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.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored three goals as the New York Rangers beat Philadelphia 5-2 on Saturday for their seventh straight win over the Flyers.
Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
CFT: Jordan Jefferson makes it clear he wasn't happy with LSU's game plan in the Tigers' BCS Championship Game loss to Alabama.
Move over, Hollywood and NFL types, golf's two real A-listers take center stage Sunday at Pebble Beach, both in need of a win.
The United States swept favored Switzerland out of the Davis Cup on Saturday when Mardy Fish and Mike Bryan beat Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.
Luis Suarez's refusal to shake hands with Patrice Evra overshadowed Manchester United's 2-1 win over rival Liverpool that lifted the defending champions to first place in the Premier League on Saturday.
Marlies Schild of Austria won her sixth World Cup slalom of the season Saturday after overall leader Lindsey Vonn and defending champion Maria Hoefl-Riesch crashed out in the opening run on the windy Pyrenees course.
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.
Getty Images fileThose memories weren’t his only uncomfortable reminders. In one arena, fans threw a black cat on the ice; in others, cotton balls.
“They’d yell things like, ’You should be picking cotton,”’ O’Ree said.
“I wasn’t going to yell back it was way too cold for cotton to grow where I was from. But that would have been a waste of breath.”
What O’Ree did instead was concentrate on the things he could control. He played long and well in several minor-league circuits and when the game’s expansion took him to the West Coast, he wound up settling in San Diego. Ten years ago, O’Ree came out of semiretirement to become director of youth development for NHL Diversity.
The job puts him on the road a week each month teaching kids in three dozen locales how to play. The life lessons deftly included are O’Ree’s. The program already claims one NHL graduate, goalkeeper Gerald Coleman. While there are still less than two dozen players of color, in one sense, hockey is the most diverse big-time sport; players from 20 different countries make up a third of the NHL.
That tells O’Ree the odds of making it to the big time are long enough, no matter where you come from. In some ways, that’s why his words resonate even stronger now than they did 50 years ago.
“Just think about Willie’s story,” commissioner Gary Bettman said from his office Thursday afternoon. He’d just returned from Fredericton where a rink honoring O’Ree was dedicated.
“First, he breaks a sport’s color barrier, then plays pro hockey for 21 years with one eye, then he sort of fades from people’s consciousness, then he’s rediscovered. And now, he’s using the game he’s so passionate about and all that perseverance to touch 40,000 kids.
“Now that,” the commissioner said, “is an incredible story.”
Ryan Callahan scored three goals as the New York Rangers beat Philadelphia 5-2 on Saturday for their seventh straight win over the Flyers.
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Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
Doron Lamb hit a 3-pointer with 3:18 left to put No. 1 Kentucky ahead to stay, and the Wildcats took a big step toward a Southeastern Conference regular-season title by beating Vanderbilt 69-63 Saturday night for their 17th straight win.
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.