2010 January at Linesmaker

Toronto Turns Over New Leaf

The Toronto Maple Leafs Gen­eral Man­ager Brian Burke is shak­ing up his strug­gling team. Today he announced a trade with the Cal­gary Flames to get two-times All Star defense­man Dion Pha­neuff, plus a swap of goalies with Anahiem to acquire J.S.Giguere. The deal with the Flames that includes Pha­neuf is a seven-player deal. The Leafs received Keith Aulie and Fredrik Sjostrom from Cal­gary in exchange for Ian White, Matt Sta­jan, Nick Hag­man and Jamal May­ers. With Anahiem they traded goalie Vesa Toskala and Jason Blake for Giguere. Toronto has odds of 300–1 win the Stan­ley Cup... 

Super Bowl Betting Preview

With the big game just a week away, the Saints are enter­ing the Super Bowl as 5.5 point under­dogs against the favored Colts. Linesmaker, like most major sports­books, is get­ting heavy action early on the Colts. Typ­i­cally, the under­dog bet­tors will wait for the line to be dri­ven upwards and get their Super Bowl bets in later in the week.  While the Colts are look­ing to repeat his­tory, the Saints are look­ing to cre­ate their own. To do so, Drew Brees and the Saints need to come out fast and hard to shut down the Colts early. The Saints will also need big per­for­mances... 

Federer Slams Way to Record

On Fri­day Roger Fed­erer defeated Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6–2, 6–3, 6–2 at the Aus­tralian Open. He is through to his 22nd Grand Slam final, a record in pro­fes­sional ten­nis. Last year he failed to win his fourth Aus­tralian title being beaten by left-handed Spaniard, Rafal Nadal. In this year’s final he will meet Andy Mur­ray, the first British con­tender to make the Grand Slam sin­gles in 74 years. Mur­ray is now up against ‘the king’ again in his sec­ond ever final, Fed­erer beat him in his first at the US Open in 2008.  Mur­ray ousted Nadal in the quar­ter­fi­nals... 

Weekly Sports Betting Specials

Reg­u­lar sea­son foot­ball may be over, but that doesn’t mean there’s noth­ing to wager on here at Lines­Maker.  As we eagerly await Super Bowl Sun­day, get you bet in on the Pro Bowl game or try your skills on NBA or col­lege hoops? Need some puck action, check out our NHL odds. What­ever you pre­fer, we’ve got it all here! Hot Spe­cials this Weekend: Nickel Juice on all our foot­ball and hoops odds on Fri­day between 3 and 8pm. Check the mem­bers area for the lat­est Paid to Play bonus. Our annual Super Bowl Blitz con­test will be live any day now, so stay tuned. Refer... 

Danica Patrick NASCAR Schedule

Indy Car star Dan­ica Patrick will com­pete in at least 12 NASCAR races this sea­son. JR Motor­sports announced her sched­ule but she could be mak­ing her debut in the Nation­wide Series opener at Day­tona Inter­na­tional Speed­way on Feb. 13. The JR Motor­sports team deci­sion will be made after Patrick makes her stock car debut in the Feb. 6 ARCA race at Day­tona. If all goes well for her, she could race the fol­low­ing week in NASCAR’s second-tier series. It will be a tough start for Patrick as over a dozen Sprint Cup reg­u­lars, includ­ing team owner Dale Earn­hardt Jr.,... 

Will Spurs Acquire Stoudemire?

It is rumored that the San Anto­nio Spurs are court­ing Phoenix Suns all-star cen­ter Stoudemire. For the last two years they have failed to acknowl­edge their need for a cen­ter to play along­side Tim Dun­can. This com­pli­men­tary com­bi­na­tion would make a for­mi­da­ble duo for the Spurs. But could this be a panic move? A strong offen­sive acqui­si­tion such as Stoudemire is very attrac­tive to the Spurs at this time in the sea­son. The Spurs (25–18) have lost five of their last six games, and dropped into sixth place in the West­ern Con­fer­ence. Sports bet­tors... 

South Carolina Takes Down Kentucky

Home team South Car­olina showed Ken­tucky they need to fight to keep their top NCAA rank­ing. The Wild­cats saw their first loss of the sea­son on Tues­day los­ing 68 – 62 to the Game­cocks. Devan Downey, the SEC’s lead­ing scorer, hit 30 points for the fourth time in six league games for the Game­cocks (12–8, 3–3).  Ken­tucky was a 7 point favorite at Lines­Maker and bet­ting action saw over 70% of bet­tors back­ing them. South Car­olina fans were ecsta­tic as was pres­i­dent Obama who, ear­lier that day, had com­mended them for rais­ing over $1 mil­lion for the... 

Classic Super Bowl Hype

It is the time of year for Super Bowl hype and the 2010 edi­tion cer­tainly has all the mak­ings of a clas­sic. For the first time in six­teen years the top two teams in the NFL, the Indi­anapo­lis Colts and the New Orleans Saints, will face each other in Miami on Feb 7th. Both teams are not renowned for their defense but have enough for when it counts. The Saints have the most potent offense and the Colts have one of the great­est quar­ter­backs of all time in Pey­ton Man­ning. Both teams could come from behind to win in the final minutes. What­ever the out­come, the game is sure... 

Phillies and Ruiz to Sign Deal

Catcher Car­los Ruiz is all set to become more finan­cially secure this week when he signs a new con­tract with the Phillies. It has been reported that the deal is a three-year pact worth $8.85 mil­lion and includes a club option for a fourth year worth $5 mil­lion or a $500,000 buyout. The 31-year-old Pana­man­ian Ruiz hit.255 with 43 RBIs and a career-high nine runs last in 2009. His post­sea­son aver­age is .303 after start­ing every Phillies play­off game the last two years and they have reached the World Series twice, win­ning in 2008. The three-year deal will buy out each of... 

Colts Bring Down Jets

The Indi­anapo­lis Colts won the AFC Cham­pi­onship yes­ter­day defeat­ing the New York Jets 30–17. Four times MVP Pey­ton Man­ning passed for 377 yards and three touch­downs against the Jets ral­ly­ing the Colts from an 11-point deficit to victory. This will be the sec­ond time in four years and their fourth Super Bowl appear­ance in fran­chise his­tory. The Colts vs. Jets bet­ting odds at Lines­Maker had the Colts favored by 8.0 points and most book­mak­ers expected a fairly low-scoring game. It was a rough game for the Jets, who even with their 17 –13 lead after the first...