| Spoil sports
The Gulf has more petrodollars than it knows what to do with and is spoiling the world's sports stars with lavish prizes and tournaments, and even paying Africans to switch passports. In the third part of our ground-breaking globalisation series, we focus on the spend, spend, spend sheikhs Next Monday a select group of British golf journalists will be flown from London to Dubai on a private jet. They will be royally entertained before listening to the announcement of a new addition to the European Tour schedule. Not just another golf tournament, but one that Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and all the world's top players will not want to miss - the richest in the world. The prize fund is expected to be $20million and appearance money about as much again. .
Same teams, boring result
Since the NHL resumed play after becoming the first major professional sports league to cancel an entire season in 2004-05, players have been reticent to criticize their sport. After all, the more tickets the league sells now — or doesn't sell — the more it affects their take-home pay. But players can no longer stifle themselves about the league schedule, which has each team playing a divisional opponent eight times. In the Avalanche's case, it will play a Northwest Division opponent for the 10th time in the past 11 games when it hosts the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday night at the Pepsi Center. "I'm against the eight games against your own division. That's just too many times," Avs veteran Andrew Brunette said before .
Retailers gear up for big day
Black Friday - the day after Thanksgiving that traditionally gives retailers a significant sales boost - should wake up consumer's wallets with plenty of holiday shopping options this weekend.Greenwood Mall will begin its shopping blitz at 6 a.m., giving away shopping bags filled with goodies for the first 500 adult patrons who show up near the carousel entrance. Bags will be filled with retail discounts and randomly placed prizes, including a Nintendo Wii, and mall gift cards ranging from $50 to $250, according to Greenwood Mall marketing manager Shelli Rose."They typically go very fast," Rose said. "People have been known to line up as early as 4 a.m."Mall shoppers can also browse the mall's seasonal in-line stores, including Pet Dreams, which provides clothing, furniture and other trendy items for pets; Kitchen Collection, which specializes in gadgets for the kitchen; Quail Hollow Candles and Gifts, and Big Country Power Sports, Rose said.At Best Buy, product process manager Kyle Gerkins will accommodate those who flood the long lines at his store early Friday morning with port-a-potties."Last year, people started lining up on Thanksgiving morning," Gerkins said.Gerkins said the store has increased its stock to handle the crowds, especially those looking to stuff stockings with flat-panel, plasma or LCD TVs, MP3 players and video game systems.Gerkins expects the Nintendo Wii to garner considerable attention again this year, since shoppers are still hungry for the console because of supply shortcomings.Digital picture frames, which flash slideshows of snapshots loaded from a memory card, are also expected to be a huge seller.Doors will open at 5 a.m.
#13 Sun Devils Play Host to Wildcats in 81st Duel in the Desert
TEMPE, Ariz. - After suffering a 44-24 loss to USC on Thanksgiving, Arizona State hopes to bounce back against its in-state rival Arizona in the battle for the Territorial Cup. ASU enters the contest 9-2, 6-2 in Pac-10 play. Arizona is 5-6, 4-4 in conference play after a 34-24 win over Oregon on Nov. 15. ON THE AIR
The Sun Devil Sports Network will carry all 12 of ASU's football games live on its 10-station radio network, including flagship station Sports 620 KTAR AM. Tim Healey (play-by-play) and former Sun Devil quarterback Jeff Van Raaphorst (color analyst) will call the action. LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION
ESPN2 will televise the Duel in the Desert to a national audience. Mark Jones will handle play-by-play while Bob Davie will serve as color analyst. Stacey Dales will patrol the sidelines.
Coaches, players excited about Pete Hanna Center
Samford University unveiled its new $32 million Pete Hanna Center to the media on Wednesday and it was hard to tell who was happiest - the two basketball coaches who now have a state-of-the-art facility to recruit to, the athletics director who has a showcase for the program, or women's shooting guard Megan Wilderotter. "We have a bathroom in our locker room," said Wilderotter, a junior from New Orleans. "I know that sounds really weird, because most locker rooms should have bathrooms, but we didn't have one at Seibert. "The locker room is like quadrupled in size. I personally love Seibert, but now that we have this - it's great." The facility, which is scheduled to be open for its first athletics events on Monday at 5:30 for a women's and men's basketball exhibition doubleheader, features 5,000 chair-back seats on two levels.
Lamentable referee was unfair, declares McLeish
NO MATTER how long he remains in management, it is unlikely any refereeing decision will cause Alex McLeish as much anguish as the controversial award of the free-kick to Italy which led to Scotland's European Championship exit just before 7pm on Saturday. "Lamentable, just lamentable," said McLeish, shaking his head in a mixture of bewilderment and residual anger some 45 minutes later. The crushing disappointment of Christian Panucci's winning goal, headed home from Andrea Pirlo's set piece as the Group B qualifier entered stoppage time, was still etched on the face of the Scotland manager as he conducted a daily newspaper briefing inside the Hampden tunnel. .
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