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 for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
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.
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.
Eleven shots separated Phil and Tiger Sunday at Pebble Beach as Lefty secured his 40th Tour win. Jason Sobel had hole-by-hole reports.
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.
Imagine the teeth-gnashing if a labor dispute deprived Yankee Stadium of baseball for at least 17 months, or the wailing over no football at Green Bay’s history-steeped Lambeau Field.
In puckthirsty cities like Detroit, which proudly dubs itself Hockeytown, such is the level of despair among fans whose loyalty looks less like sports obsession and more like family ties.
The Red Wings are to many what Motown once was to popular music — the heart, the soul, the raison d’être. Team captain Steve Yzerman’s multistory image hovers over the city square where three Stanley Cups have been celebrated.
But Joe Louis Arena is dark now, all because of the first full-season shutdown of a major North American pro sports league. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman on Wednesday canceled what was left of a season that never started, plunging the league into an entirely new and unpredictable ice age.
“I’m ashamed by what we did,” Los Angeles Kings president Tim Leiweke said, invoking unusually blunt criticism of owners and players alike. “Smart people should have solved this by today.”
The emotional damage from the NHL’s suicide season ranges beyond the hockey faithful, and the economic destruction touches more than millionaires such as the New York Rangers’ Jaromir Jagr, the NHL’s highest-paid player last season at $11 million; and billionaires such as Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis.
Thousands of NHL club employees’ pay and work weeks were slashed when the lockout began months ago. The 500 to 1,000 seasonal workers at each arena, from popcorn poppers to Zamboni drivers, will miss up to 41 game paychecks, not counting the playoffs.
And the minimum-wage-plus-tips workers at countless hockey-dependent restaurants such as Pittsburgh’s Ruddy Duck, Boston’s Halftime Pizza — and yes, Detroit’s Hockeytown Cafe — had their very livelihoods blindsided.
“I’m sick when we go around to the restaurants,” Columbus Blue Jackets president Doug MacLean said. “Some of the managers get mad at me: When are you playing? When are you playing? I don’t blame them. It’s devastating for them.”
In St. Paul, Minn., where the city’s honeymoon with the expansion Minnesota Wild is going strong after four years, officials estimate a loss of $369,000 in sales tax income during the months the team would have been playing.
Joe Kasel, who owns the Eagle Street Grille across the street from St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center, said he has laid off 28 employees since the lockout began. “We do what we can to get through it. It’s all we can do,” Kasel said between waiting and bussing tables, serving drinks and handling checks — all part of his now 80-hour work week.
At 242, a bar down the street, no amount of effort could keep the business going. The owners have taped a note on the entrance: “242 will be closed, indefinitely, due to ’cost uncertainty’ and high player salaries.”
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Check out highlights from the Rangers 3-2 win over the Capitals.
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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.
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.
After leading by 18 points in the first half, the Los Angeles Lakers were staring at a four-point deficit with less than two minutes to play.