New York just got two extremely pretty new residents: meet Fiona and Ginger, two new horses joining the NYC Parks mounted command in Queens. 

The dashing duo will be living at the brand-new Parks Enforcement Patrol (PEP) mounted command facility at the Sunrise Stables in Gemini Fields, Queens, the first new mounted command facility in the borough in 23 years, which will serve as training grounds for mounted PEP officers. The horses will allow for increased mounted patrol in parks in both Queens and Brooklyn, including Flushing Meadows Corona Park and Prospect Park. 

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“We’re excited to debut our new command facility at Sunrise Stables for mounted Parks Enforcement Patrol units, the first facility of its type in Queens in 23 years! Our Parks horses Fiona and Ginger will help our dedicated PEP officers patrol some of the marquee parks in Queens and Brooklyn, as well as the beaches and boardwalk in Rockaway,” said NYC Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue. “We are so thankful to the L.P. Rizzuto Foundation for this donation, which will allow us to provide a more visible presence in our parks, furthering our commitment to keep our greenspaces safe and welcoming, assist with crowd control during special events, and provide first aid when needed.”

“We are excited to expand our Parks Mounted Unit into Queens, here at Sunrise Stables, and thank Gallop NYC for welcoming us,” said NYC Parks Deputy Commissioner of Urban Park Service and Public Programs Margaret Nelson. “The generous donation from our longtime supporters at the L.P. Rizzuto Foundation enabled Parks to purchase trailers to house and care for our current horses and station staff on site, while ongoing operations will be funded by Parks. Located on the border of Brooklyn and Queens, this expansion will allow the communities of these two boroughs to interact with the Mounted Unit as they patrol to keep our parks safe and educate the public.”

That generation donation—$162,000 donation from the L.P. Rizzuto Foundation— funded a new office trailer and horse trailer have been added to the park, allowing for expanded Parks operations out of Sunrise Stables. From there, mounted PEP officers will be able to go out and patrol city parks like Forest Park, Fort Greene Park and Alley Pond Park, and even make it all the way down to the sandy stretches of Rockaway Beach. 

Check out the gorgeous girls below:

* This article was originally published here

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee State University for so long has been best known in athletics as the place where Olympic gold medalist Wilma Rudolph and the Tigerbelles made track history and produced NFL talent like Super Bowl champ Ed “Too Tall” Jones.

Now the university that’s also the alma mater of Oprah Winfrey is taking a big step as the first historically Black college and university to introduce ice hockey.

The school on Wednesday announced plans to have a men’s team playing at the club level in 2024, with a goal of fielding Division I men’s and women’s teams “in the near future.”

“It is our hope that while TSU is the first HBCU to start an ice hockey program, we certainly won’t be the last,” university president Glenda Glover said at a news conference before the NHL draft.

The Tennessee State program has been created in partnership with the National Hockey League, the National Hockey League Players’ Association and the Nashville Predators. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman sat in the front row for the news conference at Bridgestone Arena, which is 4 miles from TSU.

Athletic director Mikki Allen said the program will help diversify hockey with a partnership helping embrace inclusivity and diversity. Allen noted TSU has a full complement of other sports including a football program currently coached by former NFL star Eddie George.

Now they will use TSU’s history, Nashville and this partnership to grow hockey from the ground up, and Allen believes the Tigers will be attractive to recruits nationally. The mighty Southeastern Conference has many members who field club hockey teams.

“I want the next P.K. Subban, I want the next Ryan Reaves, the next Willie O’Ree,” Allen said.

Since 2017, the NHL and the players’ union have sponsored feasibility studies for U.S. colleges and universities interested in exploring the addition of Division I men’s and women’s programs.

Sean Henry, president of the Predators, said they were talking about helping raise $1 million in scholarship funds in a month when the subject turned to ice hockey in January 2020. He said the announcement gives him goose bumps thinking of how this could change hockey.

The next step will be the women’s team, then getting to Division I for both teams. The first team will practice at one of the rinks opened and operated by the Predators in recent years around Nashville.

“And 10, 20, 30 years from now, my kids or grandkids are going to look at this and say: ‘Wow! Look what we did right here in Nashville,” Henry said. “It’s pretty exciting.”

Tennessee State is following a trend of HBCUs adding sports outside their more traditional offerings of football, men’s and women’s basketball and men’s and women’s track and field. Earlier this year, The Associated Press contacted 46 Division I and D-II HBCUs and five conference offices about the trend. Twenty schools responded, saying they had added at least 42 NCAA championship or emerging sports since 2016, including at least 32 sports since 2020 alone.

In 2022-23, Fisk University became the first HBCU to offer women’s gymnastics. Morgan State will become the only HBCU offering Division I men’s wrestling this coming school year. Glover said this is part of TSU’s commitment to provide new opportunities to areas where students had limited or no access.

Anson Carter, the former NHL player announced Tuesday as a co-chair of the new Player Inclusion Coalition aimed at diversifying hockey, played collegiately at Michigan State. The Toronto native, who is Black, said he would’ve looked closely at the chance to play at an HBCU for the cultural opportunity.

“To have the ability to even open up the HBCU in the hockey space … it really is a game-changer for young kids playing hockey in the United States and Canada,” Carter said.

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AP Sports Writer Cliff Brunt and Associated Press freelancer Jim Diamond contributed to this report.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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* This article was originally published here