2012 February at LinesMaker

Jets Look to Rebound Against Bolts

WINNIPEG — The Win­nipeg Jets under­stand they can’t afford to under­es­ti­mate the Tampa Bay Lightning. Although the Light­ning have been one of the most active teams lead­ing up to Monday’s NHL trade dead­line, they’ve been hot of late, win­ning three con­sec­u­tive games to move within five points of the Jets with three games in hand. “They’re not just a one dimen­sional group over there, they bring a lot,” said Jets defence­man Randy Jones, who played for the Light­ning last sea­son. “They bring speed, they have a lot of skill, they can shoot the puck and they... 

Top-Ranked Azarenka Pulls Out of Dubai

By BARBARA SURK, Asso­ci­ated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emi­rates — Top-ranked Vic­to­ria Azarenka pulled out ofthe Dubai Ten­nis Cham­pi­onships on Wednes­day because of a left ankle injury. The 22-year-old Azarenka said she will rest for two or three days, hop­ingthe ankle will heal. The Belaru­sian, who has won 17 straight matches so far thissea­son, said she’ll take a break from ten­nis and go home to spend some time withher fam­ily. Belarus’ Vic­to­ria Azarenka… - Feb 19, 12:47 pm EST Belarus’ Vic­to­ria Azarenka… - Feb 19, 12:47... 

Rays’ Starting Pitching Depth Scary Good

Updated Feb 23, 2012 2:35 PM ET PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. Nor­mally, I feel sorry for the Tampa Bay Rays. Not this time. Oh, the Rays still face their usual low-revenue prob­lems while try­ing to com­pete with the big-budget New York Yan­kees and Boston Red Sox in the AL East. But as the Rays try to pick their best five start­ing pitch­ers from a tal­ented group of six, they should not expect a pity party — par­tic­u­larly when the num­ber of qual­i­fied can­di­dates is more like eight. And when the Rays’ rota­tion, no mat­ter which pitch­ers are cho­sen, will be — excuse... 

Jets Won’t Rule Out Peyton Manning, or Any Other Quarterback

Jets won’t rule out Pey­ton Man­ning, or any other quarterback Posted by Michael David Smith on Feb­ru­ary 23, 2012, 4:04 PM EST Jets coach Rex Ryan has been stead­fast in his sup­port of quar­ter­back Mark Sanchez, and he spoke in favor of Sanchez again today when he met with reporters at the Scout­ing Com­bine. But when asked to rule out the Jets going after Pey­ton Man­ning, Ryan declined. Instead, what Ryan said is that while he believes Sanchez will be a star, he also said the Jets “will look at any pos­si­bil­ity that’s out there at quarterback.” By rule Ryan can’t... 

Florida State RB Wilder Arrested

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Author­i­ties say Florida State tail­back James Wilder Jr. was arrested after a con­fronta­tion with deputies. Florida’s Leon County Sheriff’s Office reports the 19-year-old was at a Tal­la­has­see apart­ment Tues­day when deputies went to arrest a 20-year-old woman for miss­ing a court appear­ance. As a deputy escorted the woman to a patrol car, a sheriff’s report says, Wilder stepped between the deputy and the woman and pushed the deputy. Wilder was arrested and charged with obstruct­ing a law enforce­ment offi­cer with­out vio­lence and bat­tery... 

Pre-Season Testing Continues in Spain

The sec­ond test ses­sion of the year is tak­ing place this week in Barcelona, and after a few sur­prises but no real con­clu­sions at the first ses­sion in Jerez two weeks ago, it is even more dif­fi­cult to fig­ure out what teams have pro­duced the best cars. So far we have seen strange things like the Williams car fin­ish­ing very slow and then set­ting fast times at the top of the time sheets, same for the Cater­ham, and the Fer­rari bob­bing up and down like a yo yo. The only cer­tain thing that we can put a fin­ger on is whether we like the looks of the new cars, as... 

Animal Kingdom Wins First Race After Injury

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. — Ken­tucky Derby cham­pion Ani­mal King­dom won a $ 60,000 turf allowance race at Gulf­stream Park on Sat­ur­day in his first start since June. Last year’s Eclipse Award cham­pion 3-year-old moved in front dur­ing the turn into the home­stretch and com­pleted 1 1/16 miles in 1:41.72. Mon­u­ment Hill fin­ished sec­ond, two lengths ahead of Bell by the Ridge. After win­ning the Derby, Ani­mal King­dom lost to Shack­le­ford in the Preak­ness by a half-length. He fin­ished sixth in the Bel­mont Stakes, and it was then dis­cov­ered he had a frac­ture... 

Culinary Union Suggests Bill of Rights for MMA Fighters

Culi­nary Union sug­gest bill of rights for MMA fight­ers. http://t.co/iL1dbFJcOur sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated Sports news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice, For more UFC news see: Culi­nary Union sug­gests Bill of Rights for MMA fight­ers.  

NFL Coaches Association Hires Sports Lawyer Cornwell as Chief

The NFL Coaches Asso­ci­a­tion has hired sports lawyer David Corn­well — a fierce critic of NFL Play­ers Asso­ci­a­tion head DeMau­rice Smith — as its exec­u­tive director. Corn­well has rep­re­sented both the NFL and the union as well as sev­eral promi­nent NFL play­ers, includ­ing Pitts­burgh Steel­ers quar­ter­back Ben Roeth­lis­berger and Cincin­nati Ben­gals run­ning back Cedric Ben­son. He also was a can­di­date in 2009 to become exec­u­tive direc­tor of the NFLPA, a job that went to Smith. Corn­well slammed Smith on Tues­day night on Sir­ius XM NFL... 

ACC Files Complaint With SEC Over Vandy

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Van­der­bilt offi­cials say the Atlantic Coast Con­fer­ence has filed a for­mal com­plaint for one of its mem­bers with the South­east­ern Con­fer­ence involv­ing the Com­modores’ foot­ball team. Vice chan­cel­lor David Williams said in a state­ment Wednes­day that the SEC informed Van­der­bilt of the complaint. “We are com­ply­ing with SEC and Van­der­bilt pro­ce­dures and are con­duct­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion on the mat­ter,” Williams said. The SEC declined com­ment, and the ACC did not respond to a request for a response. Mary­land...