Michele Tafoya was a 28-year-old sports talk radio host in the heart of college basketball country Jordan Akins Jersey , embarking on a long-desired vocation in an unforgiving field when she felt her first career boost from a bold on-air prediction.

Cal will beat Duke.

That’s what Tafoya told her listeners that defining March day in 1993 on WAQS-AM in Charlotte, North Carolina, a place with an abundance of ardent NCAA Tournament followers and, naturally, self-appointed experts.

The Blue Devils were the two-time defending national champions and an established power from a haven state of hoops.

The Golden Bears, despite the presence of star point guard Jason Kidd and a no-slouch No. 6 seed in the Midwest Region, had no such pedigree. They also happened to be the team from Tafoya’s alma mater, prompting predictable howls of foolish bias.

Well, guess who won that second-round game?

Cal 82, Duke 77, was the final score. Apologies were the star of the show the following day.

”I give the fans credit. They all called in. The phones were lit for hours. Everybody was saying, `We’re sorry we doubted you. Clearly, you knew what you were talking about. You weren’t picking with your heart,”’ Tafoya said. ”My stature as a person with some knowledge shot up that day in a 24-hour period.”

Making sure she knows what she’s talking about has been the driving force behind Tafoya’s rise to sideline reporter for the NFL’s showcase Sunday night games on NBC .

She’ll work her fourth Super Bowl on Sunday in Minnesota, where this Southern California native first moved in 1994 for a job with KFAN-AM as a sports talk host and Vikings sideline reporter.

She continues to call the Twin Cities area home , with her husband Richard Dent Jersey , Mark, 12-year-old son, Tyler, and 9-year-old daughter, Olivia.

”She usually knows more than what’s going on more than we do, because she talks with so many different players through the course of the week,” NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth said.

”You can tell the respect level that the players have and the coaches have for her. It’s a difficult job.”

Asking questions of coaches and players in real time on the field amid the intense NFL atmosphere with millions of viewers critiquing word choice, speaking style and wardrobe is a daunting assignment.

As is working in the professional sports environment as a woman, a glass ceiling that Tafoya has helped smash with predecessors such as Lesley Visser and contemporaries such as Suzy Kolber.

”I don’t think I have to fight it anymore. I’ve been doing this long enough. I’m old now,” Tafoya said Wednesday at the Mall of America, the media headquarters for Super Bowl week.

”You do this long enough, and people start to trust you. It was tough for quite a while the first few years, but that’s why I always felt like I had to prepare like crazy.”

Tafoya has been doing promotional work for Secret deodorant, with a campaign spotlighting women in the football world who’ve overcome the catcalls, prejudice and machismo to stand out in the field.

”I’ve never been one of those `I am woman, hear me roar’ kind of people. I’m more about being a professional. I’m going to do my job. I’m going to do it to the best of my ability Marcus Cooper Jersey ,” she said. ”I don’t care if you’re a man or a woman.”

With NBA finals and Olympic Games also standing out on her football-centric resume, Tafoya has been nominated six times for a Sports Emmy award. Her proudest moment, she said, actually came when the sports part of her reporter responsibilities was sidelined by a health emergency when then-Houston Texans head coach Gary Kubiak suffered a mini-stroke at halftime of a game in 2013 .

Tafoya was interviewing Indianapolis Colts coach Jim Caldwell at the time, trying to ignore the shouts of her producer in her earpiece. Once finished and informed of Kubiak’s collapse, she sprinted across the field to try to see what was going on and fill in the concerned viewers.

”I was a journalist covering an emergency situation, and it was the story of the week, and we covered it really, really well,” Tafoya said, ”all of us as a team.”

The NBC crew wouldn’t have it any other way.

”I don’t think a lot of people understand and say, `What do you need sideline reporters for?”’ said play by play announcer Al Michaels.

”She can get information to us that we can’t get. She sees things. She understands the game as well as anybody, and for my money she’s as good as any reporter as there is in the country.”

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Hours before his Swedish countrymen were to play for their second straight world championship, Daniel Alfredsson reflected on how his life has changed since he has become a hockey dad. Alfredsson headlined the group of eight 2018 inductees to the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame on the final day of competition in Copenhagen.

”You’re never going to get the highs of playing in a world championship or especially the world championship final again,” he said. ”But I’m happy where I’m at.”

For the last year, Alfredsson has been away from the NHL Marshall Newhouse Jersey , but not far from the rink.

”Three of my sons play for the same organization,” he said. ”I coached two of the teams.

”I had a really enjoyable time. Learned a lot as well: where to set the bar for the kids at different ages and maturity levels. It was a great experience.”

Originally drafted in the sixth round by the Ottawa Senators in 1994, Alfredsson won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in 1995-96 and went on to become the franchise leader in goals (426) and points (1,108) in an NHL career that spanned 18 seasons, 17 of them in Ottawa. He served as captain from 1999 to 2013 and helped the Senators reach the Stanley Cup Final in 2007.

Internationally, Alfredsson won Olympic gold with Sweden in 2006 and silver in 2014, along with four world championship medals – silver in 1995 and 2004 and bronze in 1999 and 2001.

After finishing his playing career with the Detroit Red Wings, Alfredsson signed a one-day contract to officially retire as a member of the Senators in 2014 and had his jersey number retired by Ottawa in 2016. He served two seasons as a senior adviser of hockey operations with the Senators before stepping away from the team in July.

”As long as my kids are involved, I’ll be involved in youth hockey one way or another, as a coach or volunteer or anything,” he said about his plans. ”Professionally, I don’t know. I’ve taken a year off. It’s been nice, but part of me missed the competitiveness. We’ll see what happens.”

Asked if he’d heard anything about the future of his fellow Erik Karlsson, a fellow Swede and current captain of the Senators who is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent in July 2019, Alfredsson said: ”To me, he says that he wants to stay. But it’s not all in his hands.”

Canadian defenseman and current Los Angeles Kings general manager Rob Blake also was inducted into the Hall of Fame on Sunday.

One of just 28 members of the hockey’s Triple Gold Club Tavon Austin Jersey , Blake won a gold medal at the world championship in 1994, a Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in 2001 and was part of the team that snapped Canada’s 50-year Olympic gold drought in Salt Lake City in 2002. All told, he skated for Canada in three Olympics, four world championships and at the 1996 World Cup of Hockey, as well as playing a management role in two world championships and at the 2016 World Cup.

Blake named mentors like Bob Nicholson and the late Pat Quinn as members of the Team Canada brain trust that supported him during his playing days. He supports the return of NHL players to the Olympic stage.

”Yes. To me, it was a tremendous experience to be involved in the Village, just like any other athlete,” said Blake. ”That’s probably what I still get asked most about – the Olympics.”

Six others also were inducted on Sunday, including former NHL stars Chris Chelios and Jere Lehtinen in the player category, plus longtime Canadian referee Bob Nadin and France’s second-generation hockey hero Philippe Lacarriere as builders.

Denmark’s Jesper Damgaard, who played in 17 consecutive world championships, received the Richard ”Bibi” Torriani award for his outstanding career as a player from a smaller hockey nation and Latvia’s Kirovs Lipmans was named the winner of the Paul Loicq Award for his contributions to international ice hockey.

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