| Monday’s national sports time schedule
FOOTBALL
NFL
Miami at Pittsburgh, 8:30 p.m. BASKETBALL
NBA
Utah at New York, 7:30 p.m.
Minnesota at New Orleans, 8 p.m.
Washington at Dallas, 8:30 p.m.
Orlando at Portland, 10 p.m.
San Antonio at Sacramento, 10 p.m.
Phoenix at Golden State, 10:30 p.m.
Houston at L.A. Clippers, 10:30 p.m. .
NFL gives fans the boot
The Green Bay Packers against the Dallas Cowboys. It's a behemoth battle Thursday night between a pair of 10-1 teams - the first in the NFL since 1990 and just the second since 1970. A prime-time battle for NFC supremacy. The game football fans have been looking forward to for weeks. The game hardly anyone on the Grand Strand will get to see in their homes? Yes, sadly, that too. An impasse between the NFL Network and many of the nation's cable companies, including all that provide cable on the Strand, will keep the game out of most homes in America and send football fans to bars that have the network. The network is owned by the NFL and is broadcasting eight games late this year - exclusively in all but the home markets of the teams in each game - including Thursday's pivotal tilt.
Fans will lose out in NFL Network battle with cable operators
The NFL Network's business strategy is well on its way to becoming one of the biggest flops in sports television history. All the yap-flapping, spinning, and perhaps even some anger from fans who cannot watch Thursday's Packers-Cowboys tilt on NFLN won't change that fact. Neither will all the anti-cable rants coming from the mouth of Jerry Jones, whose sudden concern for the average fan is the leading candidate for Most Disingenuous Sports Moment of 2007. Nor will the well scripted, well presented words of commissioner Roger Goodell, who last week was on the stump campaigning against cable monopolists via a conference call. Surprised we have not heard from NFLN boss Steve Bornstein, marked conspicuously absent on this recent propaganda tour. It looks like Mr.
Youth movement spurs China's Olympic hopes
Spare a thought for Alex Hua Tian -- just 18 years old and the weight of a nation's expectations heaped high on his young shoulders. The Hong Kong-born event rider has yet to qualify for a place in the Equestrian competition of the XXIX Olympiad, but already he is being touted as one of China's gold medal hopefuls. .
Cruel defeat snuffs out European dream
IN THE end, the emotions were not so much mixed as scrambled to the four corners of Hampden. We had seen Italy score in 70 seconds, we had seen them dominate the early minutes with some chilling football that not only took the fire out of the home support but also shocked Alex McLeish's team to the core. But in the final stages of the game it was the world champions who had the heat coming on them, their lead wiped-out by a scrambled Barry Ferguson goal just after the hour, their assurance of before in danger of being stripped away. With ten minutes remaining, Scotland drove forward once again, the substitute Kenny Miller linking with James McFadden and sending the most delicious ball across the Italian penalty area. The Azzurri were at sixes and sevens, Fabio Cannavaro and Gianluca Zambrotta, two of the game's pre-eminent defenders from two of the world's most glamorous clubs, were over-run.
Canadian Olympic athletes to be paid for medal wins
Canadian athletes that reach the podium at any future Olympic Games will be financially compensated up to $20,000 per medal, officials said Monday. The new Athlete Excellence Fund was announced in Ottawa by the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC). Canadian athletes will receive $20,000 per gold medal won at any Olympic Games, said the COC. Silver winners will be compensated $15,000 per medal and bronze winners will earn $10,000. "We've had a program of subsidizing athletes in the past but we've never recognized the medal wins with specific dollars," COC president Michael Chambers told CTV Newsnet on Monday. He said countries like the U.S., Australia, England, France and Spain already give their athletes money if they win at the Olympics.
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