2012 April at LinesMaker

Roy Speaks With Habs Brass

Spec­u­la­tion is grow­ing in Mon­treal that Patrick Roy is in line to become the Cana­di­ens coach after a report the for­mer goal­tender met with Habs adviser Serge Savard. Savard denied a radio report on CJAD that he and Roy had met at a restau­rant recently, but did con­firm he had talked with Roy on the phone to sound him out regard­ing the coach­ing vacancy. Savard said he sim­ply wanted to know Roy’s inten­tions about becom­ing an NHL coach. Savard also is seek­ing a suc­ces­sor to gen­eral man­ager Pierre Gau­thier and said a GM would be hired first. The Cana­di­ens... 

Patriots’ Wes Welker, Willie McGinest Engage in Twitter Spat

Wes Welker isn’t hes­i­tant to stand up for him­self when he believes he has been wronged. He first proved that when he announced he likely won’t attend the New Eng­land Patri­ots’ manda­tory June mini­camp if he hasn’t received the long-term deal he deserves. Now he has found another fight to pick — this time against ex-Patriots line­backer and cur­rent NFL Net­work ana­lyst Willie McGinest. McGinest said Tues­day on NFL Net­work that he didn’t “like the diva atti­tude” com­ing from Welker, adding: “Let’s keep it real. Prior to the Patri­ots, this is a guy who... 

Leafs Left Thornton With Terrible Memories

BOSTON — Like many kids who grew up in Oshawa, Ont., and fol­lowed the Maple Leafs, Shawn Thorn­ton did not see many Game 7s dur­ing his youth. When he did, well, it left a bit­ter taste in his mouth. Thorn­ton, 34, is now a vet­eran of sev­enth games, hav­ing been part of a Boston Bru­ins team that played three of them en route to win­ning the Stan­ley Cup in 2011. They were at it again Wednes­day night, too, fac­ing off against the Wash­ing­ton Cap­i­tals in a do-or-die show­down at the TD Gar­den with their first-round series tied 3–3. Asked if he had any Game 7 rec­ol­lec­tions... 

Winners Up Front in Points

(NASCAR/Newsfeed) — The 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup series sea­son is eight races old and the 2012 Sprint Cup point stand­ings are start­ing to take shape. Here are a cou­ple of ran­dom stats from the first eight races which would sug­gest that the points are start­ing to work them­selves out. Six dri­vers account for all eight race wins in 2012 (Denny Ham­lin and Tony Stew­art each have two) Five of those six dri­vers are in the top ten in points Only one dri­ver, Brad Keselowski in 15th, has a 2012 race win but still remains well out­side a Chase qual­i­fy­ing spot. One strange... 

Atlanta Falcons, Philadelphia Eagles Complete Asante Samuel Trade

The deal to send cor­ner­back Asante Samuel to the Atlanta Fal­cons from the Philadel­phia Eagles has been final­ized, a source with knowl­edge of the sit­u­a­tion told NFL Network’s Albert Breer. It’s not yet known what the Fal­cons will send the Eagles in return for the nine-year veteran. Samuel and the Fal­cons have agreed to terms on a three-year, $ 18.5 mil­lion deal. Fol­low Albert Breer on Twit­ter @AlbertBreer BetLM's 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 NFL news see: Atlanta Fal­cons, Philadel­phia... 

Commissioners Looking at Neutral-Site Playoff Semifinals

Col­lege foot­ball has report­edly taken another step toward a play­off sys­tem. And if a report from ESPN on Tues­day is to believed, the folks that run the game have demon­strated once more that, more often than not, they have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. Accord­ing to the report from col­lege foot­ball writer Mark Schlabach, the con­fer­ence com­mis­sion­ers meet­ing in Florida this week were inch­ing toward the for­mal adop­tion of a four-team play­off to deter­mine the national cham­pion. The sys­tem would likely not be put in place until 2014, accord­ing... 

Nadal Wins 8th Straight Monte Carlo Title

Updated Apr 22, 2012 3:46 PM ET MONACO If the match itself was anti­cli­mac­tic, the achieve­ment was not. By defeat­ing Novak Djokovic 6–3, 6–1, Rafael Nadal won the Rolex Monte Carlo Open for the eighth straight year while also break­ing the stran­gle­hold the Serb had enjoyed against him, win­ning the last seven finals they had played. “First of all you need luck,” Nadal said after­ward. True. You also need to be an extra­or­di­nary ath­lete and an amaz­ing com­peti­tor. This is one of the nine ATP Mas­ters Series 1000 tour­na­ments, a level just below the Grand... 

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Philip Humber Excused From White Sox for Birth of Child

CHICAGO (MLB/Silva) — Philip Hum­ber is expe­ri­enc­ing a life-changing April. On Sat­ur­day in Seat­tle he tossed the 21st per­fect game in major league his­tory, improv­ing to 1–0 with a 0.63 ERA through his first 14 1/3 innings this sea­son. And now the 29-year-old right-hander is prepar­ing to wel­come a big addi­tion to his family. Accord­ing to Mark D. Gon­za­les of the Chicago Tri­bune, Hum­ber was excused from the White Sox on Tues­day to be with his wife as she enters labor. Hum­ber is expected to return to the White Sox in time for his sched­uled Thurs­day start... 

Green Bay Packers Team Needs

GREEN BAY (NFL/Florio) — The Super Bowl champs in 2010 and the top seed in the NFC after the 2011 reg­u­lar sea­son, the Pack­ers are built to con­tend once again in 2012. Led by a G.M. who has lit­tle appetite for vet­eran free agency, it’s impor­tant that they keep mak­ing good deci­sions in the draft, in order to ensure that the team will con­tinue to con­tend on a year-in, year-out basis. Espe­cially since the Pack­ers have a few glar­ing holes that need to be filled in the short term. Defen­sive end: The Pack­ers let Cullen Jenk­ins walk away in free agency last year,...