Good morning, New York sports fans! It's not exactly a holiday worth celebrating, but happy last day before the NFL Lockout begins.
↵The NFL and NFL Players Association are meeting today in a final round of mediated negotiations prior to the expiration of the current collective bargaining agreement at 11:59 p.m. ET. Players will likely decertify their union today, and on Friday owners will likely lock out the players.
↵That, of course, will set off court battles and all sorts of legal maneuvering that will put the 2011 season in jeopardy. All I can say about the whole mess is that I hate when greed overrules common sense. Unfortunately, it happens too often, and I believe that is what is going on here.
↵Now, let's talk about some real sports action.
↵NBA: Who needs Chauncey Billups? Well, the New York Knicks do, of course, but they survived without him quite nicely on Wednesday night, routing the New Orleans Hornets, 107-88, as backup point guard Toney Douglas scored 24 points.
↵NHL: The New Jersey Devils continued their amazing turnaround Wednesday, topping the Tampa Bay Lightning, 2-1. Dead and buried two months ago, the Devils are now just nine points out of the playoffs with 19 games to play. The New York Islanders defeated the Minnesota Wild, 4-1. The bigger story, though, was the thuggery of the Islanders Trevor Gillies. In his first game back from a nine-game suspension, Gillies got himself ejected for a brutal, unnecessary hit on Minnesota's Cal Clutterbuck.
↵NFL: The New York Jets met Wednesday with free-agent safety Bob Sanders, and the New York Giants re-signed running back D.J. Ware.
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