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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.
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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.
AP
NOME, Alaska - Three-time defending champion Lance Mackey is poised to claim his fourth consecutive win in the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race over a route beset by bitter cold.
Mackey was the first to reach the checkpoint at White Mountain, 77 miles from the finish line in Nome, arriving with 11 dogs at 8:43 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time on Monday.
His closest pursuers were Canada’s Hans Gatt, 51, who just earned his fourth win in the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race and four-time Iditarod champion Jeff King, 54, both on the trail from the Elim checkpoint Monday night.
The front-runners could begin arriving in Nome as early as Tuesday afternoon. They must still take a mandatory eight-hour rest in White Mountain.
Mackey was runner-up in the Quest this year. He has won the race four consecutive times, including twice when he also won the Iditarod several weeks later.
King has said this is his last Iditarod.
“Let’s do this,” the 39-year-old Mackey, of Fairbanks, told his team earlier in the village of Koyuk, ruffling one dog’s head before taking off — a scene captured in the race’s online video magazine, the “Iditarod Insider.”
On Monday, Anchorage rookie Emil Churchin became the 14th musher to scratch from the Iditarod.
The 57 remaining teams will continue up the Bering Sea coastline, sometimes traveling on the frozen ice in temperatures that were more than 30 degrees below zero early Monday. This stretch is notorious for fierce winds that can create whiteout conditions in ground storms.
Mackey, a throat cancer survivor, has undergone treatments that left him with circulation problems that make him prone to being cold, and he was feeling it Monday. He stopped in Koyuk to warm up.
“My poor toes and my fingers,” he said in an Iditarod Insider video.
Gatt, of the Yukon Territory’s Whitehorse, also was struggling with the cold, especially in his hands, as he pulled into Koyuk. Asked if he planned to stay a bit, he said, “Oh, yeah,” in a shaky voice.
Also running strong despite the extreme cold were Ken Anderson of Fairbanks and Hugh Neff of Tok.
Meanwhile, a 3-year-old dog in rookie Justin Savidis’ team has been found after being lost for nearly five days. The dog was reunited with Savidis late Sunday after being spotted near McGrath and lured in with a salmon carcass. The dog was lost between Nikolai and McGrath after apparently squirming free from his harness.
And though the race is nearing its conclusion for the leaders, anything can still happen.
In the 2008 race, Mackey and King were leading neck and neck for much of the route until they reached Elim. That’s where Mackey pulled off a stunt that proved to be the turning point.
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Mackey arrived at the checkpoint three minutes ahead of his rival, drank coffee and made a show of settling in for a nap. He told checkpoint volunteers to wake him in an hour and — with King snoring — sneaked out of the checkpoint 70 minutes ahead of his opponent.
This year’s race is the first in Iditarod history where mushers were being tested for drugs and alcohol. WorkSafe, an Anchorage-based drug testing company that sponsors the Iditarod, is providing the service.
Company president Matthew Fagnani said testing is random and taking place for all mushers either on the trail or in Nome. He would not elaborate, saying the information was confidential.
Any positive results will be reviewed and could lead to penalties, such as disqualification.
Mackey has been open about using medical marijuana in past Iditarods. He said he is honoring the drug rule, which has existed in some form since 1984 but was never strictly enforced. Dogs have been tested for performance enhancers since 1994.
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.
NEW YORK (AP) - As the glow fades from the Giants' Super Bowl triumph, some New York sports fans are tuning in to basketball and hockey, with the Rangers in first place and the Knicks' overnight sensation, Jeremy Lin, sparking "Lin-sanity.''
Robins: This year, six new breeds will be making their debut on the green carpet for the Westminster Dog Show, which begins Monday.
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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.
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.
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.
