FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Kyle Okposo is going out as a Stanley Cup champion.
Okposo, who played 17 seasons in the NHL and finished that run as part of the Florida team that won a title last season, announced his retirement on Thursday.
The former Buffalo Sabres captain made the announcement on social media, bringing an end to an NHL career that started when the New York Islanders drafted him with the No. 7 overall pick in 2006.
In a letter distributed by CAA, which represents Okposo, he called his 30 years playing hockey “incredible.”
“It brought me to some amazing places and provided such unique experiences,” Okposo wrote. “I believe the game is in a great place right now, but the possibilities are vast. I’m looking forward to continuing to contribute to the game as it reaches new heights.”
Okposo had 242 goals and 372 assists in 1,051 NHL regular-season games, all but six of those contests coming when he played for the Islanders or the Sabres. He went to the playoffs four times — 2013, 2015 and 2016 with the Islanders, then finished last season with the Panthers after joining them for the stretch run — and won the Cup for the first time.
It wasn’t lost on the Panthers that he had waited a long time for that title, so they didn’t make him wait much longer to get his hands on the trophy in the on-ice celebration following the Game 7 win over Edmonton. After captain Aleksander Barkov accepted the Cup from Commissioner Gary Bettman, he handed it to goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky and Bobrovsky then handed it to Okposo for his celebratory lap around the ice.
“What an experience, what a moment with these guys,” Okposo said that night. “I took a leap of faith 3 1/2 months ago and this is what it was for. I wanted a chance to win and these guys, they’re just an incredible bunch. We did everything to win. We did it the hard way.”
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FILE - Florida Panthers right wing Kyle Okposo raises the Stanley Cup trophy after defeating the Edmonton Oilers, Monday, June 24, 2024, in Sunrise, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)
The U.S. Department of Justice is considering asking a federal judge to force Google to sell parts of its business in order to eliminate its online search monopoly.
In a late court filing on Tuesday, federal prosecutors also said the judge could ask the court to open the underlying data Google uses to power its ubiquitous search engine and artificial intelligence products to competitors.
“For more than a decade, Google has controlled the most popular distribution channels, leaving rivals with little-to-no incentive to compete for users,” the antitrust enforcers wrote in the filing. “Fully remedying these harms requires not only ending Google’s control of distribution today, but also ensuring Google cannot control the distribution of tomorrow.”
To that end, the department said it is considering asking for structural changes to stop Google from leveraging products such as its Chrome browser, Android operating system, AI products or app store to benefit its search business. Prosecutors also seem to center on Google's default search agreements in the filing and said any remedy proposals would seek to limit or ban these deals.
Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, said in response to the filing that the Department of Justice was “already signaling requests that go far beyond the specific legal issues" in this case. “Government overreach in a fast-moving industry may have negative unintended consequences for American innovation and America’s consumers.”
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled in August that Google's search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation. He has outlined a timeline for a trial on the proposed remedies next spring and plans to issue a decision by August 2025.
Google has already said it plans to appeal Mehta’s ruling, but the tech giant must wait until he finalizes a remedy before doing so. The appeals process could take as long as five years, predicts George Hay, a law professor at Cornell University who was the chief economist for the Justice Department’s antitrust division for most of the 1970s.
FILE - The Google building is seen in New York, Feb. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
