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.
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.
Can't Phoenix Coyotes players just enjoy success? On the ice, the 'Yotes are among the season's major surprises, entering Saturday's action tied for fourth place in the Western Conference. Given their offseason turmoil, we would have expected them to be tied for four-worst.
Yet no matter how successful this team is, it can't escape the shadow of its ownership disaster.
Exhibit A: The NHL vs. Jerry Moyes and vice versa. The league filed suit first, claiming Moyes breached his contract as owner when he tried to sell the team to Jim Balsillie. Moyes, if he hasn't already, is expected to countersue.
The NHL isn't talking; neither are Coyotes brass nor speakers for the city of Glendale, Ariz., the Phoenix 'burb in which the Coyotes' Jobing.com Arena is located.
Exhibit B: Rather than accept Balsillie as an owner, Gary Bettman & Co. fought and won a battle in bankruptcy court. It took over — and still owns — the team, having chucked out $140 million to buy it out of bankruptcy.
Shortly after its bankruptcy victory, the NHL trotted out the latest of its favored potential buyers — Ice Edge Holdings, to which it would sell the team for $160 million. Remember, Balsillie was willing to pay $242 million-plus. And the NHL turned up its collective nose at Balsillie and huffed away.
However, Ice Edge hasn't closed the deal. Strange, when one considers how quickly Jeff Vinik was able to get approved as owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
What's the holdup? There are several, not including potential robbery jokes about Bettman and Balsillie.
David Shoalts of Toronto's Globe & Mail has a doozy:
"At this point, it looks as if Anthony LeBlanc, Daryl Jones and the rest of the Ice Edge group will not even get off the runway. Too many problems are coming up, almost all of them because no one in the group appears to have the substantial personal fortune needed to convince a banker or bankers to lend Ice Edge enough money to pull it off."
Reports have it that Ice Edge can't get financing, and that Vinik's $100 million purchase price of the Lightning is now a hindrance, since it causes bankers to wonder why the Coyotes should cost substantially more. Another take has it that Ice Edge doesn't want to pony up now and accept the team's crushing debt. And, Shoalts writes:
"A banker who has handled many franchise evaluations and sales says the Coyotes, in their present location, are worth $50 million."
And Balsillie was going to pay nearly five times that. Five times.
So guess what's making the rounds again? A rumor that the Coyotes will move after the season to a Canadian city.
LeBlanc has said in a release aimed at quelling fan nerves that the sale and transaction process is under way, including a lease revision that is "the key outstanding issue."
In addition to difficulty finding financing, the Ice Edge bid has been stymied by the failure to get tax-relief help from the Arizona legislature and the withdrawal of Phoenix-area backers.
Plus, the team recently announced it would lose $20 million this season. That's actually an improvement — less than the $40 million to $50 million previously estimated by attorneys and others involved in the team's Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, the Phoenix Business Journal's Mike Sunnucks reports.
Ice Edge hopes to have everything in place by June 1.
We join in the cheers for the Coyotes' on-ice success, because we want to see the players rise above the morass. Dave Tippett is the NHL coach of the year — don't bother to count the Jack Adams ballots; just hand him the hardware.
A first-round matchup with home-ice advantage could await a team nobody thought would be anywhere near the playoffs.
But then, we read stuff like this, from Pat Hickey of the Montreal Gazette:
"Despite promotions that include all-you-can-eat nights and lower-bowl tickets for as little as $25, the Coyotes are drawing an average of 11,296 fans per game. That's the lowest attendance in the league and down 24.6 percent from last year.
"When I visited Phoenix last month, most of the residents I talked to said they weren't interested in the team because they didn't think there was a future for the game in Phoenix. They could be right."
Having reported the $50 million estimate for the Coyotes' value, Shoalts has the following conclusion:
"That leaves the NHL the choice of taking a big haircut eventually or moving the team — in which case, Bettman will have the fun job explaining just what that lengthy court fight with Balsillie was all about."
As well he should.
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.
