Gordon passed Busch with eight laps left Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway and stretched his lead from there, ending his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series winless streak at 66 races.
“It feels so amazing. I can’t tell you how amazing this feels,” said Gordon, a four-time series champion at NASCAR’s highest level. “It’s been a long time, I know, and I’m going to savor this one so much.”
PIR has been the place to end long winless streaks lately. Ryan Newman halted a 77-race checkerless streak at PIR in the spring and Carl Edwards stopped his run at 70 races without a victory in the fall.
Last night’s blowout loss to the Rangers was especially disconcerting considering the Capitals should have been well rested by faceoff. Players had two days off after completing their recent road trip, then practiced on Thursday, but the energy clearly was lacking for 60 minutes against New York.
Steve Eminger scored first at 5 minutes 56 seconds of the first period, and Erik Christensen followed with a goal at 14:47. By the time Christensen tallied his second goal at 4:19 in the second period on the power play, the Rangers were well on their way to a victory that moved them within four points of Washington for the No. 5 seed in the Eastern Conference.
A month before the season opener, the St. Louis Cardinals have reached a fork in a well-traveled road.Adam Wainwright will require ligament replacement surgery on his right elbow, with the procedure scheduled for Monday. Standard recovery from such surgery lasts 12 to 15 months.
“Not to be melodramatic, but you’re losing an ace,” Cardinals General Manager John Mozeliak said during a briefing at Roger Dean Stadium. “It’s not something you can just replace overnight. Some different people are going to have to step up.”
Baron’s already struggled to stay motivated and in shape with the Clippers; what happens when he’s playing for the worst team in the league, a coach (Byron Scott) that he absolutely hated in New Orleans? I’m imagining a more spiteful version of Eddy Curry. Not just gaining weight and losing interest, but doing all of it to prove a point.
Baron’s revolution in Cleveland will not be televised, but here’s to hoping it will involve hot dogs on the bench, dozens of donut boxes decorating his locker, and lots and lots of on-court yawning.
Of course, he could just skip out on Cleveland altogether.
Ric Bucher said as much on ESPN:
“the big question for me right now is, will we see Baron Davis actually in a Cavaliers’ uniform? Because that ‘knee injury’ [air quotes] that caused him to sit out last night’s game, I could see that become a real serious issue
I’d like to thank Jeremy for the contributions he made to our team during his time in New Orleans,” Saints GM Mickey Loomis said. “These decisions are never easy to make and we wish him the best in the future.” “Jeremy played an important role in helping our team bring a Super Bowl championship to New Orleans,” said Coach Sean Payton. “He contributed to the success of our offense, both as a pass-catcher and run blocker, and we’re appreciative of his efforts.
Every team needs a 1, 1A punch,” Stoudemire said. “And so with the ways that we both can score …. we’re very versatile, so it’s hard to guard us.
“Stoudemire said he had “no doubt” the All-Star forwards and longtime friends could play together, and said Anthony would handle the move to New York as well as he has.
“It’s what he wants. It’s what I wanted, to come to New York and play on the big stage,” Stoudemire said. “He has the same type of swag. This is what he wants and he can handle it. We’re going to do it together.”
The Knicks haven’t made the playoffs since 2004, but are in sixth place in their first season since acquiring Stoudemire from Phoenix last summer. He thinks the blockbuster deal could make them better equipped to face teams such as Boston or Miami, which already have multiple All-Stars, in the postseason.
And the 2011 Tim Hortons Heritage Classic left fans with memories of something much more meaningful than a regular-season NHL match.
The thermometer read -8.6 C at the opening faceoff between the Calgary Flames and Montreal Canadiens -and dropped as low as -21 C with the wind chill during the game -but the 41,022 faithful who filled the sold-out stands at McMahon Stadium didn’t seem to care.
“It was worth every penny,” enthused Kim White, bedecked in Flames yellow and red Heritage Classic clothing.
“Yesterday and today, it was fantastic, absolutely wonderful,” added her mother, Jackie White, outfitted head to toe in Habs gear. “We loved every minute of it.”
Clippers rookie power forward Blake Griffin won the Slam Dunk contest by leaping over a compact car while catching a pass from teammate Baron Davis through the sunroof and then slamming the ball through the rim with two hands Saturday night at Staples Center.
The final round by scored by fans nationwide. Griffin defeated Wizards center JaVale McGee, who did a one-handed catch and dunk in his final attempt. But Griffin’s final dunk triggered wild applause as he jumped over the car perfectly and scored his dunk in his first attempt.
The Raiders retained the services of defensive tackle Richard Seymour on Wednesday without having to use the franchise tag, agreeing to terms on a two-year contract worth as much as $30 million with a guarantee of $22.5 million.
Although Seymour was the first NFL player of note scheduled for free agency to re-sign with his team this offseason, the move was not announced by the Raiders but confirmed by a source close to Seymour.
Raiders officials couldn’t be reached for comment.
Seymour, 31, was facing a possible franchise tag for a second consecutive season that would have paid him $14.9 million for the 2011 season, a 20 percent raise from last season.
Having played on three Super Bowl championship teams in New England, Seymour was on record as wanting to stay in Oakland.
He was booked into the St. Lucie County Jail at 12:20 a.m. today and released at 7:45 a.m., after posting $1,350 bond, according to information provided by Mark Weinberg from the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office.
Detroit Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera was arrested in Florida on Wednesday night, on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and two counts of resisting an officer without violence.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Under its current deal with Fox Sports West, the Lakers were getting about $30 million a year in rights fees, people familiar with the situation said. Some industry observers pegged the 20-year pact at a value of $3 billion, a figure dismissed by Time Warner Cable.
In a statement, Fox Sports said it had made the Lakers an offer that “would have paid them one of the highest local TV rights fees in professional sports. We did not believe that going higher was in the best interest of our business or pay TV customers in Los Angeles, who will bear the cost of this deal for years to come.
And Mr. Lemieux’s remarks would be worth taking seriously, if not for the fact Mr. Lemieux employs one of the most offensive goons in the game, and has much to answer for in enabling the sort of travesty he’s now complaining of. Mr. Lemieux signs the pay cheques for Matt Cooke, a left-winger who has been suspended repeatedly by the league for dirty play. His best-known exploit to date was ruining the career of Boston Bruins’ Marc Savard, who has been unable to play at his previous high level since being concussed by Cooke last March. Last week, just days before Mr. Lemieux’s outburst, Cooke was again suspended for a vicious check from behind, in which he clearly left his feet in leaping at a player and driving his face into the glass.
The NHL suspended both Trevor Gillies and Matt Martin of the NY Islanders, as well as Eric Godard of the Pittsburgh Penguins for their roles in Friday night’s fight filled game.
Trevor Gillies of the NY Islanders, shown here stabbing Eric Godard with a shank during Friday's prison riot, was suspended 9 games by the NHL.
The NHL came down hard late Saturday night on two Islanders deemed to be instigators in Friday’s fight-filled 9-3 pummeling of the Penguins.
Trevor Gillies earned a nine-game suspension for an elbow to Eric Tangradi’s head during a third-period melee, and Matt Martin was slapped with a four-game ban for ambushing Pittsburgh’s Max Talbot from behind in the neutral zone to ignite the first scrum in the second period.
Gillies continued punching Tangradi after drilling him with his elbow, and then he appeared to taunt the Pens rookie as Tangradi, whom the Pens claim suffered a concussion, lay prone on the ice.
The Detroit Pistons plan to retire Dennis Rodman’s No. 10 during a halftime ceremony in April.
The eccentric rebounding specialist helped the Pistons win NBA titles in 1989 and 1990. He’ll be honored April 1 when the Pistons host the Chicago Bulls, a team Rodman won three championships with from 1996-98.
Detroit rookie Greg Monroe(notes) currently wears No. 10 and will be allowed to keep it.
Sloan, the NBA’s longest-tenured coach, and his longtime assistant, Phil Johnson, resigned together on Thursday. The Jazz planned a 5 p.m. ET news conference to officially make the announcement.
Sloan’s relationship with Williams had grown progressively worse over the course of the season, league sources said, and the coach had tired of dealing with the team’s best player. The frustration escalated on Wednesday night when Sloan and Williams clashed in the locker room at halftime.
“He decided right there in halftime that he was done,” a league source told Yahoo! Sports. “He felt like ownership was listening more to Williams than they were to him anymore. He was done.”
Penguins forward Matt Cooke has been suspended four games for hitting Blue Jackets defenseman Fedor Tyutin from behind last night in Pittsburgh.
Tyutin was uninjured by the hit, but he told the Columbus Dispatch it was “the worst hit I’ve ever had from behind. … I wasn’t surprised, not when you see [Cooke] in the highlights all the time for dirty hits.”
Cooke received a five-minute major penalty for charging and five minutes for his fight with Blue Jackets forward Derrick Brassard.
The incident came just two days after Cooke escaped punishment for a knee-on-knee collision with Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin. After Sunday’s game, Washington Coach Bruce Boudreau didn’t hesitate to share his opinion of Cooke.
Cooke “knows damn well what he did,” Boudreau said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s good at it and he knows how to do it. He knows how to pick this stuff. We as a league, we still buy into this [idea] that, ‘Oh it was an accidental thing.’”
But perched on the trade block in Denver, Carmelo’s transformed into a Favre-like headline machine—even when the big news is no news at all. He is the new all-consuming sports TV distraction, whose potential whereabouts are chronicled in the same breathless way Mr. Favre’s various afflictions were once updated in real-time.
Carmelo’s coming to New York. No, it’s New Jersey. Maybe Houston? Wait, New York again. New Jersey? New York. L.A.? Round and round it goes. Rinse and repeat.
The Packers dominated the early going, taking a page out of the Patriots’ playbook by spreading out the Steelers’ vaunted zone blitz and throwing quickly to neutralize the rush of linebackers James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley and safety Troy Polamalu.
Green Bay built a 21-3 lead before the injuries took hold, and needed that cushion to hold off a gritty championship-tested team stocked with 54 Super Bowl rings.
Super Bowl 2011 weather is going to cause hazardous conditions for the Super Bowl fans who are planning to watch the biggest game of the year at Cowboys stadium. This is the forecast from the National Weather Service.
Freezing fog is encompassing the area of the Super Bowl and a cold front is expected to bring in snow and rain for the remainder of the day. Both teams are use to this weather in Pittsburgh and Green Bay, but the fans were hoping for that warm southern Texas sunshine.
The team that’s been trotting out onto the floor in those wine and gold uniforms for most of this streak doesn’t much resemble an NBA team at all, let alone the one that won more regular-season games than anybody else in the past two seasons. Those guys are mostly gone, replaced for now by a patchwork group of young players that’s not only overmatched but hasn’t been able to build any type of continuity due to constant injuries, change and beatings. The physical kind, the kind that shows on the scoreboard, the kind that wears on the psyche of even the most polished player.
The last win — Dec. 18 in overtime against the New York Knicks — was a long, long time ago.
As Penguins forward Matt Cooke skated by his crease, DiPietro shoved him in the chest, knocking the noted Penguins antagonist down. A few scrums ensued and DiPietro met his netminding counterpart, Brent Johnson, at the Islanders’ blue line. Both shed their blockers and gloves.
Johnson had never fought in the N.H.L. before, but he is 6-foot-3. DiPietro, smaller by at least two inches, once got the better of former Rangers goalie prospect Al Montoya in a preseason game. Flashing a left hook that seemed to stun even his own teammates, Johnson dropped DiPietro with the one and only punch of the fight.
“Mike would be sitting there and his eyes would be rolling and his head would be bobbing,” recalled NFL Sirius Radio analyst Rich Gannon, a former NFL quarterback whom McCarthy coached in Kansas City. “He’d be just absolutely dying, working on only a few hours sleep. All of a sudden the next day, you’d think the guy had slept for days.”
McCarthy rose from an offensive assistant to quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator, working for the Chiefs, Packers, Saints and 49ers, before landing a head coaching job with the Packers in 2006. Five years later, he has led them to Super Bowl XVL, where they will play the Steelers at Cowboys Stadium on Sunday night.
Rashard Mendenhall had an incredible performance in the AFC Championship game, rushing for 121 yards and scoring a touchdown in Pittsburgh’s 24-19 victory over the Jets. At the end of the game after Ben Roethlisberger took a knee to seal the deal, the Steelers running back was overjoyed and jumped on his quarterback. Then, he proceeded to hump his teammate on live television
Places not as good as Katchop that you still might go to anyway:
