There is a special place in professional hockey, perhaps more than any other sport for the villain — players that fans love to hate and that players hate to play against.

Villains aren’t goons, they’re almost always talented players with a penchant for getting under an opponent’s skin. They’ll take penalties, but draw them, as well, while toeing a line between being smart and being reckless.

And all the best villains help their teams win, which is why they’re villains in opposing rinks.

Minnesota Frost forward Britta Curl-Salemme (77) scores on Ottawa Charge goalie Gwyneth Philips (33) during the third period of a PWHL hockey final game, Thursday, May 22, 2025, in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)

With the puck set to drop Saturday in Game 3 of the PWHL finals at Xcel Energy Center, one can’t help but wonder if Minnesota’s Britta Curl-Salemme has become the nascent league’s first official villain. During the first two games in Ottawa, the forward was booed by the sellout crowd at TD Place nearly every time she touched the puck.

She was suspended a game for a high elbow on Toronto’s Renata Fast in the Frost’s 4-1, first-round series victory. On Thursday, she scored the tying and winning goals in Minnesota’s 2-1 overtime victory to send the series to St. Paul tied 1-1.

That’s a couple of big boxes ticked.

Asked Friday if she has become the PWHL’s first villain in its second season, Curl-Saleme said, “I’m sure some people think that. I try not to get too involved with outside noise or perspectives. I just don’t think that’s helpful for me or our team or what I’m trying to do on the ice.”

On the other hand, the rookie wing who won a national title at Wisconsin said if that’s the case, so be it.

“If that’s the way it shakes out and I’m doing my job, and I’m doing what I’m proud of and the things that I’m supposed to be doing, then that may be it,” she said. “But, I’m not too worried about it.”

Even in Minnesota, Curl-Salemme can be polarizing. When the Frost used their second-round pick to draft her last June, there was some immediate criticism of her social media history, some of it since deleted but including an extant tweet that appears to endorse a group focused on keeping transgender women out of women’s sports.

Shortly after the draft, Curl-Salemme released a two-part video on her x.com account responding to the backlash, saying in part, “I specifically recognize some of my social media activity has resulted in hurt being felt across communities, including LGBTQ+ and BIPOC individuals, and I just want to apologize and take ownership of that.”

Curl-Salemme was asked Friday if she thought the animus she receives is because of the way she plays or might be in some cases left over from the social media posts.

Ottawa Charge goaltender Gwyneth Philips (33) is scored on by Minnesota Frost’s Britta Curl-Salemme, not shown, during overtime of a PWHL playoff hockey game in Ottawa, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)

“I can’t really speak to the reasons behind it or anything,” she said. “I’m sure it’s annoying as hell being an opponent, or being an opposing fan, the style that I play. I kinda try to embrace that, obviously to a certain point. I want to be a nuisance, and I want to make it hard to play against me. So, yeah, I’m sure that’s part of it. But that’s not why I do it, either.”

Curl-Salemme saved the Frost from a 2-0 series deficit Thursday when, with goaltender Maddie Rooney on the bench and a six-on-four advantage, she scored off a net-front rebound with 15 seconds remaining.

In overtime, she beat Gwyneth Phillips — the playoffs’ best goaltender so far — with less than 4 minutes left in the overtime period to send the series back to St. Paul tied 1-1.

“It’s a huge credit to her that she can focus on it; it’s not easy to play in the hostile environments we play in,” Frost coach Ken Klee said. “It’s a big credit to her that she can remain calm and still finish in that moment, because she got cross-checked, I think, about 10 times in that shift, and one time a stick got broken on her back. Yet she’s still right there and laying it on the line for her team.”

As for her style occasionally crossing the line, she said it’s been a learning experience after playing NCAA and international hockey, where checking isn’t allowed. She has been suspended for one game three times as a rookie.

In the PWHL, players are allowed to use their bodies to check, but there are myriad ways to do it wrong, as well.

Related Articles

Public enemy Curl-Salemme knots the Final for Frost

No, the Frost don’t feel great about being down 1-0 in PWHL Finals

Clark’s OT goal sinks Frost in Walter Cup Final opener

Hughes-Heise battle could determine Frost’s fate in PWHL Finals

Minnesota Frost: In a tight league, details will determine the champion

“I’ll be honest, it’s been tough at times,” Curl-Salemme said. “I think I was excited to able to just play in a league that allows more physicality because I think it suits me, but it’s also (difficult) kinda letting go while also kinda holding back a little bit. So, you’ve got to be able to find that line of how do I stay in control and do it in a way that’s not going to hurt my team or an opponent.

“Because things happen in a physical game, and I’m never going out on the ice trying to hurt somebody or do something stupid. That’s obviously never the intention, but it’s going to take a little bit of maturity in my game and just figuring out how to play that way, and I think I’m improving at it and it’s something that I’m trying to focus on, too.”

By REBECCA BOONE

Privacy and hunger relief groups and a handful of people receiving food assistance benefits are suing the federal government over the Trump administration’s attempts to collect the personal information of millions of U.S. residents who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Related Articles

Trump approves FEMA disaster relief for 8 states

Belgian princess left in doubt about her Harvard future following Trump’s foreign student ban

Trump signs executive orders to boost nuclear power, speed up approvals

What issues to watch as ‘big, beautiful bill’ moves to the Senate

Trump’s team is divided on how to tackle the president’s vow to ease sanctions on Syria

The lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., on Thursday says the U.S. Department of Agriculture violated federal privacy laws when it ordered states and vendors to turn over five years of data about food assistance program applicants and enrollees, including their names, birth dates, personal addresses and social security numbers.

The lawsuit “seeks to ensure that the government is not exploiting our most vulnerable citizens by disregarding longstanding privacy protections,” National Student Legal Defense Network attorney Daniel Zibel wrote in the complaint. The Electronic Privacy Information Center and Mazon Inc.: A Jewish Response to Hunger joined the four food assistance recipients in bringing the lawsuit.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is a social safety net that serves more than 42 million people nationwide. Under the program formerly known as food stamps, the federal government pays for 100% of the food benefits but the states help cover the administrative costs. States also are responsible for determining whether people are eligible for the benefits, and for issuing the benefits to enrollees.

As a result, states have lots of highly personal financial, medical, housing, tax and other information about SNAP applicants and their dependents, according to the lawsuit.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order March 20 directing agencies to ensure “unfettered access to comprehensive data from all state programs” as part of the administration’s effort to stop “waste, fraud and abuse by eliminating information silos.”

That order prompted Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and the USDA to ask states and electronic benefit vendors to turn over the info earlier this month. Failing to do so may “trigger noncompliance procedures,” the USDA warned in a letter to states.

Some states have already turned over the data, including Alaska, which shared the personal info of more than 70,000 residents, according to the lawsuit. Other states like Iowa plan to turn over the information, the plaintiffs say.

They want a judge to declare the data collection unlawful, to order the USDA to destroy any personal information it already has, and to bar the agency from punishing states that fail to turn over the data.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Friday permanently blocked another of President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting a major law firm, calling it unconstitutional retaliation designed to punish lawyers for their legal work that the White House does not like.

Related Articles

Trump approves FEMA disaster relief for 8 states

Belgian princess left in doubt about her Harvard future following Trump’s foreign student ban

Trump signs executive orders to boost nuclear power, speed up approvals

What issues to watch as ‘big, beautiful bill’ moves to the Senate

Trump’s team is divided on how to tackle the president’s vow to ease sanctions on Syria

The ruling from U.S. District Judge John Bates marks the second time this month that a judge has struck down a Trump executive order against a prominent firm. The decision in favor of Jenner & Block follows a similar opinion that blocked the enforcement of a decree against a different firm, Perkins Coie.

“Like the others in the series, this order — which takes aim at the global law firm Jenner & Block — makes no bones about why it chose its target: it picked Jenner because of the causes Jenner champions, the clients Jenner represents, and a lawyer Jenner once employed,” Bates wrote.

The spate of executive orders announced by Trump sought to impose the same consequences against the targeted firms, including suspending security clearances of attorneys and barring employees from federal buildings. The orders have been part of a broader effort by the president to reshape American civil society by targeting perceived adversaries in hopes of extracting concessions from them and bending them to his will.

Several of the firms singled out for sanctions have either done legal work that Trump has opposed, or currently have or previously had associations with prosecutors who at one point investigated the president.

In the case of Jenner & Block, the firm previously employed Andrew Weissmann, who served as a prosecutor on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team that investigated ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.

Bates had previously halted enforcement of multiple provisions of the executive order against Jenner & Block and appeared deeply skeptical of its legality during a hearing last month.

In his ruling Friday, he said he was troubled that the orders retaliated against the firms for the “views embodied in their legal work” and seek “to chill legal representation the administration doesn’t like, thereby insulating the Executive Branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers.”

Two other firms, WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey, have also asked judges to permanently halt orders against them.

Other major firms have sought to avert orders by preemptively reaching settlements that require them, among other things, to collectively dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars in free legal services in support of causes the Trump administration says it supports.

For two to three “solid days” after he collided with center fielder Byron Buxton in Baltimore, Carlos Correa experienced dizziness, headaches and brain fog.

“My thoughts were slow,” the shortstop said. “It was definitely very different from where I usually am.”

The two smacked into each other last Thursday trying to catch a Cedric Mullins fly ball, leaving both with concussions. On Friday, Correa returned to the Twins’ lineup, cleared to return to the field after undergoing neurological testing. Buxton still remains out, though he is ramping up baseball activities and completed ground-based running on Friday at Target Field.

The play, Correa said, was a “weird,” one, noting that after the first two innings of the game, the sun had just come out in Baltimore.

“The ball was right in the sun for me so I was like angling on the side and then when I went to make my move to get into the sun and catch it, that’s when he called me off.”

When he heard Buxton calling for the ball, he tried to get out of the way. But after the ball landed in Buxton’s glove, they both moved in the same direction. The result was the two Twins stars down on the grass, both being tended to for minutes before they were able to get up. Correa left the game immediately. Buxton stayed in for that half inning before departing.

“It’s unfortunate,” Correa said. “You don’t want it to happen but at the same time, a play like that happens very rarely where we both are going after that ball. It was just one of those where it was a perfect storm and everything lined up for us to collide.”

Correa said he physically feels like he is full-go and expressed happiness that the way the schedule worked out meant he missed five games, rather than seven.

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said they would treat him as day to day initially, letting him play and then assessing how he’s doing just to make sure everything is going smoothly. He might wind up with a day off within the next few days.

“You just never know when you’re in these types of situations, when you deal with any sort of head injury and recovery and such, you really do have to play it slow and play it day-by-day,” Baldelli said. “We got to a really good point and he feels great, so it was clear the time was now that we could activate him. Knowing that we put that past and we can focus now on just playing, that’s a good feeling.”

Wallner on rehab

Baldelli isn’t scouring the minor league box scores to check in on his players when they go on rehab assignments — “as long as they’re healthy and doing fine, that’s really the only thing I care about,” — but he was aware that right fielder Matt Wallner had hit two home runs on Thursday night in the first game of his rehab assignment.

Wallner, who has been out since mid-April with a hamstring strain, was scheduled to begin his rehab assignment on Wednesday but the Saints were rained out. He started in right field on Thursday and was the Saints’ designated hitter on Saturday.

Briefly

Zebby Matthews is scheduled to start on Saturday in the second game of the Twins’ series against the Royals. Matthews gave up four runs in three innings his last start out, his first at the major league level this season. He will be opposed by right-hander Michael Wacha. … The first 10,000 fans through the gates on Saturday will receive a Royce Lewis City Connect bobblehead. … Most Twins players were sporting Timberwolves gear pregame after receiving shirts and hoodies from their next-door neighbors.

Related Articles

Who’s on first? Three of the newest additions to the Twins’ roster

Trio of Twins position players making progress towards their return

Twins, Guardians finally play ball, splitting two games

Twins, Guardians washed out again; will attempt to play (almost) two Wednesday

Twins, Guardians game suspended; to be resumed on Tuesday, weather permitting