Rotoworld: Oregon RB LaMichael James and Oklahoma State WR Justin Blackmon among top 10 players who are being overhyped for the 2012 draft.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
The Detroit Red Wings equaled an NHL record with their 20th straight win at home, beating the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 Sunday night on the strength of Johan Franzen's tiebreaking goal early in the third period.
PBT: Boston's Rajon Rondo continues to be named in trade talks, which is madness. The Celtics guard creates offense and makes everyone around him better, which was evident in Sunday's win over the Bulls.
Arc: Syracuse is among a solid group of No. 1 seeds in our latest tournament projections, but the middle of the pack is much more murky.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods greeted their Sunday pairing at Pebble Beach with optimism. But the day would end happily only for one.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
APUnity extremely important
There is not open discord among the Flames, but there is a minimal lack of unity and that's enough to derail Calgary. With the competitiveness of the conference it's the teams that stick together and simultaneously pull the hardest on the rope that will go the farthest. Calgary lacks a unity of effort on the ice as well as a collective confidence that would help it in playing mistake-free hockey. The Flames just don't seem to be a tightly-knit team.
Dion Phaneuf is Calgary's ice time leader and is Keenan's go-to guy. Phaneuf's numbers this season are good but some people close to the Flames would say Phaneuf would not win a popularity contest if it went to a vote by his teammates. Phaneuf sometimes overestimates his contributions to the team. When one of a team's top performers is not one of its most popular players it just doesn't lend itself to team unity.
Ultimately the task of leadership and unifying the team falls on the shoulders of Keenan. But Keenan's style throughout his coaching career has been to push players as opposed to pull them. Keenan is certainly not the nurturing type and that's one of the reasons Calgary general manager Darryl Sutter hired him because he coaches to a great degree the way Sutter coached. Keenan can crack the whip, but his biggest challenge in Calgary may be finding ways to bring about complete team unity.
Time to pick up the pace
The Flames just made the playoffs last season with 96 points, but two months into this season they are projecting to 75 points. Calgary believed it had all the pieces in place to not only make the playoffs but to also make a run at the Stanley Cup. That may have been the case on paper but on the ice it's been a different story.
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Calgary is showing no signs of reversing course. And that's only building the pressure on Keenan and his players. A sure-fire way to foster team unity and to help a team believe in itself is to put together a winning streak — something Calgary has not been able to do. The Flames closed out November not having won more than two games in a row all season. Perhaps more than anything, that tells the story of how underachieving the team has been.
The Flames don't have a problem scoring. They have enough offense to be competitive. The defense has to play better and Keenan must find a way to get everybody on the same page. But in the end, unless Kiprusoff can return to the form of his first three seasons in Calgary, it will be really tough for the Flames to make the playoffs.
The Detroit Red Wings equaled an NHL record with their 20th straight win at home, beating the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 Sunday night on the strength of Johan Franzen's tiebreaking goal early in the third period.
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Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
