about the Philadelphia fan experience with March Madness. He answered a few questions about the player experience as well: 

It’s probably safe to say this is the biggest game for anyone on either team. How does that affect the players—individually and as a team—in preparation?

The phenomenon of March Madness continues to grow. For this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, more people submitted brackets than ever before. Viewership of the first weekend’s games was at an all-time high, with people utilizing television, computers, and their phones to catch glimpses of the games whenever they could. 

In Philadelphia, of course, there is extra interest in the journey of La Salle as they get ready to play Wichita State this upcoming Thursday. For a city that takes such pride in The Big 5, to have one of our own advance to the Sweet 16 feels like having one of the family continue to play. The fact that La Salle has also been an underdog throughout and has Philadelphia players on its roster increases our rooting interest in this upcoming game.

Additionally, last weekend Philadelphia played host to the greatest underdog story in years—little-known Florida Gulf Coast University. In their first-ever tourney appearance, the Eagles upended mighty Georgetown and toppled San Diego State to advance to this weekend’s regional finals in Dallas. They’ll take on their in-state rivals, the nationally-ranked Florida Gators—adding another layer of intrigue to the team who has already provided one of the best March Madness storylines in years.